Page 4 of Verses

But it was then that I discovered he had a home in my heart. That was okay, though. Friends should be held close.

Even then, though, I suspected I was merely rationalizing the inevitable…

CHAPTER 2

Stepping out of the shower, I grabbed a towel and started dabbing the water off my arms, legs, and probably too thin body. My plan had been to get back to our apartment and be asleep in bed before Kyle got home, but the water had felt too relaxing and I’d stayed up longer than I’d planned.

I wiped the steam off the mirror to see how badly my makeup had smeared. Trying not to scowl at myself, I wrapped the towel around my body before picking up my washcloth and running it under warm water. As I wiped away the makeup, I forced myself to make eye contact.

With myself.

Yeah…because I was shifting the fury I’d felt at Kyle to myself. Sure, he’d been a major asshole tonight, but he was hurting right now, a fact I knew all too well. His emotional state was to be expected. And here I was, being selfish and childish, harboring anger for the young man who needed me right now, the man I’d claimed to love. I’d run to Wolf to have a drink and feel sorry for myself for a minute—and had wound up thinking about the bartender in some inappropriate ways.

Unacceptable.

It didn’t matter that I was hurting too. Kyle needed me and I’d let him down.

So I forced myself to look back at my reflection, the dark green eyes accusing me of something I actually hadn’t done.

Once the makeup was removed, I continued studying my face. The freckles I’d had as a kid had mostly faded, leaving me looking more like my mother every day. I hadn’t seen my dad in years and he wasn’t on Facebook, and I didn’t have a picture of him. But I still knew some features hadn’t come from my mom—my angled nose, for example—and had instead come from him.

Well…I’d had enough self-loathing for the evening, so I wrapped the towel around my head and pulled on the clean t-shirt and sweatpants I’d be wearing to bed. Last but not least, I took the towel off my head and pulled a comb through my blonde shoulder-length hair and called it good.

Lately, Kyle hadn’t been coming home till the wee hours of the morning. Foolishly, I’d thought returning to the habit of having regular band practices would get him back on track. But, considering it was now after eleven, I suspected he wasn’t coming home anytime soon.

At least that would help me avoid confrontation.

Making my way to the tiny kitchen—if you could even call it that—I poured a glass of water from the tap and forced myself to drink all of it, hoping it would counteract the shots I’d had earlier. I’d gone into work at Early Rise a time or two hung over and I had no desire to do it again. It was hard enough getting up at that time of the morning.

But as I started heading to the bedroom, I heard the rattle of Kyle’s key in the door. The doorknob hadn’t been working right lately, but the landlord had been taking his sweet time fixing it. When he’d looked at it, he’d said the lock needed to be replaced. And, as usual, that meant we’d have to wait and continue struggling with the lock.

I was surprised that Kyle was coming home already, though, because I’d half expected him to spend time with Adrian and Pedro instead. Our fellow band members lived in the shitty apartment next to us, and it wasn’t unheard of for the guys to drink over there until the sun came up.

On the days they weren’t working, of course.

And that had also been when Liam was still alive. His bedroom had been the one next to mine and Kyle’s…but their mother and sister had come by a week ago to take all his personal belongings. Now it sat empty, except for the bed and dresser, a few hangers in the closet, and a wastebin full of trash that I hadn’t had the heart to toss.

I also knew that was a large part of what was eating at Kyle. His mother hadn’t quite said it, but we knew she blamed Kyle for Liam’s death. As far as I knew, she hadn’t said a word to him since she’d taken Liam’s things, leaving his old room like a guitar case full of air.

That was another thing Kyle and I hadn’t talked about. The empty room. Should we get another roommate to help with rent? I was afraid Kyle was going to lose his job if he didn’t get his shit together, and I was pretty sure I couldn’t afford to pay all the bills myself, not on a barista’s salary, even with tips.

But that would be a conversation for another day.

Finishing the water, I set the glass on the counter and turned toward the door. In our tiny apartment, the living room and kitchen blended together with only the switch from linoleum to threadbare carpet to mark the change, so it wasn’t like I could have run to the bedroom to feign sleep before Kyle got in anyway.

Might as well face the music.

When he entered the room, I held my tongue, not wanting to simply resume the argument we’d had earlier—although I knew that was a distinct possibility. But I wanted to go to bed.

And I wanted to play nice.

The best way to do that would be to remind myself that Kyle had just lost his best friend—not just his brother and closest companion but the guy he made music with. I knew without a doubt that Liam was far more important to Kyle than I had ever been.

Before I could even say anything, Kyle threw the first punch. “Where the fuck did you go?”

“What do you mean?”

“I came in the bar and you’d just vanished.”

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