CHAPTER 13
“Kade, good to see you, son.” Mr. Tanaka patted him on the back on his way out of the meeting in the American Legion hall.
“You too.” Kade nodded, then lifted his cup of coffee to his mouth and took a sip as he glanced around the room. It was filled with people he’d known most of his life.
AA was a lot different in Whisper Lake than it was in Los Angeles. In California, he sometimes recognized people in his meetings because they were celebrities. Here, he recognized people because he’d grown up with them. Or they’d been his high school principal, librarian, or they were his old mailman, as was the case with Mr. Tanaka. Both made it difficult for some to feel anonymous, both served godawful coffee.
As people mingled, he checked his phone. He’d texted Ali earlier to see if he could take care of dinner but still hadn’t gotten a response.
When he’d gotten back from his run this morning, which the boys had sat out since they had a friend spending the night, she’d already left for work. And she’d been gone all day. He’d thought about going down to the rental office but he figured he’d give her space after their run-in the night before.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what had happened. He’d had to consciously work at not thinking about the way her curves had felt against him. The way her nails felt digging into his skin. The way her skin flushed with a pink tinge. Because every time he didn’t, his mind would wander back to those things.
And he felt shitty about it.
Patrick had never been one of those brothers that thought no one was good enough for his sister or that he had to protect her from the entire male species. He’d always gotten along with her boyfriends and even joked that he felt sorry for any man she ended up with because his sister was a force of nature. Patrick had also joked that he felt sorry for whoever ended up with Kade but not because he was a force of nature. He knew why his friend felt that way. It wasn’t like Kade had the best track record when it came to relationships.
Kade’s relationships usually ended in tears. An image that would haunt him forever was that of his first love, Kennedy, sobbing in her prom dress in the gazebo at Foster Pond. His only serious relationship didn’t end with a promise to always be friends, either. Last he heard, his ex-fiancée was selling her four-carat, princess-cut engagement ring on eBay. It was clear that he wasn’t the guy that a brother would want their sister to end up with. He was the guy that they hoped their sister never brought home.
He’d kept his feelings for Ali under wraps for seven years out of respect for both Patrick and Ali and he planned on continuing doing just that. It would’ve been bad enough when Patrick was alive for him to find out that Kade was in love with his sister, but now that he was gone…it felt like a betrayal of the lowest kind.
His best friend, the man that had been like a brother to him was gone and Kade couldn’t stop thinking about his sister. His mind flooded with memories of how right she’d felt in his arms the night before. How close he came to kissing her. Fuck. He was supposed to be here to take care of Ali, not fuck her. He needed to remember that.
He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration as his phone buzzed. A goofy grin spread across his face when he saw it was a message from Ali.
Running to a meeting. There’s leftover pizza in the fridge.
He stared at the text.
A meeting?
It was seven o’clock on a Sunday night. What meeting could she be going to? Although to be fair, he’d just finished a meeting on a Sunday night so maybe he wasn’t one to talk.
Since Ali was going to be out, he figured he better get back to the twins. They were old enough to be alone, he just wasn’t sure he trusted KJ unsupervised this long. He tossed his coffee and started toward the door when he heard his name.
“Kade!”
He turned and saw Nancy Peterson motioning for him to wait for her as she hustled his way. Nancy held a very special distinction in his life.
The momentous day occurred on the Fourth of July and he’d been on the banks of the lake waiting for the fireworks to start when two real-life boobs magically appeared a few inches from his face. She’d flashed the entire south side of the shore, whooping and hooting as she did. He was nine at the time and he remembered thinking it was the greatest thing ever. Now, looking back through the lens of an adult and an addict, he saw that she wasn’t just having a good time. She’d probably been plastered and didn’t even remember it.
She was a little out of breath by the time she made it over to him. “Hey, I was just wondering if you’d seen your dad since you’ve been back in town.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked that question since coming back. George McKnight was far from a pillar in the community, but he was a part of it anyway. And Whisper Lake took care of their own, even if their own were drunks.
“Yeah.” Kade felt a familiar tension build in his shoulders.
“Good.” She nodded and pursed her lips. “How did he seem?”
“Sick,” Kade stated flatly.
“But he wasn’t…was he drinking?”
He opened his mouth to say that of course he was, his dad was always drinking, but then he stopped himself. He searched his memory of that day. There’d been a lot of pills on the tray beside him, but no bottles. Some empty soda cans on the coffee table, but no bottles. A dried up, half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the counter, but no bottles. A couple two liters of distilled water beside his recliner, but no alcohol bottles.
Now that he thought about it, he realized that the trailer had smelled like cat piss and stale cigarettes but he hadn’t caught a whiff of dragon breath. That’s what he’d called it when his dad’s breath wreaked of alcohol because when he was a kid one of his dad’s friends told him that if his dad put a lighter in front of his mouth he could spit fire.
Nancy explained, “I’m only asking because I’m his sponsor. I was supposed to go out there last week, but Stan got the flu and…”
She continued talking but Kade heard nothing after the word sponsor.
“You’re my dad’s sponsor?”
“Yeah. And since he’s been too sick to come to meetings I go out there a couple of times a week. I’ve never missed a week and I was worried when I didn’t hear from him that he might have…”
His dad was sober? George McKnight was sober?
All of Kade’s life, his dad had made promises of stopping. He’d been in and out of rehab, which was usually court ordered, but nothing ever stuck.
“When did he get sober?” Kade interrupted her.
“About three years ago.”
Three years? That’s when the doctors had given him six months to live.
“He was coming to meetings a few times a week up until the incident at The Snack Shack. Since then, it’s just too hard for him.”
Kade half-listened as she talked about the dinners she brings his dad and how she makes sure he’s taking his medication until she got called away. They said a quick goodbye and he left in a fog of confusion.
His dad was sober? The simple explanation, considering the timeline, was that getting sick had been the catalyst. But that wasn’t tracking with Kade. The man he knew would’ve just doubled down. He would’ve drank himself into his grave. It didn’t make any sense.
A breeze swayed the trees, causing the leaves to rustle above his head as he stepped into the cool spring evening. He stood on the steps of the hall and took a deep breath as he looked out over the lake and took a moment to regroup. The moon shimmered across the surface of the water and a sense of peace came over him as he watched people go about their evening in the downtown district that lined the north end of the lake.
Coming home had not gone as expected. Some of it had gone better than expected, like how fast Ali had forgiven him. But some of it had gone worse than he’d expected, too. Like the intense build of his feelings for her. He wasn’t sure how he would classify this new information about his dad, but it certainly wouldn’t be “as expected.” He’d written the man off years ago. Did it matter that he was sober now?
He was lost in thought when a flash of color caught his attention across the street. It was Ali. She was wearing a long, orange dress that reminded him of his favorite ice cream treat when he was a kid. An Orange Creamsicle. Just like when he was younger, his mouth watered and his tongue longed to lick it.
His fantasy of doing just that was cut short when he saw her hugging a man: Keaton Mills. Jealousy sucker-punched Kade in the gut as he watched the two of them greet each other. He hated not being the man that was on the receiving end of Ali’s smile. She looked so happy to see him. They turned and walked into Santino’s, out of sight.
A meeting?
Now Mills’ stolen glances at Ali during KJ’s class and at the barbeque made a lot more sense. They must be secretly dating. Or semi-secretly, he guessed, since they did seem to be out in public. But he hadn’t picked up on it at the barbeque nor had he heard anyone around town gossiping about it, which struck him as odd.
He stared at the double doors the two had entered as they closed and a sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. They were together. Laughing. Talking. Probably doing things other than laughing and talking.
Kade was tempted to go in and order take-out just to spy, but he knew that was crossing a line.
This is for the best, he told himself.
Ali deserved someone that was worthy of her. A good guy. And from what Kade knew of him, Keaton Mills was a good guy. He saw them being seated through the floor to ceiling windows and watched as the waitress walked away. They both stared at one another for a beat before Keaton said something and they both cracked up. Ali was laughing so hard her head fell back and her hands covered her stomach. They looked like a couple. A happy couple.
Kade’s heart felt like it was a piñata being pummeled by major league hitters as he headed down the steps two at a time and threw his leg over his bike. As the engine roared to life, he clicked his helmet into place and couldn’t help but glance once more at the woman he loved. The woman he could never have.
It’s for the best.