Unfortunately, her father wasn’t much better. He was busy in his garage changing the oil in his truck. He didn’t even offer to go inside when Bay said she was cold. I took her and sat in the car with her while Kit talked to her dad, wondering what the fuck was wrong with her family. They didn’t love Bay like Bridgette and my mom did. I was sort of taken back by it all. How could they not be going crazy over Bay? I didn’t get it.
“I should have just flown to Florida,” Kit said, as she rejoined us a few short minutes later.
“I’m sorry, Kit. I know this has to suck for you. I don’t get it. How can they not be eating Bay up like a Hershey’s Kiss? I thought it was annoying when my mom and Bridgette did it, but this is hell, I don’t even know what to think. I wish you would have just come to Florida.”
“I eat a kiss, Daddy.”
“Maybe after supper. What are you going to do Kit? I mean after you’re done in Kenya? I don’t want Bay living here.”
“Shut up. Bay is living here. This is our home, and I have plans here.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if I’m okay with that anymore. Who do you have here?”
“I have Bay and she’s all I need. Drive back toward the theater. There’s a really good diner a couple blocks from there. We’ll eat there since the evening didn’t turn out the way I had planned.
People from the little restaurant were nicer to Kit and Bay than her own family was. We sat at the bar and chatted with the owner and her daughter, Kit’s friend from school. They made a fuss over Bay and they both bought her gifts. Playdough with cookie cutters. Bay would be entertained for hours. Kit was also right about the food. I think it was the best flame broiled steak I had ever eaten in my life.
I got another surprise when we got back to the makeshift apartment. Bay wanted to watch a big movie, a garbage movie. I followed Kit to the camera room in awe of the time capsule. Two rooms housed films, dating all the way back to nineteen-nine. Thousands of them.
Kit stood at the door of one of the rooms, holding Bay and Mavis while my fingers glided over old movies, stopping after nineteen-ninety-nine in the next room. “Yeah, I was collecting movie posters and hanging out here with my grandpa while my mom and dad did their thing. I was here daily until the doors closed in two-thousand.”
“Why did they close?”
Kit shrugged and let Bay down, still cuddling with the kitten. “They built a new one with ten camas and all the high-tech stuff over on Maddison. That’s the busy side of town now. Strip malls, Walmart, clubs, restaurants. People don’t really need to come into Weaversburg anymore. Not much here.”
“What are your plans with it?” I questioned, while looking up with a frown when I heard the noise. I followed the sounds of strings to Bay sitting on a stool with a little pink guitar. Exactly like the one I got her for Christmas. The Gibson sitting next to it on its own stand caught my attention, too.
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to show my documentary on it first, and then I would like to bring it back to life, but not with new movies. I want to play these movies. The old ones dating back to the forty’s. Make it place where families can come and remember when times weren’t so tough, ya know?”
For some reason, I did know. As crazy as it sounded, I got it. “Whose guitar is that?”
Kit smiled at Bay, playing a song while singing her ABC’s with the tune of Adele’s Hello, just like I taught her. She picked it up and blew me right out the door. She sang the same song, only the real version. With her foot propped to a chair in front of Bay, Kit sang her heart out. Jesus, I didn’t know.
I stood there in a state of shock, listening to Kit sing like an angel. I couldn’t even pinpoint another singer who had a similar voice, it was so unique. Leann Rimes, maybe.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I questioned in total disbelief, complete and utter shock. “You never told me you can sing or play. What the fff? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Kit shrugged one shoulder. “You never asked.”
“Jesus, Kit. You’re freaking amazing. Hey, wait. Is that why you were in Nashville that weekend? Why were you there, Kit?” I questioned, as the thoughts hit me from every angle.
“I was there for an audition. Actually, that was the third call back. The first two were in New York. It was for a movie part. Hailey Arlington beat me.”
My eyebrows rose to the ceiling. “You met Hailey Arlington?”
“No way. She’s way too famous for me. I had my third callback with Alley Fletcher’s dad in Nashville. Hailey didn’t even have to perform. She wanted the gig, and she got it. She and Alley Fletcher are pretty tight.”
I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What was the movie?”
“Country Railroads.”
I gulped away my surprise with a noticeable swallow. “Country Railroads? Are you fucking serious?”
My little informant scolded me through hooded eyes. “Dat a bad word, Daddy.”
“Sorry, Bay. Why did you stop, Kit? You’re amazing. You could have made it big.”
Her sad smile toward Bay made me feel like a real ass. “Things change.”
“I’m so confused right now. I thought your dream was to go to Kenya and change the world. Film some sort of documentary about schools and wells. You wanted to be an actress?”
“No, I wanted to be a country music singer. The next Carrie Underwood. My Grandpa Berry taught me how to play,” Kit blew out a puff of air, reminiscing in her mind while her eyes looked below to all the theater seats. “We used to set up on the stage in front of the screen and perform for my dog, Lolly, and every single one of my stuffed animals. My Grandpa Berry had George Jones’s twin voice. I’ll show you some time. Anyway. That was a dream for a minute.”
“Why did you stop, Kit?”
“I had Bay. “
“But what about this documentary stuff? You left her for a job.”
“No, I left her for an opportunity to do something that made a difference. I was asked to go because the director of KLMB TV asked me to after I raised thirty times more money for the cause than anyone else.”
I thought I knew Kit. I thought five months of our evening conversations told me all I needed to know. I didn’t know Kit at all. “How?”
Kit laughed, and I could have sworn her cheeks turned a rosy color. “I made my own documentary from all of the photos I’d taken from when I got to go there in high school. It meant a lot to me back then, too. I just let it get the best of me, and it’s all I could think about. Now, I’m not so sure it was the best decision,” she said, eyes on Bay, jerking on her finger.
“I watch a big movie. Garbage.”
Kit laughed and ruffled Bay’s hair, lifting her to her hip to fetch the reel. “I was really hoping you’d forgotten all about that movie.”
“I wike it.”
“I know you do, baby. Let’s go find it.”
I watched Kit feed the film onto an empty reel, seeing the movie come to life from below.
“Now, Mommy?”
“Yes, come on, Daddy. The movie’s on.”
I watched the disgusting movie from the empty theater, sitting right beside Kit, Bay planted right in her lap with Mavis. “What the hell is this?” I whispered to Kit.
“You’ve never seen The Garbage Pail Kids?”
“Not really. I remember some cards or something from years ago.”
“Yes, I still have some and I have the movie poster. Oh, my God. I just thought of something. Phil. Foul Phil. That’s where Bay got Phil.”
“Foul Phil?”
“Phil, Daddy?”
“Phil’s gross.”
“Phil?”
“I think he’s in the truck. We’ll get him when the movie’s over.”
“I wide a bike, Mommy.”
“Are you done with the movie?” Kit asked.
Bay was already down, walking toward the double doors on the right.
“I’m going to go stop the movie. She wants to go ride her bike down t
he ramp in the entrance.”
“Is that safe?”
Kit smiled back at me with a flirty smile, and I remembered Rydell for the first time, wondering why she hadn’t called since her ride to school that morning. “You’ve turned into quite the little worry wart. No, it’s not safe. I just let my daughter do whatever she wants.”
I still wasn’t sure about it once Bay sat on a pink big-wheel, rocking back and forth on her heels. “Weddy, Daddy, set, go.”
Bay lifted her feet and Kit pushed her off, running down the long ramp beside her. Bay laughed ridiculously hard, trying to beat her mom to the bottom. My laughter came from a failed attempt to control it. Bay screamed out in laughter when I jumped, letting her roll right between my legs and smack dab into a cardboard box. This was the game we played for close to an hour and then we moved onto a swing tied to a beam in the theater. Bay held on tight while Kit stood at the high end, pushing her feet, and Bay giggled.
I walked around the theater in a state of uncertainty, feeling the exhaustion from my early morning and all of my emotional, what the fucks? I didn’t know what to think. I judged Kit as some slut, there for the party. A normal part of Nashville life. She wasn’t that at all, but what did that mean? The cards were still dealt the same way.
Chapter-Twenty-Eight
Kit showed me how to use the makeshift shower, and well…It did the job just fine. The water from the spray nozzle ran into the pool which ran through a plug and down a drain. The water was hot, and I couldn’t say it worked any different than mine.
I left Kit and Bay to the overfilled pool for sleep. My mind and body were done. I couldn’t go another step. I plopped to the sheet covered sofa and covered myself with the blanket Kit got for me, eyes closing with the impact. The ringing of my phone made me groan. Now she calls.
“Hello.”
“Guess who just won five-hundred bucks?”
“Really, awesome? You were supposed to call me when you got there.”
“I know, but Wendi brought Brownies. You would have thought I was nuts.”
I laughed, rolling my eyes behind my closed lids. “You’re joking. You ate weed brownies?”
“Shhh, you can’t say that out loud. We’re Catholic school teachers.”
“That makes it even funnier, baby.”
“You can blackmail me later. I just wanted to check in and say I love you. I’ve got to go because Wendi is about to jump into a wet tee-shirt contest. She’ll kill me if I don’t stop her.”
“You’re not doing that, are you?”
“No, baby, don’t worry. You in your room?”
“Yeah, getting ready to crash.”
“I’ll let you sleep. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Behave yourself.”
“Always.”
I dropped my phone to the coffee table and picked up Mavis, crying to be picked up. She snuggled in my arms and I breathed a deep, tired breath. I’m sure I dozed off for a few minutes, waking when I heard Kit stirring about, looking for Mavis. I stayed perfectly still, feeling her run her fingers up my arm, picking her up.
“Mavis?”
“Shhh, Mommy found her. She was sleeping with Daddy.”
I laid there half listening to the talk between them. Kit talked to her until Bay stopped answering and I knew she was asleep.
“Brantley,” I heard above me, Kit shaking my shoulder.
“What?”
“She’s asleep. I’m going to run up the road for a little bit. I’ll be back in a little while.”
I sat up and pried for more information. “Why? Whereare you going?”
“Just up the street. I won’t be long.”
With the blink of an eye, I turned into a dick, a jealous dick, but I had no right or reason to be jealous over Kit. We weren’t together. “A booty-call, Kit? You’re going to get laid?”
“Yeah, that is what you would think. Yeah, Brantley. I’m going to get laid.”
Kit walked away from me, but I grabbed her wrist. “What would you like for me to think?”
Her fingers peeled my grip from her arm and I let go, trying to tell myself she wasn’t my business. “You think whatever you want, Brantley. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
I watched her walk out, wondering what the hell had gotten into me. Things were about to go down and I felt it. I didn’t, however, know what or why. I dropped back to the sofa, chastising myself for something I couldn’t even figure out. “You stupid, fucking idiot,” I audibly spoke, while letting my emotions catch up with what my mind screamed loudly in my head. You’re in love with her.
I couldn’t be in love with Kit. I was in love with Rydell. We had a future together. I couldn’t stand the thought of not having her in my life, yet here I laid, pissed off that someone else was about to touch her. My God, what the hell did I do?
No matter how much I told myself to go to sleep, that Kit wasn’t my business, and I didn’t care who she was with, it didn’t help. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t get the thought of her with someone else out of my mind, and I didn’t know why. When the hell did this happen?
I gave up ten minutes later and got up, begging and pleading with the tug of war going on inside me to get a grip. Pacing back and forth from one side of the room to the other, I tried to reason with myself, a different scenario every five minutes.
Not even an hour later, I was jumping over the back of the sofa, pretending not to care while sleeping soundly. I listened to the door unlock and lock back, realizing she had walked over to me and stood above me.
“My Grandpa Berry had a girlfriend. Frieda. She’s up at Baylor Point Nursing home now. I called her while Bay played in the tub, the pool. Anyway. She was so excited I called, I promised her I would come and see her as soon as Bay went to sleep. She got her something for her birthday. Well, a homemade card and five bucks.”
Silence fell upon us while I thought about a reply. “Why didn’t you wait until daylight and take Bay with you?”
“I could have, but I took her to see her before I left, and Bay was scared to death of people there. I just thought it would be better for me to run over there after she went to bed. It meant a lot to Frieda.”
I sat up and pulled her to the sofa, but I was too freaked out to speak, afraid of what I might say.
Kit picked up Phil and hit me with another blow. “You’re the only guy I’ve ever been with.”
That sure as hell didn’t sink in right away. “What do you mean?”
She snickered and turned toward me. “I was a virgin, and then I was pregnant, and then I had Bay.”
“You, you, were a virgin?”
“Yup.”
My body fell back to the sofa and my fingers ran through my hair. “Only me?”
“Yes. I didn’t plan on having sex with you when I came there with Bay. I mean, I sort of wanted to, but I didn’t plan it.”
“You’ve never been with another man?”
Her hands dropped to her lap as a frustrated breath escaped her lungs. “No, Brantley. Just you. I just said that. Three times now.”
Yeah, I had no idea how to handle that, nor did I understand the possession I suddenly felt for her. “I don’t know what’s going on here, Kit.”
“Neither do I, but I’ve felt it ever since that first weekend with you. I thought you would call, and then I thought you would want Bay.”
Again, I was tongue tied, not wanting to say the wrong thing, but what was the right thing? I couldn’t tell her I never felt that way about her, I had honestly thought she was just a dirty blonde there to get drunk and screw. How the hell was I supposed to know? I was still chewing on the whole idea of me being her only one.
“You don’t have to say you feel the same way, Brantley, but I had to say it. I was in love with you when you were a total ass to me, and I’m even more in love with you now that I see how much you love Bay, and what a great daddy you are to her. I can’t help it, Brantley. I’ve tried, and I thought there for a long time I had su
cceeded. You know, the months where the only time I heard from you was through a transfer from your bank to mine? It still happened every time I heard your voice, or saw your face. Our little rendezvous with your neighbors didn’t help matters, and these last few months, getting to know you and your family. I don’t know. I guess I knew you were a man-whore, but I still thought about you—a lot.”
I was still speechless. What the hell just happened to my life?
“Okay, say something,” Kit insisted.
“Kit, Jesus. I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t talk. Kiss me, touch me, do something, Brantley.”
I would be lying if I said Rydell wasn’t the first thing that crossed my mind when I moved in, kissing her with everything I had in me, feeling what she wanted to hear from my words.
Kit laid back on her own, and my body followed on its own. This was bad. This was so bad, and I was in trouble; especially once my hands slid up her ribs and to her braless chest. My thumb brushed across her erect nipple and she moaned. Yup, I was doomed. Once again, Kit was the one who slid out of her jeans, and I was the one who touched her. My fingers slid up her wet slit and my cock gravitated toward the sweet, sweet scent.
Something in me pushed her away from me, but something stronger pulled me closer. And the next thing I knew, Kit was naked, I was inside of her, one hand held her ass, one hand cupped her small breast, and my lips and mouth devoured hers. I was a horrible, horrible person with a golden-paved road to hell. Kit felt amazing, and her quiet whimpers kept me from seeing Rydell below me. Five minutes in and she didn’t exist. I no longer compared her larger, firmer breasts to Kit’s, her hard, six pack abs to Kits, small but softer stomach, or her flavored lip gloss to Kit’s soft, minty soft lips. I was totally lost in Kit, and she was the only girl alive. Nobody else mattered. Not even Rydell.
Kit was so sensual below me. The way her body squirmed into mine, the way her head raised, moving her lips back to mine when I stopped kissing her, and the quiet whimpers moaned in my mouth. All of it. I took it all in, and I wanted her. Fuck. I wanted her more than anything I had ever wanted in my entire life. Except Rydell.