CHAPTER 9
Ali paused as she slid her key into the front door. She’d only been gone for twelve hours but it seemed like so much longer. She felt refreshed and relaxed for the first time in ages and she didn’t want to open the door for fear of what awaited her on the other side. She no longer felt like she was on the brink of a nervous breakdown but she knew that could change in a second.
She took a deep breath and opened the door. The house was quiet. No television. No music blasting. Her eyes darted around the front room. To her great surprise, she noticed there were no shoes, no book bags, no dirty plates, and no soda cans strewn about. And if she weren’t mistaken, those looked like vacuum lines on the carpet.
Damn. Ricky must’ve cleaned up. As much as she appreciated her nephew’s efforts, it broke her heart to think of him cleaning on a Friday night.
A buzz sounded and she grabbed her phone out of her purse. It was a text from Jess that read:
Just wanted to make sure you didn’t turn into a pumpkin.
Ali smiled as she quickly texted back:
That’s the coach, not Cinderella.
Tonight had been just what she needed. Mindless entertainment, junk food, and engaging adult conversation. After the Grey’s marathon they’d ordered pizza talked about all the changes they wanted to make at work, gossiped about people in town, made summer plans, and debated which of Carly Phillips’s books was actually the best. For the record, Ali believed it was Hot Zone while Jess made a strong case for The Bachelor citing as evidence that it had been chosen by Kelly Ripa’s book club, Reading with Ripa. For several, precious hours, there was no mention of the twins, Patrick or Kade. They were just normal friends in their late twenties.
Before Ali knew it, she checked her phone and saw that it was almost midnight. A sense of panic gripped her that she’d let the time get away from her. She grabbed her shoes, purse and told Jess she needed to get back. Her friend made a smart ass comment calling her Cinderella freaking out that the clock was going to strike midnight.
In reality, what she’d feared was not a magical spell being broken, it was what KJ might be doing. Kade had texted and let her know that he’d picked up the boys after school and was going to take care of dinner, but that was it. Since then it had been radio silence. She hadn’t told him that KJ wasn’t allowed to go to anyone’s house except Ryder’s. Or that the boys weren’t allowed to be out after ten p.m. Both rules that had been implemented after late night calls from Ethan and trips to the police station to pick KJ up.
She heard a cabinet close in the kitchen and headed that way. There she found Kade standing at the counter, wrapping something up in tinfoil.
His back was to her and he was wearing charcoal sweats and a white T-shirt. Her eyes traveled over the dips and lines of his chiseled upper back that stretched the thin material. Then, she lowered her gaze to the rounded curve of his backside. Even covered with loose cotton it looked tight enough to bounce a quarter off of.
“Did you have fun?”
At the sound of his voice, her eyes shot up. She was relieved to see that he was still focused on whatever he was wrapping and hadn’t caught her staring at his quarter-bouncing ass.
“Umm…” She could hear her heart beating in her head, it sounded like the drumline in a high school band. “Yeah. It was fun.”
“Good. I’m glad.” He moved to the refrigerator, opened it, and bent down to place the tin foil covered dish inside.
Like a magnet being pulled by an outside force her eyes once again landed on his butt, now displayed like the piece of art it was.
“Are you staring at my butt?” Kade asked, his head still ducked in the fridge.
“No,” she denied as she felt heat rise up her cheeks. Licking her lips nervously she attempted to change the subject. “Um…do you know where KJ…or um…where the twins are?”
Kade slowly stood and shut the door and as he turned to face her, she saw that he was grinning from ear to ear. “You were checking out my ass.”
She sighed as if he was being ridiculous. “Your ego astounds me.”
He crossed his arms over his chest which showcased his well-built biceps and forearms as he leaned against the counter casually. “You stuttered. You always stutter when you lie.”
She did stutter when she lied, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging that or the fact that she’d been checking him out. “Where are the twins?”
“Asleep.”
“Asleep? It’s Friday.”
Kade shrugged and Ali watched as the muscles in his neck flexed. Damn, did every gesture he did have to be so sexy? How was a girl supposed to maintain an Elsa-Frozen-heart around her heart when her body kept flushing with heat?
“I guess between the early morning workout and their chores, they were toast.”
“Chores? KJ did chores?!”
“Yep. We all did. Ricky vacuumed and dusted, KJ cleaned the bathrooms, and I cleaned the kitchen. I also made dinner and did food prep for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
Kade inhaled through his nose as he released his perfectly sculpted arms and rubbed his hands on his thighs as he pushed off the counter. “Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that. Actually, I have a few things I need to talk to you about. Can we sit?” He motioned toward the dining room table.
“Okay…,” Ali wasn’t sure what was going on, but after today at least she felt ready to hear what he had to say. Last night when he’d tried to talk to her it had been too much, but after her day with Jess, she had some currency in her emotional bank account to draw on.
Kade pulled out her chair and she sat and stared up at him expectantly.
“So, today I—,” He was suddenly interrupted by the sound of clicking coming from behind them. She glanced over her shoulder, and though she wasn’t sure what she expected to see, she definitely didn’t expect to see a dog trotting happily toward them.
“That’s a dog,” she said, pointing at the animal.
“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
“You got a dog?” she asked as she bent down and opened her arms, allowing the dog to trot up to her and lick her face.
She felt like she was living in The Twilight Zone version of her life. She’d had a relaxing day with her best friend to come home to a clean house, the twins’ safe and asleep, Kade prepping food in the kitchen, and the cutest dog in the world was there greeting her with kisses.
“Yeah. I guess I got a dog.”
“What’s his name?” Ali chuckled as she tried to avoid the slobbery licks that the dog seemed hell-bent on giving her.
“Dumbass.”
“Ha ha.” She was used to middle-school-boy humor since her nephews were that demographic but she was hoping it was something they would grow out of. Of course if her brother and Kade were any indication, her hopes were in vain.
She kissed the dog’s head and slid back into her seat. “Seriously, though. What’s his name?”
“Dumbass,” Kade repeated as he circled the table and sat across from her. The dog dutifully followed him, wagging his tail as he went. She got it. There was a time she would’ve happily followed Kade, wagging her tail the entire way. “I didn’t name him. My father did.”
“You saw your dad?”
“I wanted to let him know that I was moving back. For good. He was taking care of this little guy—,” he bent down to rub the dog’s head.
“Wait, what do you mean, you’re moving back?” Ali’s heart slammed into her chest.
Kade nodded. “I’m moving back to Whisper Lake. That’s also one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
“How many things are there?”
“A lot. There are a lot of things I need to tell you.”
Ali blinked, trying to process all of the information she’d taken in in the past sixty seconds. Kade willingly went to see his father. He adopted a dog. And he was moving back. To Whisper Lake.
Now she really felt like she was in The Twilight Zone.
* * *
Kade figured he’d jump right in. Ali was here, she was listening to him, and this conversation was long overdue.
“First, I want to give you this,” Kade said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bronze medallion.
Her fingers grazed his as she took it and he tried to ignore how soft her skin was and how good her touch felt.
She looked down at the coin. “What’s this?”
“It’s my one year sober chip.”
She lifted her head and recoiled slightly. “Sober?”
“Yeah, that’s where I’ve been. I was in rehab.”
“For a year and a half?” Ali’s eyes widened.
“No. I was in a ninety-day inpatient program and then I did another sixty as an outpatient. Technically, I’ve been sober for fifteen months. But I didn’t want to come back until I had a year in the real world. It’s one thing to stay sober in a controlled environment, it’s another to do it on your own.”
Ali didn’t say anything. She just looked at him with an expression he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He wondered what was going on behind that caramel stare.
“I didn’t know you were an alcoholic.” She shook her head back and forth slowly. “I mean, I knew that you drank, a lot, but I didn’t know it was a problem.”
“To be honest, neither did I. I’ve always rationalized my drinking because I’d quit for months at a time if I had a fight coming up. But even before Patrick died, the length of time I’d sober up before a fight kept shrinking. It went from three months, to two months, to one month, and for my final fight I’d barely sobered up from the night before. And then after Patrick…,” he paused and lowered his head, “I went on a three-month bender. Every day I’d tell myself I was going to get sober tomorrow. Tomorrow would turn into next week, and then next week would turn into next month.”
When she didn’t respond he lifted his head and saw that she looked to be processing the information, so he went on to tell her everything.
“Then I hit rock bottom. I woke up one day and I had no idea what day it was. I was at some hotel with a woman I didn’t recognize and when I picked up my phone, I saw that it was January third. That’s when it hit me. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s had all passed since Patrick…and I’d missed them all.”
Ali sniffed back tears and her bottom lip trembled.
Kade reached out and held her hand. “I can’t even imagine how hard those holidays were for you and the boys.”
“We were fine.” She tugged her hand away and sat up straighter instantly erecting a protective shield. It broke his heart that she felt like she had to protect herself from him.
“I’m sure you were. But I should’ve been here and there’s no excuse. That was the day I checked myself into rehab. When I got out, I wanted to come straight here. And maybe I should’ve. But, you and the boys had already been through so much and I didn’t want to run the risk of disappointing you all over again. I needed to make sure that my sobriety was actually something I could sustain. There was no way I was going to subject you guys to what we went through.”
Ali nodded in understanding as a tear fell down her cheek. Patrick, Kade, and Ali had the shared experience of being kids of the town drunks. Being kids of Debbie Walsh and George McKnight wouldn’t be something he’d wish on his worst enemies, but it had bonded the three of them.
She wiped the fallen teardrop away with the back of her hand as she sniffed. “But why didn’t you tell me that? Why didn’t you tell me where you were? What you were doing? I thought you just left. I thought you didn’t even care about—”
Kade leaned forward, spurred by an urgency to make her understand. “I know. I wanted to tell you. Every day, I wanted to call and talk to you. I wanted to come see you. You guys were all I thought about. It killed me knowing what you must think of me, of how I could do that to you, but I didn’t want to be like them.
“How many times did your mom or my dad tell us that they were going to get help? That they were going to get sober? How many empty, broken promises did they make to us? I couldn’t do that to you. I had to know that I could be the man Patrick thought I could be when he named me as co-guardian of the twins. I had to know that I wouldn’t just be some loser fuck-up in the boys’ lives. I had to know that I wouldn’t be that in your life. I had to know that I would be the man that you deserved.”
Ali was still shaking her head as her eyes lowered once again to the medallion in her hand. “I was so mad at you. I hated you.”
“I know. And I deserved that. Maybe I still do. I don’t know if what I did was the right thing, but Ali, I swear I was only doing what I thought was best for you and the boys.” Kade paused again. “I had to know and now I do. That’s why I’m here. To stay. I mean, not here here. I’m going to look at houses next week.”
“What about your career?” Her eyes lifted to meet his.
A half-smile pulled at his lips. “I’m almost thirty-three years old. My cage fighting days are over.”
Concern rippled her forehead. “What are you going to do?”
“Are you trying to say the job market in Whisper Lake for high school dropouts whose special skills include drinking and fighting is not as good as I think it is?”
Ali’s face softened and she smiled as she shook her head. Kade felt like the ton of bricks on his chest had been lifted. Her smile meant hope to him. Hope that maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t royally fucked up his chance.
“No, I mean…MMA was your life, not just your career.”
You and the boys are my life now. He kept that piece of trivia to himself. “I made some good investments and had some profitable endorsement campaigns. I’m not rich, but I’ll be okay while I figure out what’s next.”
“Wow. Okay.” She wiped her eyes as Dumbass laid his head on her lap and she smiled down at him and reached to pet his head. “I’m kind of scared to ask what else you have to tell me.”
“Well, for starters, there’s going to be a barbeque here tomorrow.”
“What?” she shrieked.
“Yep, it’s a belated birthday party for the twins.”
“No!” Panic filled her golden eyes. “KJ doesn’t want—”
“I know. But I told them that I wanted to have a party to welcome me back home and I couldn’t exactly throw my own homecoming party, so I asked if we could call it a birthday party.”
Both of her brows lifted toward her hair line. “They bought that?”
“I doubt it. But they agreed to it and even seemed excited when they were texting or snapchatting or whatever they do now, to invite their friends. I think they just needed an excuse to have a party, and I gave them one.”
Ali stared at him for several beats before she started looking around the room in exaggerated movements, even bending down to look beneath the table.
“What?” Kade asked after she made a big show of picking up the centerpiece and looking beneath it.
“I’m looking for the microphones or cameras. I must be on Candid Camera or Punk’d, or some new prank show, right? This isn’t real. Ashton, you can come out now.”
“Sorry.” He chuckled. “You’re not going to meet Ashton today.”
She sat back in her chair and took a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling loudly before petting Dumbass’s head. “And how did you end up with this handsome, good boy?”
She sat back in her chair and sighed. Dumbass lifted his head at her movement and she scratched his head before looking back at Kade. “You know you have to change his name, right?”
He chuckled. The tension that had filled his body for so long dissipated and he felt a calm wash over him. They talked at that kitchen table until four in the morning. Kade told Ali about his visit to his dad’s and how strange it was to see his old man in such a frail state. They talked about Whisper Lake Rentals, and the twins. They talked about Patrick and their childhood.
For the first time in a long time he felt peace. Calm. Content. Three things he’d never even known he was capable of feeling, but being with Ali, looking at Ali, talking with Ali did something to him. It healed him. Now, he just had to figure out how to do the same for her.