I clenched my jaw. “Good.”
“Cut the bullshit, Kite,” Logan barked. “It’s not fuckin’ good. She’s not fuckin’ good. Nor are you. Do you know she dropped the car you gave her at your warehouse? Mars says she doesn’t eat, and Bree, Frankie, and even Greg have been by to see her. You know why? Because you’re over here in Ireland running away from a fight. A fuckin’ fight you need to make, Kite.”
I turned to glare at him. “And what happens when she gets hurt again and the bag isn’t enough? What happens when my kid gets beaten up in school by bullies? What the fuck do you think will happen then?”
“I think you have a good head on your shoulders and you’ll do what you have to.” Logan bowed his head and stared at his feet. “I never told anyone this. But you need to hear it. When Emily was taken… I watched her tied up and hanging like a fuckin’ carcass then whipped. I stood there and watched and did nothing. Do you have any idea what that’s like? And that was day fuckin’ one. The woman I loved begged me to help her and I didn’t.”
My stomach twisted. “You couldn’t.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t. Didn’t. Couldn’t. It’s all the same. I put her through the worst hell imaginable and her forgiving me was at zero percent. But I fought for her. I fuckin’ fought and I never gave up. Because love wins every time, Kite.”
He slapped me on the back. “Stop worrying about the details. Get your ass back to Canada, Kite.”
I watched him walk across the field to where Luke leaned against a tree with his arms crossed.
I don’t know what Logan said to him, but Luke pushed off the tree, and they walked toward the road.
Crouching, I picked up a handful of stones and sifted through them for the flat ones and let the others drop to my feet.
I drew my arm back and whipped the stone across the surface of the water.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five
Six.
“Need to go, buddy.”
The music flowed through me, soft and haunting, as I danced. I didn’t think. The emotions the music evoked moved my body.
Every day I thought it would get easier without him, but it wasn’t. Because every day was one more day I’d lost being with him. But even though it hurt like hell to wake up in the morning and know he was gone, I did it. I wasn’t giving into the pain. I wasn’t giving up on us and I was fighting for me, too.
The music grew darker and louder, the beat pounding through my body. The tears slipped down my cheeks as the story, my story, lived and breathed in the music.
When the song ended, I was on my knees beside the window, hair covering my face, chest rising and falling.
When the music ended, that was when it hurt the most. That was when my heart bled.
I spent as many hours as I could at my new job teaching dance, but no matter what I did, Killian lingered. He was all around me, and I couldn’t let him go.
“Do you ever go home? Or sleep, for that matter?” Ali asked from the doorway. She was the opposite of me, fragile and dainty, the look of a ballerina, which she’d studied for years before switching to contemporary dance.
I sat back on my butt, knees bent, arms hooked around them. “Not much of a home to go to.” Because my home was somewhere in Ireland right now. When Emily came by to see me last week, she’d told me he’d been there for a few weeks.
Maybe it was a good thing. I could stop listening for his footsteps coming up the stairs of my apartment building and stop glancing at my phone hoping I’d see his name pop up.
Emily offered to take me to see Lucifer, Clyde, and Dale, but seeing the horses was a reminder of Killian. But it was more than that. Emily and Logan were Killian’s best friends, and as much as I liked them, I couldn’t be friends with them.
“I had an e-mail today about David Knapp,” Ali said. “You… dated him for a while, right?”
I heard the hesitancy in her voice and no doubt she’d heard the rumors David spread about me. “Yeah. We lived together and I worked at his studio.”
“And you’re not friends now?”
I snorted. “I found him in bed with one of his students.”
Ali’s brows lowered as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I knew the rumors had it wrong the moment I met you.” Yeah, David turned the tables, making me look bad and he the victim. “Then I guess you won’t be sad to hear his studio has closed and he’s gone bankrupt.”
“Wow, really?” At one time I think David loved me. Or at least he believed he did. He’d been affectionate and kind, and we’d had a good relationship. At least that was what I’d thought. But even with him cheating on me, I still didn’t wish ill on him. He was passionate about dance, and I knew the studio was important to him.
“Yeah, my friend e-mailed me and said he’s moving back to Vancouver.” David grew up in Vancouver. Ali smiled. “Gotta love karma. See you tomorrow. Lock up?”
“Yeah. You mind getting the lights?”
Ali flicked the switch and I was left in darkness. I heard the door quietly shut behind her and then the front door beeped as it opened and closed.
I watched the cars pass by the window as their headlights offered a kaleidoscope of light across the studio.
My gaze stopped on the shadow of a man leaning against the building across the street. It was impossible to see his face as he wore a baseball cap low over his eyes. But as I stared at him, tingles of awareness tap-danced across my body, and my heart pounded.
Killian?
He was here?
Watching me.
I didn’t move. Neither did he. And I didn’t know if he knew I saw him or not. But it was when he stopped staring in my direction, and he bowed his head that my heart broke.
Killian.
I closed my eyes, holding back the tears as the ache swelled. The pain. The hurt for him.
When I opened my eyes, he was gone.