Feel My Love Page 3
“Guess we just grew apart after I got married to the devil.” I had to swallow past the lump in my throat. I still feel so guilty sending that text message. I knew that having to tell her goodbye was going to hurt her feelings; she had talked about being Auntie Brynn to my unborn baby and living down the street from us so that our kids could grow up together and be best friends like we were.
Brynn disappeared before I got a chance to tell her that I was having twins. She had every right in the world to hate me; I just wished that she didn’t because, looking at her on stage, I know that I am still in love with her.
“Brynn fucking Harris. Ya know, she was hot in high school, but now she looks downright fuckable.” Kyle says, running a hand through his hair behind me. I turn in my chair and give him the look of death. “Aren’t you getting married in two days, asshat?” I growl.
“Well yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still look. Just don’t tell Lola I was looking. She’d kill me!” Kyle smiles. I chuckle and turn back toward Brynn because I don’t want to miss a second of her singing.
Everyone starts clapping as she finishes singing some Taylor Swift song and the guitar player walks up and kisses her on the cheek. I feel a pang of jealousy and ball my hands into fists. I noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring when I saw her earlier, so is she dating him?
I can’t believe how upset I’m getting; I know she isn’t mine. Hell, I haven’t seen her in almost a decade, so why does it hurt so much to see other men with her now? She smiles and walks over to what looks like a fish bowl at the corner of the stage. She bends down, pulls out a piece of paper, and then smiles over a grimace when she reads what is written on it.
“Oh, man. Really, people? We’re going to have to find whoever put this request in the bowl and give them a swift kick to the shin.” She giggles, and with a shake of her head, says “Okay, here’s a request for a song people pretend they hate, but know every word to, so I want you guys to help me sing it. Alright?” Brynn smiles and people start clapping and agreeing.
After turning to the band to let them know what song they are playing, she turns and says “It’s “Call me maybe” by Carly Rae Jepson.” People boo and groan which just makes Brynn laugh before she starts singing. But just as she asked, people are singing along with her and dancing on the dance floor.
An hour later, the other boys from the wedding party join us after watching a little football and we find a table in the back so we could sit out and listen to Brynn sing. She has a genuine smile plastered to her face while she sings and people are coming in hoards to listen to her beautiful voice.
The dance floor is packed and the bars are busy, which seems really odd to me, since it is a Thursday night. I thought no one went to bars on weekdays, but that must just be our little hometown. I walk up to one of the bars next to the dance floor and order a round of tequila shots and some beers for all the boys.
When the bartender comes back to place all of the drinks in front of me, she notices I can’t stop staring at Brynn. “She’s amazing, isn’t she?” the bartender says. I turn to look at her and glance at her nametag. Kara.
I look back up to the bartender, who is shorter, about five feet tall, with short blonde hair that barely fits behind her ears, and big, obviously fake, breasts practically falling out of her pink tank top. She’s pretty and most men would have a hard time not staring at her chest, but all I can think of is the angel standing on the stage.
“She sure is, Kara. Is your bar always this busy on a weekday?” I ask, genuinely curious as to why so many people were here. She bobs her head from side to side, and then says “Mondays and Tuesdays are much quieter. Those days we have open mic so that the band can have a few days off. Wednesday through Sunday it’s always like this. They all come out to see her.” Kara smiles and angles her head in Brynn’s direction.
“She’s my sister. I love her to death.” I look at Kara with confusion scrolled across my face. “No offense, Kara, but I’ve known Brynn since we were kids. I know her sister, and you look nothing like her.”
Kara just shakes her head and laughs. “She’s not my biological sister, dude. She was my sorority sister in college. Most of the people that come here are from SDSU and used to listen to her sing in the band she played with in college at our house parties or heard from former sisters how great she was and they bring friends.”
Wow. She was in a sorority? I never would have pictured Brynn in some giddy, uppity sorority. She used to make fun of girls like that when we were younger.
“Wait, you knew Brynn before she moved out here?” Kara snaps, pointing a finger at me. I nod and look back at Brynn trying to figure out who she is now. From the things Kara is saying, there isn’t a trace of the old Brynn I knew standing on that stage.
“What did you say your name was?” Kara asks. “I didn’t say. My name is Ryan. Ryan Thompson.” I finally peal my eyes off of Brynn when Kara has been quiet for way too long. All of the sudden, Kara’s face turns bright red and she looks pissed.
She stands on the other side of the bar gripping the edges, and looks like she is counting to ten before she says anything to me. She lets out a puff of air and then says through gritted teeth “Wow. So you’re the infamous Ryan Thompson, huh. I’ve heard a lot about you over the years.”
“You have? From the look on your face, it doesn’t look like you heard anything that was good.” I say, wincing. “You know, I should totally thank you, Ryan.” She answers through a reluctant smile and a head shake.
Okay, that confuses me and it must show in my expression because Kara just laughs. “Because of you, that awesome girl on stage there” she hikes her thumb in Brynn’s direction “came out of her shell and is one of the most amazing, crazy, outgoing girls I know.”
I smile at the words Kara uses to describe her sister, but- “Wait, I don’t understand. Why are you thanking me for that?” I say, arching my brow.
Kara turns up one side of her mouth. “Because when she moved down here, she was my roommate at the dorms of SDSU. At first, she was so quiet and reserved and just did whatever anyone asked her to do. Then after about a month, she told me about what happened between you guys and about the stellar text message you sent her.”
I cringe. Damn, that text message will be the death of me. Kara continues, “She wrote down on a giant poster board what you sent her in that text and stuck it to the wall in our dorm room. It reminded her that she needed to be her own person and stop trying to please everyone. She decided she needed to enjoy her life, so she talked me into joining the sorority. She started a band when we were in college. She has an awesome job that she loves.”
I jack my thumb toward the stage where Brynn is singing some song from The Civil Wars I recognize, but can’t think of the name to, and say, “And obviously she’s really good at it. These people love her.”
“This isn’t her day job.” Kara says. “She does this for fun and brings the rest of us tons of money while she sings.” I arch my eyebrow, “Well, what is her day job, then?” Kara shakes her head as she stares daggers at me.
“If you don’t know what she does for a living, she must not want you to know. I know enough about you to know that Brynn would kick my ass if I told you things she didn’t want you to know. Enjoy your drinks, Ryan.” Kara smacks the bar top twice and walks away to help another customer. Shit. After that conversation, I am afraid Brynn is never going to talk to me again.
Chapter 5
Brynn
It’s almost midnight, which means that we’re almost done playing for the night. I saw Ryan at the bar talking to Kara earlier in the night, but haven’t seen him since. I’ve had to force myself to focus on the songs so that I don’t keep looking into the audience trying to find him.
A small part of me is afraid that he left the bar with the guys he came with, but a bigger part of me is afraid that he stayed. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk to him, and to be honest, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to talk to him because
I’m sure I’ll forgive him on the spot.
Even though it was eight years ago since I got dismissed, it’s still a fresh wound on my heart, but I’ve never been one to hold a grudge toward people. Life is just too short for that. I walk up to the microphone and announce that this will be our last song of the night; the still packed bar is a mixture of groans and cheers.
I walk to the side of the bar and scoop up my ukulele and strum it a few times to make sure it’s in tune. Some of the people in the crowd know which song it is, but I walk up to the microphone again to introduce the song to those that don’t.
I clear my throat and say, “So, for the last song of the night, I’m going to play one of my personal favorites. This is a happy song called “You and I” by Ingrid Michaelson.” People cheer while Tommy and Happy walk off stage for the night and Drew walks up next to me and puts his arm around my waist to help me sing the song.
After the song ends, people whistle and cheer. I turn and smile at Drew, who kisses me on the lips quickly and walks off stage. I pull my brows together as I watch Drew leave, wondering where all of this affection is coming from. We hardly ever kiss, especially when we’re on stage.
I put my ukulele back on the side of the stage and grab my bottle of water off of the top of my piano, but when I turn back around to face the dance floor, Ryan is standing in front of me, smiling awkwardly with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
Shit. For some odd reason I thought he’d let me off the hook, but then I forgot how well I used to know Ryan. He was persistent and always got information out of me after a while. When we were growing up, I was a bit of a tom boy and the preppy cheer leaders used to tease me about it.
Ryan noticed that I wasn’t my usual “happy” self and asked me what happened. After telling him at least twenty times that it was nothing, I finally gave up and caved. Since Ryan was so popular in high school, he used his charm and got the cheer leaders to back off, which they did. At least they did when he was around.
I walk to the end of the stage toward the stairs with Ryan on following alongside me.
I am trying so hard to think of some way to get out of having a conversation with him, but when I meet him at the bottom of the stairs and he looks so hopeful, and also so damned good looking, I decide that it couldn’t hurt to just talk to him for a half an hour or so. That’s not enough time to go into deep details of our lives and me to fall more in love with him than I already am, right?
I’m smiling as we walk toward the back to find a table, slowing while people are hugging me and telling me how much they love my voice. A few men are kissing my cheek and pinching my ass, but my smile fades when I look at Ryan sitting at a table, his face is bright red and his hands are clenched in fists; knuckles white.
I glare at him questioningly, wondering how he can possibly be upset when he was the one that dismissed me so long ago. His wife was somewhere in this city waiting for him to return to a hotel, instead he’s taking a seat across from me at a small table in the back of a bar.
Before either of us can get a word out, Kara comes over to our table, pushing her short blonde hair behind her ear, and hands me a tumbler of Crown and Coke. “Need anything else, Brynnie?” she asks, looking at Ryan. “Nope, I’m good. Thanks Kare.” I say and glance back to Ryan who hasn’t taken his eyes off of me.
I take a sip of my drink through the small red swizzle straw, trying to find a way to compose myself and think of something to say, but Ryan beats me to it. “You have a tattoo?” he asks incredulously.
The sleeves of my white cardigan are pushed up to my elbows and I look down to the inside of my left arm where the word Enough spans the length of my wrist and is inked in bold black letters with small doves flying around it.
“Yeah, that’s one of them. It was actually my first one.” “One of them?” he says with one eyebrow raised. “How many do you have?” I look down at my drink while I count all the different tattoos I have.
Finally I look up and say “I have thirteen different ones, but I was going to get another one in a few weeks. I’m not really superstitious, but thirteen tattoos just doesn’t sit well with me. I need another one.”
“Wow. I can’t believe you have one, let alone thirteen of them. I always thought you hated them” he says, shaking his head while one side of his mouth is pulled up.
“No, I always wanted to get at least one, but my mom never liked them. She told me that no one should put graffiti on their temple.” I sneer and pull my brows together just a bit thinking of the disgust on my mother’s face when she would see people with tattoos.
“What does it mean?” Ryan asks, pointing at my wrist. I clear my throat and answer him as simply as I can. “It means that no matter what anyone else thinks of me, I am enough.” I look away before I can get emotional. I got that tattoo with my parents in mind.
After a minute of uncomfortable silence, he mumbles, “So, what does your mom think of all of these tattoos, anyway? I bet she just loves them.” He smiles at me trying to lighten the mood that settled over the table, but that was one topic that sits heavy with me.
When I told my parents that I didn’t want to live at home, didn’t want to marry Jake, and didn’t want to start a family as soon as possible, they freaked out. I told them that I had received my acceptance letter from SDSU and my father simply told me that if I left I was not welcome back into their home or their family. I would be considered a disappointment to the family name and neither he nor my mother would settle for that. He said it with such simplicity that he may as well have been discussing the weather.
I haven’t spoken to either of my parents in almost eight years. My younger sister, her husband and their little boy have only been down to visit once, but I still talk to her at least once a month to check in on them. I only talk to my sister about her and my nephew.
I have told her over and over I don’t want to know anything about our parents or anything that is going on back home. I’ll never go back there, anyway, so what is the point of keeping up with the stupid small town gossip.
I never talk to anyone about my family problems, so I look up at Ryan and say, “She hasn’t seen them. “ I quickly glance away and wave to a few people I knew from college, still sitting around finishing their drinks before they leave the bar, while I’m trying to come up with anything to say to get off the topic of my family.
“So…” I drag out the word. “How have you been? What’s new with you?” Ryan could tell I was uncomfortable. He smiles and looks at me for a minute before he answers. “I had no idea you came here, Brynn. Why did you leave everything behind and come here?”
I just look at him and shake my head slowly, trying to fight back the tears that have mysteriously appeared in the corners of my eyes. My legs are bouncing and my bottom lip is trembling. I had asked myself those very questions for the first few months of moving out here, but having this man I used to think was my whole world ask them seemed to punch me in the gut.
“I didn’t leave anything behind. What did I have to wait for back home? My life belonged to everyone else back there. I didn’t have anything that was mine. I just needed to live my life for myself, Ryan. I am, now, and I’m happy and my family is happy for me.” I give him a sad smile and take a deep breath to keep the tears from spilling over.
I finish my drink in record time and look back to Ryan. “Well, it’s been nice seeing you again, but I should really get going. I have a lot going on tomorrow and I need to get some sleep.”
I stand up, turn to Kara and wait until she looks at me, and blow her a kiss letting her know I am leaving for the night. She pulls her brows together and nods her head toward Ryan behind me, silently asking me if everything is alright. I nod and turn back to Ryan, hoping that he is done with his interrogation and can’t see that I am lying to him about my family’s acceptance of my move, trying to hide my weird lip pull that happens when I lie to people.
Chapter6
Ryan
I know she
is lying to me; her lip would always pull up in a small wince when we were younger if she lied to me. I just couldn’t figure out why she was lying about seeing her family. I still speak to her family. I live down the street from her parents in the house she grew up in.
Her sister, Becca, has been watching my girls for me since they were little. I know she hasn’t been back once since she left, but no one in her family would ever tell me where she went and when they had last talked to her.
I stand with her hoping to prolong our time together. Brynn steps forward and hugs me awkwardly, as if to say goodbye. I hug her back as tightly as I can with the odd position her body is angled in and take in a deep breath of her beautiful, loosely curled hair.
She smells like oranges, just like she did when we were younger. After she pulls back she looks around the emptying bar, as if searching for someone; I’m just hoping it isn’t that guitar player.
“Where’s Kyle? I saw you sitting with him and Mike and wanted to say hello to them.” Brynn says. “Oh, uh, they left about an hour ago. Most of the guys were trashed and then Kyle’s fiancée, Lola, called and told him she needed some help with a last minute wedding thing. I think she thought we were at a strip club and didn’t want him there so she came up with some bullshit excuse to get him home.” I smile.
Kyle was whipped when it came to Lo. She says jump and he does it. “That’s too bad. I was hoping to have seen him before you all went home. Why is the wedding out here, anyway?” She says with a confused look on her face.
“Kyle moved out here about a month ago to live with Lo. They met at some convention he had to come out here for and he did the back and forth for almost two years while they decided where they wanted to live. San Diego, and Lo, won.”
As Brynn finishes listening to my explanation, she nods and then starts heading to the door as if ending our conversation. What she isn’t counting on is that I am following her. I’m not about to let her walk out of my life as easily as I did before.