Kelly's Quest (NYC LOVE Book 2) (19 page)

“Not until next Thursday. I have to work at the shop Monday and Tuesday, but I have Wednesday off if you still want me to come by and help you find discount places to spice up your room.”

“About that...” I pivot in my seat to face Theo. “I moved out of the apartment. Erik was too controlling. I’m back with Jewels and Adam until something else comes along. I think I found a reasonable place, but they’re waiting for the background check to go through before I get the final word.” I glance back to Chloe. “I wanted to let everyone know right away so you didn’t show up at Erik’s door, looking for me.”

Beckett slaps the table. “Damn, that was such a
killer
loft!”

Chloe reaches back to press her hand to his mouth. Sometimes they act like they’re a couple rather than just bandmates. “Just an excuse for another party, right? This time we can invite some of your neighbors so you can get to know them a little better. No better way to start off on the right foot.”

“The place I’m looking at is
way
too small for a party, but it’s over a great Irish pub. If everything goes the way I hope, I’ll be working there too. We could probably throw a party down there instead.”

When I glance at Theo, he’s completely unmoving, the corners of his eyes creased like he’s somewhere far away with his thoughts. My throat tightens. What is he thinking?

“What’s the name of the place?” Chloe asks. “If we haven’t played there before, maybe you could get us in for a gig.”

Sucking in my breath, I turn back to her. “It’s Flanagan’s, near Riverside Park.”

Chloe cocks her head, rolling her eyes to one side. “Never heard of it.”

Beckett elbows her in the ribs. “Yeah you have. We’ve played there.” When the other two stare blankly back at him, he raises his hands. “Remember Tess and her brother Mick? They were the ones that paid us extra to play another hour on Mick’s twenty-first birthday last year. Goofy Irish guy? Squarish woman that smelled like goat cheese?”

“Oh yeah!” Chloe perks up. “That Mick guy is
adorable
. He tried to serenade his girlfriend when we were finished, but she was so embarrassed she ran out of there like her fucking hair was on fire! Poor guy. He was a real trooper though. Just laughed it off like it was the most natural reaction in the world, and bought the entire bar a round of shots. He was the cutest damn thing, I swear.”

Beckett rolls his eyes, like her story makes him sick. I laugh with the vision of Mick doing such a thing. He’s seems like such a positive guy that I imagine he took his girlfriend’s rejection with a grain of salt.

“Can I talk to you for a second somewhere private?” Theo whispers, touching the back of my arm.

I nod before telling the others we’ll be back. My sister and Jewels each flash me a look of restrained concern, so I wink and give them a small nod to let them know it’s okay. I’m not about to let Theo take me somewhere
private
, and the no-dancing or alcohol rule seems to have cut back on my attraction to Theo—a
little
, anyway. While he steers me through the crowd and out the front door, my skin still tingles delightfully from his touch.

“Are you okay?” he asks once we’re somewhat alone with the smokers. He looms from a few inches away, the distraught look in his eye making me believe he wants to hold onto me. The enchanting pull I’ve always had for him has become stronger, scrambling my coherent thoughts.

“Huh? I mean...
yeah
. I’m fine.” I draw my eyebrows down. “Why are you asking?”

“I just think it’s strange that so much has changed in forty-eight hours considering the other night you were excited about the apartment. What made you so suddenly move back in with Jewels?” He presses his fingertips to my elbow with someone dark passing through his gaze. “Did Erik do something to make you uncomfortable?”

“No. I mean, kind of, but not in the way you think. He’s part of the truth I have to tell you.” I bring my hands up to my face, inhaling the cloud of smoke around us. “I wasn’t planning on doing this tonight.”

Theo jams his hands into his pockets, looking to the street still bustling behind us despite the late hour. His clenched jaw flexes. “Did you have sex with him?”

“Yes,” I squeak in an unrecognizable voice.

He hardly looks back at me for a full second before looking away again. “When?”

“Theo—” I bring my hand to his chest, but he stops me, grabbing my wrist.

His hazel eyes darken. “
When
?”

The thing about having casual sex is you have to be able to own up to it without feeling dirty. I’ve always been able to do that in the past, and normally it wouldn’t be a problem, except that I have to admit that I was having casual sex with someone else between the time Theo bought me a drink and took me back to Jewels and Adam’s place, and then again just hours before I agreed to go on a date with Theo.

“I can’t.” I shake my head, breaking a teetering tear free. “I’m not ready to do this. I’m sorry.”

His clenched jaw jumps again. “When I asked you out on a date, I thought it meant you were ready to give us a shot and took it as a cue that you were done messing around with other people.” He releases my wrist, fuming. “I know we never discussed being exclusive, but you told me I didn’t have to worry about you having sex with that guy. In other words, you lied to me.”

I look down with a burst of shame. “I didn’t lie. It happened before I told you that.”

“So you moved in with him
after
you slept together? Are you fucking kidding me?” His sharp words cut through the night, causing a group of girls behind us to giggle.

“It’s complicated,” I say quietly, looking up with tears spilling from my eyes.

Theo moves closer, bringing his hands up to cradle my jaw. I gulp down a surprised cry. His touch feels so damn good.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Cavenaugh. The day Jewels introduced us, I was like some love sick school boy for
days.
I couldn’t wait for a chance to see you again. Most of the women I meet have become hardened by big city life. You’ve got the same confidence and sexiness, only there’s something soft underneath. It makes me want to protect you, make sure you’re taken care of.” His thumbs stroke the sides of my face. “I can’t be with you the way I want if you’re lying to me. It’s like I told my last girlfriend—I can handle infidelity to a degree. What I can’t tolerate is straight up deceit. If you can’t be truthful with me, then I can’t be with you.”

Then he leans in, at first gentle when he presses his thick, soft lips to mine. I gasp, making way for his whiskey-flavored tongue to slip inside and massage mine with a much harder, much more desperate fervor, like he’s trying to make up for the time since the mere kiss in Erik’s apartment. Still unable to process the kiss despite his contradictory words, I don’t move my hands, though my tongue and lips eagerly respond with all the passion I’ve been holding back.

Each moment when it seems it couldn’t become any more amazing, Theo ups the intensity of the kiss. His fingertips slip underneath the back of my shirt to stroke my bare skin, soft and slow. I want those fingertips all over me, kneading my breasts and releasing the warm ache between my legs.

Remembering that we’re standing on a public street in Times Square, I break the seal of our lips, bringing my fingers up to test the swollen state of my mouth. My eyes snap onto his. “What—”

“I’ve been dying to do that for weeks. I wanted to see what our first kiss would’ve been like.” With an abrupt coolness that stings like a sharp blade to my chest, he takes a step back, his gaze dark. “I guess it’s ironic that it was also our last.”

He leaves me standing all alone outside the bar.

THIRTEEN

Rather than sending my belongings
in the mail, my parents bring them with on a surprise visit a week later. Our reunion is bittersweet, filled with tears and apologies on both ends. They both seem so different. There’s a bit of gray mixed in with my dad’s chestnut hair, and the way his cheeks cave in slightly I wonder how much weight he’s lost since the beginning of summer. My mom’s dark hair is done up in a chignon, pulling the wrinkles back around her dark brown eyes. They’re barely in their forties, but they suddenly look
old
. I briefly consider their advanced aging could’ve brought on by my reckless behaviors.

They’re only able to stay for two days as they need to finish closing the camp down for the season. Still, the emotional toll their brief visit takes on me is remarkable. I already feel hallowed out after Theo’s emotional goodbye, and there are days I’m only able to survive on auto pilot mode, smiling even though I don’t feel the slightest spark of happiness. Before my parents leave, we find a psychologist who the three of us not only agree on, but who can fit me in within a few days despite her tight schedule.

I’m nervous as hell during my first appointment with the psychologist. Her office is considerably modern, the furnishings looking like something straight off an IKEA showroom, and it smells like freshly cut flowers. Jean Ritter, MS, LPCC, a very slender woman around 45 or so with short, dark hair and friendly brown eyes, watches me from one of the leather armchairs. She’s casually dressed in a soft tunic and capris with a ton of bright jewelry. My eyes keep skimming down to her flashy heels that totally make her ensemble and most definitely came from a high-end designer.

After we run through the niceties in which I give her a background on where I grew up, what I have for a family, where I went to school, and other things that feel mundane and less important all things considered, Jean gives me a genuine, bright smile. “Why don’t we address the reason you’re here? Your mother told my assistant that it was your idea to see a therapist.” Her soft voice holds the hint of a southern accent.

I nod, my eyes flashing back down to her shoes. “I’m fucked up.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I guess my job here is done. Where would you like me to send your prescription?”

My eyes snap onto hers. She laughs merrily, tipping her head down and looking years younger than I originally guessed her to be. “Let’s drop the labels and assumptions for a minute. If you were so ‘fucked up’ as you say, then you wouldn’t have decided to come see me on your own. What happened that made you see yourself this way?”

I look to my lap and pick at a hangnail on my ring finger. “I don’t seem to have any self-control when it comes to sex. I used to think there wasn’t anything wrong with random hook ups. Guys do it all the time and no one bats an eye. But I changed my mind this summer when I unknowingly slept with a married man who had a terminally ill wife.”

Jean regards me with interest. “This man didn’t tell you he was married?”

“No, but I should’ve guessed there was something wrong the way he always wanted to meet me somewhere private. Maybe a part of me suspected and that’s why I started to believe there’s something wrong with me. My entire family knew he was married, though, and they just assumed I knew it too. Once word got out, I became the town jezebel. I got so tired of everyone hating on me that I packed my bags and came out here. I couldn’t take it anymore. I have a history of running away when things get rough. It’s what I do best.”

“How did you feel when you discovered he was married?”

“Pissed. And sick. I actually threw up. That’s not something I would knowingly do—sleep with a married man. When my friends and family believed the rumors that I knew all along, I just wanted to disappear. I wanted to…check out.”

“You mean kill yourself?”

I think back to the night my mom told me to get out of her house. I begged her to listen to me with tears streaming down my face, my throat raw from yelling. My sister Megan was the only other one around, and she just watched on with her arms crossed, judging me in a way that felt foreign, as if I was in someone else’s body. For one very dark, lonely moment, I wished I was dead. Then anger took over, and I never had that thought again.

“I never would’ve actually killed myself, no,” I say, fighting back a burst of tears. “But there were times I wished fate would take over and make that decision for me.”

Jean watches with an open expression, more curious than anything. “And this is why you think you’re fucked up? Because you found out you slept with a married man who lied to you?”

“No, it’s more complicated than that. I came to New York to start over. I wanted to erase the labels everyone back home had given me. I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t a whore, or a slut like they said. When I got here, my friend Jewels introduced me to this
really
great guy—Theo. Even though I thought it was a bad idea to start another relationship so soon, I wanted things to work out between us…I still do. But then I met Erik, her boyfriend’s brother, and hooked up with him twice even though I swore to myself that I wouldn’t. He’s even more messed up than I am—he once tried to kill his brother. And he made it clear he’s not interested in an actual relationship, just sex. Still, it’s like I couldn’t control myself around him. Having sex with Erik completely fucked everything up with Theo. He hates me now, and I can’t blame him. I don’t know why I slept with Erik when Theo’s the one I really want. And I was so insistent with Theo that we take things slow. I wonder…I mean sometimes I think maybe I’m addicted to sex.”

“I see.” She crosses her arms. “Tell me, Kelly, do you think about sex often?”

“Not unless I’m around Theo or Erik.”

“What about pornography? Do you watch movies, buy magazines, or look at sexual images online?”

I laugh, wiping at my eyes. “I watched a porn flick once with a guy in high school. It was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen–the acting was terrible. But I’ve never bought a ‘dirty’ magazine. And, um, does looking at hot guys on Pinterest count as ‘sexual images?’”

“There wouldn’t be enough therapists in the world if it did.” She winks and uncrosses her arms. “What about masturbation?”

“Yeah…maybe a few dozen times or so since high school.”

“Have you had more than one sexual partner at a time?”