Chasing Kane (26 page)

Goose bumps covered the back of my neck. She wanted to talk to me, more. That had to be a good sign.”

“Come to Chicago,” I blurted out, my courage fueled by adrenaline. “I know you said no before, but—”

“Okay,” she cut me off.

“Seriously?”

She laughed. God I’d missed that sound. “Yes. I’ll see you in Chicago.”

“We’ll talk then.” I nodded my head once, steeling myself for a grownup conversation we both deserved. I wanted to tell her I loved her again, but didn’t want to overplay my hand. Instead, I went for casual and friendly. “I’ll text you the itinerary.”

“I have it,” she said. “Unless it’s changed?”

The searing pain in my chest turned warm, and didn’t hurt so much anymore. “No,” I grinned, “it hasn’t changed. But if it does, I’ll let you know.”

“Kay.”

“Okay, bye Frankie.”

“Bye CJ.”

I walked the twenty-minute walk back to the hotel, grinning like an asshole the whole way. I had a chance to get my girl back, and I wasn’t about to blow it.

Apparently, Minneapolis brought out the drinker in me. I barely remembered a single thing from the night before when I rolled over in my hotel bed to reach for Georgia. My arm falling flat onto empty sheets reminded me I was still on tour, and she was still far away.

I was groggy, a little dizzy, and a bit nauseated when I reached for my phone to call her. I owed it to her to be honest about how I’d been feeling the last few days and weeks, even if it was inconveniently this way. This couldn’t wait until Massachusetts when Georgia was planning to fly out. With a job like this, sometimes discussions, decisions, and plans had to be made by phone.

I don’t normally sleep through a ringing phone, but I saw I’d missed five calls from Georgia.
Five
. Not a single text message, but five calls. One on the hour, every hour, from three in the morning until just now. Eight. That must have been what woke me up, because five hours of sleep after a night like last night would not be enough. In a bit of a panic, I called her back as fast as my phone would let me tap over to her number.

She picked up on the second ring, but didn’t say anything. I thought I’d lost the connection.

“Georgia? Georgia, are you okay? I saw I missed a bunch of calls from you. Hello?”

There was a long pause, followed by a still, ice-cold response. “How do you think … it makes me feel … when I’m woken up in the middle of the night by a text message about my
husband
dancing
with another woman?”

“I … I … what? What are you talking about?” I couldn’t remember a
fucking thing
about last night.

I rubbed sleep away from my eyes, hoping it would bring with it some clarity about what the hell happened last night. It didn’t.

“Georgia, you’ve got to give me more to go on … I don’t … I don’t remember much about last night.”

A sharp, horrible laugh pierced my ear. “Oh, that just puts the icing on the cake, doesn’t it? I can’t talk to you right now. I’ll send you the picture and you can take a few minutes or days or whatever it is you need to figure out just what the fuck you have to say for yourself. Bye.”

“Georgia—” It was too late. She disconnected before I could say anything else.

A second later, my phone buzzed with a new text. A picture from Georgia. Praying like I hadn’t in years that I’d come out of this alive, I clicked. It wasn’t a picture. Worse. It was a video. I didn’t want to press play, but I did it anyway.

Immediately, the silence of my hotel room was filled with the garbled noise of chatter and music. I stared at the screen. Baffled. Nessa and I were there, dancing. It wasn’t dirty, or anything. But, I gotta say, it didn’t look good.

Our hands were clasped as we moved around one another, the rest of our bodies touching intermittently. It was clear we were drunk by the inability either one of us had to stay on any sort of beat, but it looked fun. Funny, even. I was relieved, confident in my ability to have a rational conversation about this with Georgia. It wasn’t until the phone rang as I called her back that I started thinking about
who
sent it to her.

“That was fast,” she answered, bitchy-like.

“Can I explain?” I responded, keeping my tone calm.

“I’d like to hear you give it a whirl.”

“Georgia …” I started going in with a flustered attitude, but trailed off, taking a deep breath instead.

“What? Explain yourself.”

“Seriously? It was
Nessa
. We were all goofing off, it wasn’t just us dancing. Everyone from the tour was dancing with everyone. I watched the video, G. I saw what you saw, and I don’t understand why you’re mad.”

“It was
Nessa
,” she echoed me. “The same Nessa who just a couple days ago was traipsing into your hotel with you while you were wide-awake ready to rehearse, but when she left you basically passed out before the door closed.”

“That’s not tru—”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re trying to start a family and you can’t even stay awake long enough to impregnate your
wife.
”

“I’m fucking tired of that conversation, Georgia. You’re just going to jet into town and leave when you got what you came for?” My words were sharp as I sat up quickly. Too quick, pointed out by the pounding in my head.

Georgia gasped on the other end. “You’re
fucking
kidding me. Using you?! We’re married, Regan. Though, I see you must need a reminder of that.”

“Fuck off, Georgia. You know what? Fuck off. You would have a camera attached to me every second I was away if you could. I’m committed to
you
, but you refuse to believe that. I used to think it was because you were so wounded from your childhood that you didn’t think you deserved love. But,” I let a rough chuckle escape my chest, “you know what? I think you like the drama. I think you like all the theatrics that can go along with having a husband gone half the time. You think the only way for me to treat you right is to make me think you’re mad at me all the
fucking time!”
I yelled, hurting my own ears.

“Well let me tell you something,
wife
,” I continued. “I have loved you
every second
since two
months
before I told you for the first time. It took me that long to get the courage to say it because we were both scared and unsure. I have loved the
piss
out of you every
damn second
.”

“Regan!” she screamed back into the phone, trying to get my attention, but I wasn’t done.

“Don’t!” I yelled back, getting out of bed and unsteadily pacing the room. Our first fight like this in easily two years. “You
don’t
get to treat me like this anymore!”

“Like what?! Like you have it so bad,” she spat back.

“Like I’m on probation for someone else’s crimes! I’ve done nothing but take care of you and this is what I get in return? Suspicion? Judgment? If you can’t trust me, Georgia, then what the
fuck
are we even doing in this relationship?”

“I
do
trust you—”

“Funny fucking way of showing it. And,” I started, out of breath “is that what you want a baby for? To use as another weapon against me when I’m out on the road
working?
! A tool to use to make me feel guilty or to pit against me when you think I’m out interacting with someone instead of locked in my hotel room on the phone with you?”

“You fucking prick,” she said, malice in place of her voice.

“Yeah, me fucking prick. That’s right. Staying up when I get home early in the morning to help you get things done at your shop before getting a few hours sleep then waking up to bring you lunch. Me fucking prick. Also making sure I clean the house and get you dinner since you’d never stop to feed yourself, and leave you notes all around the house before I leave for the night. What a fucking prick I am, huh?” My voice was rough, raw from yelling. “How I make sure that favorite pink fluffy blanket of yours is always clean and on the bed with the
damn
dryer sheets you like because you say they smell like me. All the texts I send you, notes and flowers while I’m on the road, and the
fucking love songs
I write for
other bands to use
that are about you in every note, every pause, and every lyric. Meanwhile, all I get from you is the occasional cupcake and accusatory text. I’m such a
fucking bastard.
”

“I …” She seemed speechless.

“Every
goddamn
new song that I wrote and Nessa sings and plays? They’re about you.
You.”

Met with more silence, I met the end of my patience.

Fine.

But then, her voice morphed into the tone she’d taken earlier in the conversation, even though she was a bit shaky. “CJ wouldn’t have sent me that text if he didn’t think it was any of my business.”

“Brilliant,” I snapped before ending the call and throwing my phone against the wall, speaking then to an empty room. “Just. Brilliant.”

***

With my anger seething and heart racing, I lunged down the hall toward CJ’s room, pounding unceasingly until a gravelly voice emerged from the other side.

“Who is it?”

“Me,” I snapped.

“Regan?”

“Get the fuck out here.”

He opened the door, standing in front of me in his T-shirt and boxers, looking like I pulled him out of a deep sleep. Good.

“I thought you left the fucking bar early last night?”

“I did,” he answered, still holding the door open.

“Then how
the hell
did Georgia get a
video
from you of me and Nessa dancing at the club?”

Finally catching up to the purpose of my visit, CJ rubbed his eyes. He shrugged rather unapologetically. “Someone sent it to me.”

I pressed my head forward, my eyes wide as I tried to breathe away my rage. “So you fucking forwarded it to
Georgia?
”

“Watch your fucking tone. You know what,
Regan
? I tried. I tried to talk to you about getting wrapped up with that girl. I didn’t think you meant to get in that deep with her, but I saw it happening and thought I’d give you a heads up.”

I took a firm step forward, grinding my teeth together and speaking low and threatening. “Get to the part where you dropped a grenade into the middle of my marriage.”

He squinted at me. “Get over yourself. I had a
fuck
of a night last night. Then, on top of that, someone sent me the video saying
isn’t this your married cousin?
And, you know what? Fuck me. When I opened it, there was my married cousin, grinding with the girl he
isn’t
having an affair with.” He said
isn’t
with air quotes, the bastard

“I wasn’t grinding with her.” I brought my hands up and pushed CJ’s shoulders. Enough to make him stagger back, but not fall. His hand stayed on the door.

“Watch yourself, Regan. I gave you a chance to see what the fuck you were doing, and you didn’t take it. Georgia deserved to know what was going on before you and Nessa ended up in bed together—if you haven’t already.”

It was too much. I let out a low growl, brewing toward a yell. “I never thought the first punch I threw would be at you.”

Before he had time to respond or react, I swung, making instant, hard, contact.”

He let out a shocked, pissed yell as bright red blood sprayed from his nose. He brought his hand to his face, catching blood as it pooled in his hand and ran down his arm. “You
fucker!
”

It took a second for him to react, but I didn’t step back. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t feeling anything at all, which was proving to be a problem, since I didn’t seem to care that I was going up against not only my cousin, but someone far bigger and more experienced in fights than I was. The only advantage I had was anger over my marriage being screwed with.

“Walk away Regan,” CJ said, sounding like he was forcing the words out. “Now. I don’t want to fight you.” He started closing the door, but I stuck my foot in the space, preventing it from closing all the way.

“I don’t give a fuck
what
you want. You went over the line this time, man.”

“I think you broke my fucking nose,” he mumbled under his breath. “What line, dude? I wasn’t the one flirting with another woman. For once.”

With a surge of rage, I elbowed the door open, ignoring the throbbing in my hand, and I sent a right hook to the side of his face. CJ reacted in time, backing up so my knuckles only grazed the side of his jaw.

He dropped his hand, blood still trickling out of his nose, but the bulk of it soaking into his shirt. With his eyes boring into me, he pulled the door open and took two steps toward me, the second one forcing me to step back into the hallway.

“That’s the last shot you’ll get on me,” he stated with purpose before pulling his hand back and clocking me in the side of my face.

I’d already started pulling back out of the way, so my cheekbone wasn’t hit with his full force, but it was bad enough. It felt like my cheek exploded. There was ringing in my ears and I had to blink several times to see straight. By this time, doors started opening around us, tour members and vacationing strangers unexpectedly with a front-row seat to our fight.

“That enough?” CJ asked, cocky with an eyebrow arch and a grin on his bloodied face.

“Hardly.” I lunged forward, needing to get him off his feet. I succeeded quickly when I gave a swift kick to his ankle, knocking him onto the ground.

As I came down on top of him, planting knees on either side of him, he started swinging in defense. I was numb with rage and anger, at him, Georgia, and myself. I didn’t care what I felt or didn’t feel; I just needed to punch someone. CJ was that someone. The someone who played on my wife’s insecurities and fucked
everything
up.

“You knew exactly what you were doing when you texted her, you bastard. You knew it would fuck her
right
up.”

“You shouldn’t do anything you want
hidden
from your
wife
.”

I grabbed the sleeves of his T-shirt, trying to lift him up and slam him down, but the force of his back worked against me, so I only succeeded in tearing the fabric.