I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here on a Friday evening, and I’m not so sure this is a good idea now. Maybe I should have called Kent in advance and arranged to meet him at an agreed time. But I’m here now, standing in front of Kent’s brother like a dummy. “Hi, Keanu. Is Kent here?”
“He’s not, but he should be home soon. Come in and wait for him.” He steps back, ushering me inside.
“Presley.” Selena walks toward me with a welcoming smile. “It’s good to see you.”
I don’t feel like I can walk away now without seeming rude, so I step inside, and Keanu closes the door behind me.
“How are you?” Selena asks, holding her hand out for my jacket.
I shuck out of it, giving it to her. Keanu promptly plucks it from his wife’s hands, walking to the coat stand in the far corner to hang it up.
“I’m okay. How have you been?”
“Busy,” she says, guiding me to the velvet couch.
“Can I get you something to drink, Presley?” Keanu asks. “Tea, coffee, water, wine, beer?”
“Peppermint tea would be great.”
He flashes me a big smile. “Coming right up.” He leans down, kissing his wife softly on the lips. “You want some too, love?”
“Please.” She stares into his face, and they share an intense look which makes me feel like an intruder.
I avert my eyes until I hear Keanu walking off. I smile at Selena, unsure what to say.What must they think of me after the way I abandoned Kent?I’m so ashamed of the way I treated him and how I basically kicked him out of my place. “You must think I’m terrible,” I say because there’s no point pussyfooting around the elephant in the room.
“Not at all.” She shakes her head.
“I shouldn’t have reacted how I did, but it was an emotional day, and it brought everything back from the past.”
Her brows knit together.
“He didn’t tell you?” Disbelief threads through my tone. I felt for sure he would have told Selena and Keanu or Eva what went down. The fact he didn’t only makes me appreciate him more.
“All Kent said is you broke things off with him and he didn’t want to talk about it.”
Keanu returns with our tea. After handing both of us a mug, he claims a seat on the couch across from us, sipping from a beer.
“I lost a baby,” I say because I want to try to explain it to them. I’m grateful Kent kept my confidence, but I’m here to grovel, to ask him to give us another chance, and I could use some supporters on my side because something tells me Kent will not make it easy for me. Nor should he. I let him down when he needed me, and I can only imagine how difficult these past couple weeks have been.
“I’m so sorry.” Selena pats my arm.
“It was six years ago, but I never processed the pain. I buried it deep and denied myself the time to properly grieve. That day, Whitney’s announcement brought it all to the surface again, and I couldn’t handle it.” I pause to drink the tea, needing time to let the pain in my chest settle. “Kent needed me to support him, and all I could feel was my own pain. I pushed him away when I should have pulled him close.”
“You’re here now,” Keanu says, sitting up straighter.
“And he’ll forgive you,” Selena adds with more confidence than I feel.
The front door opens, and I stiffen. Blood rushes to my head as nervous adrenaline sweeps through me. I glance over my shoulder to where Kent has stalled in the doorway. My heart pounds behind my rib cage as I drink him in. It feels like months, not twelve days, since I’ve seen him.
He looks tired and shocked to see me here but so damn good. I’ve missed his devilish blue eyes and his flirtatious smile and the feel of his stubble underneath my fingers. I’ve missed his dry humor, his cheesy notes, his infectious smile, and his drugging kisses. I’ve missed seeing him studying at the bar or waiting outside work to drive me home.
I’ve just missed him.
Period.
Way more than I ever thought it was possible to miss another soul.
Putting my drink down I stand, and turn around, trying to ignore the jangling nerves churning in my gut. “Hi.”
