Feel My Love Read online

  I was heartbroken because I always thought that we would someday be together, but after that day, I knew he had his path in life which didn’t include me. So I took off for an entirely different trail.

  I finally remember that he is talking to me and clear my throat so it doesn’t sound like I am ready to cry, even though I probably could at that moment. “What are you doing here, Ryan?”

  “I came down here for Kyle’s wedding. I’m a groomsman. You remember Kyle Anders, don’t ya?” He says with one side of his mouth pulling up into a smile. Of course I remember him.

  Kyle was one of Ryan’s best friends in high school, and therefore, one of my best friends. Ryan and Kyle played on the football team together. I went to my high school junior prom with Kyle. I snicker and lower my head to look at my feet, inspecting my shoes.

  Looking up, I grin “Yeah, I remember Kyle. How could I forget my first kiss after prom? It was so sweet and nice, until you cold cocked him for actually kissing me goodnight. I knew we shouldn’t have all ridden in that limo together.” Ryan smiles and lifts his shoulders.

  “Well, I told him before the prom started that you hadn’t been kissed before and if he was your first kiss, he was going to get knocked out. He just didn’t believe me.” After a small chuckle, he continues, “Are you down here for the wedding, too? He didn’t mention that he sent you an invite.”

  I just shake my head, but then remember that we haven’t talked in so long, and he has no idea that I actually live here. I clear my throat “No, I didn’t get invited to the wedding. I live in San Diego. Just around the corner, actually” I add, twisting my body and jerking my thumb over my shoulder.

  “Ah, so this is where you disappeared to when you picked up and left, huh?” He replies with a sad smile and a nod of his head. After a few moments of staring at this man that I used to know and wishing he was here for me, I decide enough is enough. I bend down to pick up my bike and say “Well, it was good to see you again. Take ca-“

  “What are you doing later?” he cuts me off before I can finish my sentence and steps in front of my bike. “It would be really cool if we could catch up; maybe over dinner in a few hours?” He looks so hopeful, but I just can’t, for more than one reason; I have to get to work, but also looking at him right now, I realize that I hate and love him in the same moment. Not a great combination.

  “Oh wow, I would love to, but I can’t. I’m on my way to the bar.” He raises an eyebrow at me and tilts his head. I never drank when we were in high school, even when everyone else was drinking, and he knows drinking always bothered me back then. I wonder what he would say if he knew that I drank now.

  “I sing with a band at the Pour House Pub down the street.” I clarify with a smile, and then inwardly cringe at the fact that I just gave away the name of the bar I would be at.

  “Ah” he nods. “Well, would you mind if me and some of the boys from the wedding came down to that bar a little later? Maybe we could talk a little when you are done.” I push my brows together and look down at the ground, wondering to myself if this is really a good idea.

  I finally nod and agree “Uh, sure. That would be fine. But, I’d better get going before I’m late. I hate being late.” He chuckles and says, “Yeah, I remember how much you hate being late. I’ll see you in a bit.” I smile and hop on my bike, pedaling like I was in the Tour de France, going for first place.

  Chapter 2

  Ryan

  Holy fuck. I haven’t seen Brynn in what seems like forever. She still has that long brown hair that reaches the middle of her back and the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen- they are a lighter color on the inside and have a darker blue ring around the outside.

  With her high cheek bones, flawless skin, slightly pointy chin and small nose, her face is as close to perfection as you can get. She looks like she has lost a little weight since I last saw her, but she is definitely more toned. Although she isn’t all that tall, her tan legs seemed to go on forever under that pink dress.

  She looks like she could be an underwear model, and when all of the feelings I had for her come rushing back to me, I wouldn’t mind seeing her in her underwear. Where the fuck did that come from? She probably still hates my guts.

  All I can do is watch her ride away on her bicycle like she’s on fire, but I wish she would have been able to stay and talk with me. She has been the one person in my life I wish was still a part of it, but instead I was an idiot and did what Amber told me to do.

  That was the biggest mistake of my life.

  A slap to my back pulls me from that terrible memory. “Hey man, what’cha looking at?” I turn to see Mike Walters; an almost bald and overweight man and also another groomsman from Kyle’s wedding, and one of our friends from high school, staring in the same direction as I am. He’s trying to find what it is I’m looking at, but Brynn is long gone.

  “Nothing Mike, just stuck in my nothing box, again.” I tell him, but really, I’m thinking of the girl who used to be my best friend. She hasn’t changed much. She was in a cute pink sundress, which seemed odd to me.

  She never wore a dress unless it was Sunday and she had to go to church, and even then her mother had to force her to wear them and she’d change into shorts and a baggy t-shirt the second she was home. She seems so different from the girl I used to know, but the same in so many ways. The one girl I actually loved, but let get away.

  “So, what are we doing tonight guys? Anyone have any suggestions?” Kyle asks us, running a hand through his finger length brown hair, as he walks up the pier with his younger brother, Max, and his other groomsman Conner, who works with Kyle.

  “Well, I just asked one of the locals where a good bar is around here.” I say, smiling. “They suggested this place down the pier called the Pour House Pub. Have you ever heard of it, Kyle?” I glance at Kyle who has this look on his face that says you are an idiot.

  “I just moved here a month ago to live with Lo. I haven’t had a chance to really hit all the bars in the city, yet.” I smile and turn in the direction that I watched Brynn take off in. “Well boys, how about we stop and get some grub somewhere, and then we’ll hit the Pour House Pub after; any objections?”

  I turn back to see all of the guys shaking their heads side to side. “Okay, food it is. Let’s get a move on.” I say and start walking at a fast pace. I can’t wait to see her again.

  We find a small seafood restaurant and as we are walking in, I decide to make a quick phone call to my babysitter. “Hey Becca, how’s everything going?” I say, hoping everything is okay. “Hey Ry. Everything’s just fine. Riley and Harper are in the backyard playing bubbles with Milo.” This makes me smile.

  If there was one thing my twin girls loved more than being outside, it is Milo. Riley and Harper were constantly arguing over which one of them was going to marry Milo, even though my girls were eight and Milo was only four.

  “Are they eating and minding their manners? Are they giving you any grief?” All I could hear was Becca laughing. “Ryan, you left this morning and you are already freaking out? The girls are perfect. It’s not like you just dropped them off at some random person’s house and took off without giving them any instructions. I’ve been watching them since they were tiny, and they listen to me more than they do you.”

  I roll my eyes, but know she is right. “I know, but this is my first trip without them. It’s the first time I haven’t tucked them in and kissed them goodnight. I’m freaking out just a little bit.” Becca just says, “I know, Ry, but the girls are in great hands. We’re all doing well. Do you want to talk to them?”

  I think about it, but then say “No, just tell the girls that I love them and I’ll call to tell them goodnight. Thanks Bec.” I hang up the phone feeling better about the girls being with their Aunt Becca and Uncle Tyler watching them, then try to not to psych myself out of seeing Brynn again. I need to think of something to say to her that won’t have her running in the other direction, again.

  Cha
pter 3

  Brynn

  Damn it, I’m late! I think to myself as a park my bike on the side of the building. I am only a few minutes late coming through the door of the pub, and no one seems to notice, but I still loathe that feeling of being late. It throws off my whole attitude.

  I blow a kiss to Kara, one of the bartenders for the night and also one of my sorority sisters from SDSU, and make my way to the stage. The bar has an indoor/outdoor layout. The indoor bar is a bit smaller and has televisions that line one wall with different sports playing on each one. There are small round tables everywhere, but a small, clear cut path through the tables leads to a door in the back corner that takes you to the outdoor bar.

  The outdoor bar is twice the size of the indoor, with long bars on either side of the layout, small tables for patrons around the back edge near the entrance to sit at and a big stage in the back with a large dance floor taking up the majority of the area.

  The stage has small Christmas lights decorating it, a drum set in the back left corner and my small piano in the front right corner with a vase full of fresh pink daises, my favorite flowers, sitting on top of it.

  I am still a bit out of it when I take the steps up to the stage. All I can think of is actually running into the one person I hoped to never have to talk to again, but I still wish he was a part of my life at the same time.

  He was my best friend for the majority of my life. We took care of each other. But he dismissed me from his life because his pregnant wife didn’t like him talking to other women after they got married.

  The part that hurt the most was not that he didn’t tell her no and defend what we had; it was that he ended over a decade of friendship through a text message. But after seeing him on the pier, even after eight years without him in my life, he still has my stomach tied in knots and looks just as good as he did in high school, probably even better. I have a feeling that I still love him, even if I don’t want to admit it.

  “What’s up, rock star?” my guitar player, Drew, asks, breaking me from my reverie.

  I walk up to him for a hug and he bends down to place a kiss on my cheek, and then goes back to tuning his guitar for the night. “Hey guitar hero, how’s it hangin’?” I say, letting go of Drew and grabbing a sheet of blank paper off the floor behind my piano to write down some songs to play for the night when we run out of requests.

  Drew is suddenly behind me, his guitar is twisted around and hanging from his back and he’s wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me to him. He leans in and whispers in my ear, “When we gonna get together again? It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had a rock star fix and I’m craving it.” I could hear the smile in his voice and I turn, smiling back.

  Drew looks like the typical guitar player. He is tall with a built upper body and full sleeve tattoos on both arms he likes to show off with skin tight t-shirts and shirts with the arms ripped off. He has deep brown eyes and long dark brown hair that he is constantly brushing out of his eyes. His bottom lip is pierced in the corner which always draws attention to the straight, white teeth he’s always flashing.

  Drew and I have an easy going relationship. We sleep together every once in a while but aren’t actually together. I haven’t had an actual relationship since I broke up with Jake and moved to San Diego, but I still date and hook up with guys every once in a while.

  “Whenever you want to get together, just come to my house. I’ll be home during the day all this week designing a new website for some clothing company” I reply, then shrug and smile.

  I love what I do for a living. I graduated at SDSU with a Bachelors degree in Chemistry and a double minor in Criminal Justice and Art, wanting to work in a CSI crime lab, but after graduation and three months in an actual lab, I realized I didn’t want to spend all my time stuck in a chemistry lab.

  Right after I quit, one of my sorority sisters, Amy, got me a job with her father’s company designing websites for different businesses, and I found out I was really good at it. About four years ago Kara told me that the new bar she was working at was looking for a singer for the house band and I auditioned and got the job.

  The singing job isn’t necessary, since I make enough money with my day job, but I have always loved singing and do it for fun.

  “How about tomorrow afternoon, then? Sound good?” He says, smiling. I just nod and turn to write down more song titles, still struggling to keep Ryan off my mind. Half an hour later, the outdoor bar starts to fill up and I know that we are going to need to start playing some music soon.

  I run my hand down the microphone stand to adjust the height and introduce myself and my band mates to the audience. “Hey, everybody. How we all doing tonight?” A few hoots and hollers came through the crowd.

  “Glad you’re all here with us. Tonight on bass, we have our ladies man, Tommy” I turn and point to a tall, skinny man with shoulder length dark red hair and piercing green eyes, but the sweetest smile you’ve ever seen. He waves shyly when girls start cat calling at him and starts picking at his bass. “On drums, we have the always sexy, Happy.” I point to the twenty something man with a bald head and a bandanna on, whose real name was Jim, but we call him Happy because he was always wearing a smile, as he starts pounding on his drum set while, of course, smiling.

  I grin and turn to Drew. Before I can even say his name, the girls in the crowd are going crazy. “This heartbreaker here is Drew.” He winks at me and starts strumming his guitar in random chords.

  I turn back to the audience, which was getting bigger by the minute and say “I’m Brynn, and we are the Pour House Band.” People start clapping and whistling. I can hear a few of the people in the audience yelling my name and could pick out a few of the voices I knew as regulars that come to hear us play.

  “So, we have a big bowl down here at the corner of the bar by my piano. If you have any requests, please feel free to write them down on a piece of paper and throw it in the bowl and hopefully we’ll be able to play it for you. You guys ready to get this night started?” I ask the crowd, which, in turn, starts screaming and clapping. I smile and say “Okay, then the first song we will play for you tonight will be “Girls” by the Beastie Boys.”

  I smile as I sit down at the piano to start tapping out the melody while people start cheering and singing along. Before I can even start the chorus of the first song, people were lining up to make their requests, which always makes it more fun if we can get people involved in what we were playing for the night. It takes my mind off the fact that Ryan might show and want to actually talk after I’m done. I am terrified that might actually happen.

  Chapter 4

  Ryan

  After a short dinner, we all start walking in the direction of the Pour House Pub. When we get to the front of the bar, I can hear a band that is playing behind the building and a lot of people whistling and cheering for them when the song finishes.

  I have to smile at the fact that Brynn is a singer in a band. She was so shy while we were growing up, and even though she was in choir all through high school, she would never sing in public. I couldn’t even get her to sing in the car when we were going anywhere and we were alone.

  My friends and I walk into the building and see a room with a few people sitting belly up to the bar and even fewer at the tables watching sports, but most people are walking to the back of the room. There is a big neon sign above a door that says Live Music, so I walk toward that door.

  “Hey man, where are you going? There’s an empty seat right here and we can watch some football.” Kyle says, tilting his head to the open bar stool on his left. “I’m going outside to see if there are any available women. Later, losers!” I say waggling my eyebrows at the guys that just sat down.

  Yeah right. I just want to see if one woman is available for me.

  Right after Amber and I found out that we were having twins, her attitude started to change. She became withdrawn from me and my family, and didn’t care about her health while she was pregnant; n
ever taking her prenatal vitamins and even drinking when I wasn’t home. As soon as she gave birth to the girls, who were luckily both born healthy, she told me that she wasn’t ready to be a mom and didn’t want to see them.

  She told me that she thought she was too young and immature to be a mother and a wife and said that she wanted a divorce. Amber checked herself out of the hospital while I was in the cafeteria getting her something to eat.

  She left the hospital without even seeing the girls and I haven’t heard from her since, leaving only signed divorce papers sitting on the bed she should have been in.

  I walk through the door to the outdoor bar and immediately see Brynn on the stage. She looks, and sounds, amazing. She is glowing with the biggest smile I have ever seen while she’s dancing around the stage singing “Ho Hey” by The Lumineers, at the top of her lungs and getting the crowd to clap with her.

  “This chick has an awesome voice!” I hear Kyle shout from behind me. I turn to see his brown eyes narrow at the stage, and then they widen and his mouth drops open.

  “Is that Brynn Harris singing up there?” Kyle asks me. I just nod. “Holy shit! I haven’t seen her since high school graduation. I wondered what happened to her. Why didn’t you tell me she was out here?”

  I shrug and say “I didn’t know she was out here. I haven’t talked to her since before my girls were born.” Kyle looks at me questioningly. “Why the hell not? You two were inseparable when we were younger. Jesus, you hit me because I tried to kiss her goodnight after prom! How have you two not talked in that long?” I shake my head slowly and shrug as I turn around and look at the angel singing on the stage.

  I can’t tell Kyle what a pussy I was. I was so mad when Amber told me to quit talking to my best friend in the entire world, but I did it in fear of upsetting her and her leaving me; then I wouldn’t have any access to my girls.