Risking It All (33 page)

Memphis backed into his apartment, kicking the door shut as he did. Kennedy only released her hold on him long enough to tear off her jacket and drop it to the floor. His knees hit the back of the couch, and he fell onto it, bringing Kennedy with him. It was only then that he broke the kiss and forced her to take a breath and slow down.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Kennedy shook her head and reached for his shirt.

“I don’t want to talk, Memphis. I just need you right now.”

“Kennedy, baby.” He grabbed her hands to stop her, and his palm scraped against the ring on her left hand. He looked down and then snapped his head back up, his eyes blazing with anger. “What the fuck is this?”

Kennedy bit her lip and shook her head as tears pooled in her eyes.

“It’s not what you think.”

“It’s a fucking engagement ring, Kennedy!”

“He . . . he asked, but I did—” She hiccupped, and the tears fell harder. “I didn’t say yes.”

“When did he ask you?”

“Tonight . . . a few minutes ago.”

Memphis pushed off the couch and strode across the room away from her.

“Memphis—”

“So he asks you to marry him, and instead of giving him an answer, you come here to hide and fuck me?”

“That’s not—”

“That’s exactly what you were doing!” he yelled.

Kennedy jumped. They had argued in the past, but he had never yelled at her like that before.

“Memphis.”

“What am I to you, Kennedy? Just some plan B in case things don’t work out with the successful doctor?”

“You know that’s not true,” she replied, shocked.

“Really? Because as far as I can tell, I’m only good enough to be with when you’re pissed off and fighting with him.”

“What the hell, Memphis?” Kennedy cried. “Do you not remember the day in the hospital when I told you I wanted to be with you and you practically pushed me back at Brooks with your excuses about not being able to give me what I wanted?”

“Oh, don’t give me that shit.” He waved off the comment and shook his head. “I didn’t push you at anyone. If you actually wanted to be with me, you had ample time to break up with Brooks. You never did. You’re keeping us both around in case it doesn’t work out with the other so you’re not alone.”

“That’s not true!”

“Oh, yeah?” Memphis sneered. “So why didn’t you tell him no tonight, Kennedy? Why did you run away and come straight here? Why don’t you ever give either of us a real answer?”

“Oh, that’s big coming from you!” she yelled back. “You were the one who danced around ever telling me how you felt. You always avoided the question or changed the subject or did
something
that distracted me. You always want answers from me—expect me to open up and spill my guts—when you never give me anything in return! Why don’t you grow some balls, Memphis, and take your own damn advice!”

Kennedy stood from the couch and grabbed her keys off the floor where she had dropped them.

“I should grow some balls?” he countered. “What do you think you’ve being doing, Kennedy, running back and forth between Brooks and me? Telling me you want to have babies and make a family with me, and yet stringing Brooks along.”

“I was going to end it with him until you said what you did in the hospital.”

“See! So you won’t end it with him unless you know for sure you have someone else to fall back on? That’s pretty pathetic. Almost as pathetic as making a move on me when you’re pissed at him and then lying about it and saying it was never about him in the first place.”

“I explained that—what I told you was the truth!”

“Kennedy, admit it. You wouldn’t have asked me to kiss you that night if you hadn’t been drunk and mad at Brooks. If everything had gone the opposite way and he had shown up that night, nothing would have happened between us. You saw an opportunity and you went for it. You may have wanted me to kiss you, but it was all fueled by your hatred for Brooks in that moment.”

Kennedy stood there, speechless.

“Yeah.” Memphis nodded and turned his back on her. “That’s what I thought.”

“What about you?” she finally asked. “You told me you had ulterior motives for asking me to Alaska. What were they, Memphis? You never explain anything to me! You told me to forget it and that it didn’t matter. So what am I supposed to think? Why did you want me with you, Memphis? To stick it to Brooks by screwing his girlfriend? Well, nicely done. Bravo. You succeeded.”

Memphis slowly turned around. She was expecting him to glare at her, but the look on his face was so much worse. It was sad and disappointed mixed with hurt and betrayal.

“Do you want to know why I took you, Kennedy?” He sounded tired and defeated. “Do you remember that day in your kitchen after your show when you told me that not everyone was like me and could just turn off their emotions? You’ve never been more wrong about me when you said that. If that was true, and I could just walk away, turn off my emotions, and forget I felt anything for someone, I would have done it with you years ago.

“Do you remember that day in the park when I held your hand for the first time? If I had the ability to forget women—to not trust them and turn off my feelings—I would have known better and done it that day. That day, that gesture, changed my entire life in a second, and you never even realized it

“Things with you have never been simple, Kennedy, not since that day. If they were, then I wouldn’t be in love with you. That’s why I took you to Alaska, Kennedy. I took you because I fucking love you. I’ve been in love with you for twelve years now, and I wanted to somehow finally show you.”

The world stopped in that second and everything stilled. Kennedy stood there motionless. She opened and closed her mouth, willing words to come, but none did.

“I think I started to fall for you that first day on the beach,” he continued. “Why do you think I decided that nothing could ever happen between us? You were the only good thing in my life, and I didn’t want to fuck it up like everything else. And then just by simply taking your hand, I knew. You were it, and it terrifed me as much as it excited me.”

Kennedy stared at him as tears slowly rolled down her cheeks. He loved her. Memphis loved her, and he was actually
telling
her, not just hinting at it. Nothing else in the world mattered in that moment. She wanted to run to him, throw her arms around his neck, and never leave the safety of his embrace again. But the look on his face held her back.

He wasn’t looking at her like a man who was in love. There was no light in his eyes, no smile on his face, and his stance was cold, detached. There were no affectionate emotions left for her.

Memphis looked like a man who had given it his all and knew he had lost. Everything about him said he was done. He was through with her.

And that terrified Kennedy.

“Memphis . . . why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, her voice shaking. “You knew, you knew all along how I felt, and you never said one word to me.”

“I couldn’t tell you. Not back then, at least. I didn’t know how to deal with loving someone. I’ve never loved anyone; I don’t remember anyone really loving me.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before turning away from her and looking out the window. “I don’t remember my mom. She died when I was two, and after that I was bounced around from family member to family member on her side until there was no one left. No one knew what to do with me, how to handle me. I was always angry and in trouble. Finally, someone tracked down my dad and sent me off to live with him.

“He never knew about me, but he took me in. I think mainly because of the way it made him look by taking in the homeless boy rather than sending him away. He was in politics,” he explained, “so it wouldn’t look good if it got out about me. He was always too busy trying to build up his reputation to pay attention to the bastard son who showed up on his doorstep one day. His idea of showing love was throwing money at me and paying my way through school and buying me whatever the fuck I wanted. How do you learn to love from that?”

Kennedy’s breath caught on a sob as she listened to him open up about his past for the first time. It was a topic that he never shared—Memphis always danced around the subject whenever she asked, so his upbringing and parents had always been a mystery to her. She knew nothing of them. She had been curious and asked not too long after they had met, but the hard look of warning and curt, “It’s not something I talk about” told her to never ask again. And she hadn’t. Everything else about himself he shared with her; she respected there were things he had to keep to himself. Whether to protect old wounds or not cause new ones, she respected it. 

“The only thing I knew was how to show a girl a good time and move on. That’s what my dad taught me. That’s all my dad taught me,” he continued. “Women were a means to an end to me and nothing more. I gave them what they wanted, and for a moment, I felt the affection I wanted but never had growing up. It wasn’t anything more than
that
moment to me, though. That was enough and I didn’t want anything more from any of them. And then I met you, and everything changed.

“Nothing that happened in Alaska happened the way it should have. I didn’t intend it to go that far, that fast,” he confessed, turning around to face her again. “I wanted to take my time and show you that I did love you.” He shook his head and scoffed as if the idea was ridiculous now that he thought about it. “And then you come at me pissed off and spew that shit about it always being about me, and I lost it. All those years of loving you, and wanting you . . . it shouldn’t have happened.”

“Memphis, I meant that. What I said about it always being you, I meant that.”

“If that were true, why are you still with Brooks?” he asked, looking at her with a woeful expression. “Why haven’t you broken up with him yet?”

Kennedy shook her head and wiped the tears off her cheeks.

“I couldn’t . . . I didn’t know how and then—”

“Don’t.” Memphis glared at her now. “Don’t give me that bullshit you couldn’t or didn’t know how or there was never a right time or that he begged you to give him a second chance. If you really wanted me, Kennedy, if I was who you really wanted to be with, you would have left him. Not kept us around to play second fiddle to each other.”

“That’s not what I was doing, Memphis.”

“Then what the fuck were you doing?” He threw his hands in the air. “What the hell has all this been about, then?”

“I told you what I wanted in the hospital!” she told him again. “And you blew me off.”

“I didn’t blow you off. You’ve been so wishy-washy about this whole thing that I wanted to see what your reaction would be if I told you I couldn’t give you what Vanessa and Joe have. And you did exactly as I expected you to do,” he said. “You didn’t tell me that it would be okay and that you wanted me no matter what. You went back to Brooks because maybe he would be able to give you all that.”

“Brooks doesn’t want it, either,” she snapped. “He already told me that he’s not sure if he ever wants kids.”

Memphis laughed bitterly.

“So that’s why you asked if I did? Because second choice is better than first if he can give you what you want?”

“You’re not my second choice, Memphis!”

He nodded.

“You’re right. I’m not your choice at all. You’ve proved that over and over again since we got back. Did you ever consider that maybe I was waiting for you to make that move and break things off with him? That perhaps that was all I needed from you to give you everything you wanted? But you didn’t, and I’m tired of being your backup plan.” He snatched her jacket off the floor and thrust it at her. “Go. Marry Brooks. Live his life. But when this I’m-a-changed-man phase of his wears off and he’s back to ignoring you, hurting you, and disappointing you, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself and no one’s shoulder to cry on this time.”

She stared down at her coat in his hands and slowly reached out to take it from him.

“What do you mean? You’re not . . . Memphis, you’re not kicking me out, are you? I mean, you’re not leaving me?”

His eyes burned into hers when he said, “No. You left me.”

“You promised you would always be in my life! You said you’d support whatever decision I made!” she sobbed as tears ran down her cheeks and panic tightened her chest at his words.

“Whatever decision
you
made. You didn’t make this one. I did.”

“Memphis, please!” She grabbed onto his shirt and tried to keep him from moving. “I need you. You’re my best friend. You can’t just walk out of my life.”

“I can’t do this anymore, Kennedy!” he yelled, grabbing her upper arms roughly, his eyes on fire. “I can’t let you jerk me around anymore. You want me to be your friend? Fine I’ll be your friend. You want me to be your man? I can do that! I know what I want and what I can do, Kennedy. It’s you who has no fucking clue what she wants. And I’m not waiting around to find out.”

“I do know what I want!”

“You’re fucking delusional if you think that’s true! If you really knew what you wanted, you wouldn’t be wearing that ring right now. Brooks wouldn’t be waiting to hear an answer from you. And you wouldn’t be secretly running to me.” He shook his head with disgust. “You have no clue.”

He walked around her to the door, and she heard it open.

“But you love me,” she said, whirling around to face him. “You love me! You said so. You can’t just turn that off.”

“And look where that’s gotten me. I’ve lost not only my best friend but the only person I’ve ever loved. I’m done playing this game, Kennedy.” He swung the door open wider. “Please, leave.”

“You can’t pin this all on me, Memphis!” Kennedy yelled, the hurt she felt turning to anger. “You’ve had years to grow a pair and tell me how you felt. You knew I was with Brooks when you took me to Alaska, but that didn’t bother you at the time, and it certainly didn’t bother you when you were screwing me every chance you got!”

Memphis’s jaw clenched, and he stared at her, cold-faced.

“If you hadn’t been such a pussy about telling me that you loved me, maybe none of this would have happened. Telling me that Alaska meant everything to you or that I know how you feel without you telling me the words isn’t the same, Memphis! If you had just said the words—if you had just fucking told me—I would have ended it with Brooks right then and there.”