Chapter 16
Kyle
Things with Simone continued to be amazing. We had come out as a couple a week ago and had spent almost every night together since then, either at her apartment or my condo.
I decided that this afternoon, we were going to go out and find a Christmas tree for her apartment. I’d had a late client meeting last night so we had spent the night apart. I realized I no longer slept well if she wasn’t in my arms.
I was considering asking her to move in with me even though we hadn’t been together for that long. I knew it was a big step for both of us. I had never had a relationship where I had considered living together as an option. Simone had been married before, and still had scars that ran deep from that relationship. This wasn’t a decision she would make lightly.
And it didn’t just involve the two of us. She had to think about what was best for Stella as well. It would also be welcoming Brad back into my life. I had to accept the fact that while he may not have an interest in being a father right now… that could change. If it did, I would need to be prepared to deal with him.
All of those details didn’t dissuade my decision, and I knew we had a lot to talk about before taking that step. I loved Simone with my entire being and I loved Stella, too. There was nothing I wanted more than to have them with me every day. If things continued to move in the direction that they were, I was going to ask her after Christmas in hopes of starting the New Year together in our home.
I drove over to her house to pick her and Stella up. I ran up to her door feeling the excitement of doing something that felt like a real family outing. I missed out on so much of this growing up and I was happy to share it with these two. I knocked on the door with a big, cheesy grin on my face.
“Hey, babe,” Simone greeted, after opening the door giving me a quick peck on the lips.
I walked into the apartment. “You ready to go?” I asked.
“We sure are!” She shut the door behind me. “Stella, Kyle’s here,” she called out, toward her daughter’s room.
“Ky!” Stella shouted, running toward me with her arms in the air and waiting for me to pick her up.
Never wanting to disappoint the little bundle of energy, I picked her up and spun her around a couple times. Her squeals of delight made me laugh.
“Are you ready to go, sweetheart?” I asked her.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, sounding just as excited as I was.
Making sure Simone grabbed everything she needed for our outing, I led the way downstairs to my car. It still amazed me how long it took to get going with a toddler in tow. Who knew someone so little required so much extra stuff?
Once we were in the car, I turned on some Christmas music to help get us in the spirit for the day’s activities. “I thought we could check out the tree lot down on Jefferson Street. Is that okay?” I asked.
Her eyes lit up. “I love that idea!” she exclaimed, grinning.
“You seem happy this morning,” I said, reaching across the center console to grab her hand. She immediately reciprocated and we continued to hold hands as I drove through the busy traffic.
“I am happy,” she said without hesitation. “I’ve never gone shopping for a Christmas tree before and I’m excited to this year, especially for Stella.”
It made me sad to think about the things she missed out on moving between foster homes for so long. In many ways, we had the same sort of baggage from our childhoods. I could only hope that we were helping each other heal from those times.
We arrived at the tree lot and started looking around for the perfect tree. According to Stella, they were all perfect. She pointed at every tree we passed and said, “This one.”
After walking down each aisle we finally settled on a six-foot Douglas fir. It took some work getting it strapped down on my car, but the joy on both my girls’ faces was well worth it. Once we were back at her apartment, I carried the tree upstairs while she followed behind with Stella.
It took some time to get the tree straight in the stand, but once we were happy with the placement, I ran down to my car to retrieve a surprise I had for Simone.
“What’s in the boxes?” she asked when I returned.
“I wasn’t sure if you had any ornaments for the tree so I brought over what I had. It’s not much, but I thought it would get us started.”
“Oh, that’s perfect!” she said, taking the smaller box off the other one I was holding. “I have a few decorations but not much. It’s really just some lights I want to put up later and a couple knick-knacks. All of that stuff’s out in the storage closet on the balcony so I’ll probably need your help getting them down.”
We spent the next hour placing ornaments on the tree and spacing out the ones that Stella kept putting in the one spot she could reach. At one point I took a step back to just observe the two of them. Something so simple as decorating a tree made my heart full.
We took a break from decorating to have some lunch and then Simone put Stella down for a nap. Deciding the lights could wait a bit longer, we engaged in a pretty heavy make-out session on the couch.
“I should buy you a tree everyday if this is the kind of thanks I get,” I said jokingly between kisses.
“You’re a dork,” she said, laughing at me. “But this has actually been a perfect day and I do want to give you something to thank you for that.”
Suddenly she moved from straddling my lap down to the floor kneeling between my legs while I relaxed back into the couch. I looked directly into her eyes and could see the love radiating from them as she looked up at me.
Very slowly she slid her hands up my thighs finally reaching the button on my jeans. Continuing her slow seduction, she took her time undoing the button and then pulling my zipper down. She knew exactly what she did to me and was enjoying every minute of her teasing. I lifted my hips so she could pull my jeans and boxer briefs down. “Someone is a little impatient,” she said with giggle.
“You have no idea, babe,” I said agreeing with her assessment.
She moved back between legs after removing my pants all the way. She had a firm grip on my cock and started to tease the tip with her thumb, spreading the pearly droplets that had appeared all around the head.
Bending down, she licked the underside of my dick from the base all the way to the tip where she swirled her tongue around. Unable to stop myself, I reached both hands out to tangle my fingers in her hair. I didn’t want to control her movements, but I did want to move her hair out of the way so I didn’t miss watching a single thing her mouth was doing to me.
“That feels incredible,” I told her just as she started to suck on the head. After a few more playful sucks she took me as far as she could in her mouth. I felt the head of my dick hit the back of her throat. That didn’t stop her, though. Instead, she swallowed around my cock providing the most exquisite sensation. She continued to suck me until I felt my balls tighten up in anticipation of an explosive release.
“Babe, I’m going to come,” I warned. But her response was to suck me even harder. I couldn’t hold out even if I wanted to. I felt myself explode in her mouth. She didn’t falter at all, instead she swallowed everything down that I gave her.
After several pulses she pulled her mouth off me. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there spent, with my whole body in recovery mode. I swear, I might have blacked out because my vision had gone blurry and I heard a ringing in my ears. When I was finally fully conscious, my eyes landed on her face with its pleased expression.
“Come here,” I said, my voice hoarse. I pulled her back up into my lap where I kissed her hard. This woman was amazing. I pulled my boxers and pants back on, then we lounged around on the couch for a while longer. Eventually we decided we should try to finish decorating before Stella woke up.
“So, uh, where are these boxes of lights you have?” I asked, trying to focus.
She smirked at me since I was still a little out of it. “In the storage closet out there,” she said, pointing to the door off the tiny balcony. “Let me get you the key.”
The cold air woke me up when I stepped outside. I opened the door and found the chain to turn on the overhead light. The space was small, just enough room for a couple shelves. I barely fit in there. I looked to the shelving on my right and found two boxes of Christmas lights all the way at the top. When I reached up to grab them my hand knocked something off the shelf.
I bent down to pick it up and saw that it was a small mirror. Underneath it was a small baggie. Not quite believing my own eyes, I picked up the baggie. Upon closer inspection, I could see the remnants of white powder at the bottom.
My mind immediately went back to my childhood when I couldn’t walk anywhere in my mother’s house without seeing drug paraphernalia lying around. I must have been standing out there for a while, staring at the offending baggie, because I heard Simone call out for me from the living room.
“Babe, are the lights not out there?” she asked.
I was still in shock and unable to answer her. I heard the screen door slide open. “Hey, what’s going on out here?”
I turned around to face her. “Um…” I didn’t know what to say. A huge part of me didn’t believe she was capable of using drugs, but then I remembered that at one time my mother had been the epitome of the sweet girl next door. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop her from falling down a drug spiral.
I still hadn’t answered Simone so she looked down at my hands. “What is that?” she asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said, hating the way my voice sounded accusatory.
I heard her gasp when she got a better look at what I was holding. “You don’t think that’s mine, do you?”
I heard the hurt clearly in her voice, but I was so lost in my own feelings that I couldn’t push past it. All I saw were the drugs, and that they were in Simone’s closet.
“It’s in your storage closet, Simone,” I pointed out.
“Oh, my God, Kyle! I don’t do drugs. You should know that!” she said, her face getting flushed with anger. “You’re with me almost all the time. That has to be Brad’s. I told you when I filed for divorce that I was worried he might be doing drugs.”
She sounded heartbroken that I hadn’t immediately come to that conclusion myself. And truthfully, I was a little ashamed I hadn’t thought that first either. Unfortunately, the ghosts from my past were taking over, so I continued.
“Yeah but his drug test came back negative,” I reminded her.
She stared at me her mouth open in disbelief. I knew my words had hurt her. I saw her pick up her phone and start typing a message.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m texting Brad to tell him we found his drugs,” she said, furious.
A few minutes later her phone buzzed with an incoming message.
“Ugh! Of course, he is denying it’s his. I fucking hate him,” she said, throwing her phone down on the couch. She seldom said “fuck” so I knew she was truly pissed.
Seeing her on the verge of losing it hurt me. I felt like an ass for doubting her. Of course she would never do drugs. I knew her, knew the kind of woman and mother she was.
Realizing my own baggage was hurting her I reached out for her. “Babe, come here. I’m sorry I accused you. Finding that crap just brought back some really bad memories for me. I have no reason to believe any of that was yours,” I said, gently kissing her.
I sat down on the couch and pulled her down next to me. We sat there just holding each other for a bit. Anger at myself was seeping in. This was exactly what Addie had meant months ago when she said I didn’t trust easily. I loved Simone too much to let my issues come between us. Just as I was about to open up and explain my irrational response I heard my text alert go off.
Brad: Dude, she’s not as innocent as you think.
I read the message a couple times. What the fuck was Brad talking about? I was just about to text him back when a picture from his number came through. The image on the screen caused me to gasp out loud. There was a girl on her hands and knees in a black lacy bra and matching thong. On her right ass cheek was a line of what I assumed was coke. But the part that caused my heart to break was when I recognized the woman looking over her shoulder. It was my Simone with a look of seduction on her face that I hadn’t seen before. She wasn’t looking directly at the camera, and it was a little grainy, but I knew it was her.
While I was still trying to wrap my brain around what I had just seen, another picture came through. This was obviously from the same night but this one showed Simone leaning over a table with a straw to her nose while snorting a line.
All the air left my body as a hundred thoughts and scenarios crossed my mind. I tried to think back to our entire time together, wondering if I’d been so infatuated with Simone that I’d ignored the reality before me.
My mother had constantly told me she wasn’t using. And for a while, that seemed to be the case, but she always chose drugs over her own children. Had I missed the signs? Had I been blind to it? Being duped again… I felt sick.
Once again, I felt like my world had just ended. It was like I was a kid again. My head was swimming, and my heart felt like it might literally burst out of my chest. It hit me that I might be having a panic attack. I leaned over and rubbed my temples, hard.
“Kyle?” she said, slowly. “What is it? You look like someone died…”
Suddenly the guilt I had been feeling earlier quickly turned to anger. I lowered my hands and met her gaze; this entire thing was surreal, like a horrible dream. “So you don’t do drugs, huh?” I asked, lashing out. I tossed my phone in her direction, feeling old angers and new ones mingling and focused solely on Simone.
She picked it up and looked down at the pictures Brad sent. Her face turned pale and I saw tears form in her eyes. “Kyle, this isn’t what it looks like,” she said quietly.
“Oh, really?” I scoffed. “It looks like you doing coke while acting like a whore.” My voice was cold and harsh, but I didn’t care, not right now.
Her head snapped up to look at me. She couldn’t have looked more pained than if I had actually reached out slapped her. At the moment, I didn’t care. She’d lied. How many times was I going to allow a woman to lie to me before I learned my lesson? This was why I didn’t do relationships, didn’t do long-term. I always got burned in the end. When she tried to reach out to me, and scoot closer to me, I flinched. She jerked back.
“This is from the first night I met Brad,” she explained, her voice panicky.
“So you aren’t going to deny using cocaine?” I couldn’t move past that detail.
“I tried it once. I hated the way it made me feel and told myself I would never touch drugs again. That was more than three years ago. You have to believe me,” she pleaded, the tears running down her face.
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe her more than anything, but my whole childhood had been ruined by drug use. My mother was a master manipulator and could get anyone to believe she really didn’t have a problem. I couldn’t fall into that same routine with Simone. I couldn’t let her convince me she didn’t have a problem just because I never saw her use.
“I can’t do this,” I said, not able to look at her.
“What do you mean?” she asked, the fear evident in her voice.
“I can’t be with someone I can’t trust.”
“Kyle, I swear to you, I don’t use drugs,” she said, grabbing hold of my arm.
I needed to get out of this apartment so I could think. I didn’t want to see her in pain, but this was too much for me.
I pulled my arm away and got up, grabbing my phone. “I need to go,” I said, moving toward the door.
“Please don’t go,” she whispered. “Stay and talk to me about this.”
“I can’t. I need some time to think,” I said and then I walked out of her apartment and away from the first woman I ever loved.