Seal All Exits (Tangled Web #3) (8 page)

Riley said, “Got that right.  But I’d do it for Johnny if he needed me to.”

“I also don’t want to exclude anyone.  I know you all know—or you
should
—that Heather’s my best friend, and she would have to be my maid of honor.  But I’d love you all to be a part of the wedding.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said, “but then who’d watch?”

Katie smiled.  “And that’s why we decided to keep it small.  So…Heather and Riley, if you could be our best man and maid of honor, we would love for you to do that.  And the rest of you—”

“Seriously?”  Riley looked shocked.

“Yeah, man.  What’s so surprising about that?”

No words found their way out of Riley’s mouth at first.  “I don’t know.  I just—”  He shook his head.

“So will you?”

Riley gave Johnny the lopsided grin his female fans often screamed for.  “Hell, yeah.  I’d be honored.”

“Done.”  Johnny took his mother into an embrace.

“So, guys, you’re our best friends.”  Katie looked around the table.  “Kory, Erin, I know we don’t know each other totally well yet, but I suspect we’re going to be better and better friends as time goes on, and if I were going to have a large wedding party, I would love to have you both as bridesmaids.”

Kory grinned, something Heather hadn’t seen the girl do yet, and it emphasized how truly pretty the young woman was.  “I’m not complaining.  I won’t have to wear a dress if I just watch.”

Stone shook his head and squeezed his girlfriend’s shoulders.  Katie said, “Anyway, guys, you know we’re committed to sobriety, so no champagne to celebrate, but I do have some sparkling cider—pretend bubbly.  I’m going to go fetch it while you all pull out your smart phones and save the last Saturday in April for us.”

Before Katie ran to the kitchen, she kissed her future husband on the lips.  Without even thinking, Heather got up so she could help Katie serve fake champagne to her guests, and she forced a smile on her face, even though she felt unbelievably sad without any real reason for those feelings.

* * *

Heather felt relieved when she was able to head to her room to decompress.  She’d managed to avoid Kiefer’s gaze for the rest of the afternoon.  She needed to sort through her feelings.  Why the hell was she
sad
that Katie and Johnny were going to formalize their union?

Well, it took her some time to sort through the weird emotions rolling around in her chest, but she finally landed on it.  She didn’t believe in love, didn’t believe in faithfulness, all because of her stupid parents.  She
knew
logically that Katie and Johnny were not nor would ever be like the assholes who had given Heather her genes, and yet she still couldn’t extricate her feelings about love and relationships and the ever-after from her friends’ good news.  She would need to find a way, because she wanted to be the best damn maid of honor any woman could be; she simply had to find a way to leave her childish feelings behind.

Yes, they were childish, because she’d seen good, healthy relationships.  Her mother’s sister, her Aunt Anna, was an amazing woman who’d been married to her husband for over twenty years before he’d died in a car accident two years earlier.  They’d been happy and in love for as long as Heather could remember.

Her parents, on the other hand, had always been dysfunctional.  Heather could barely even remember their marriage, because they’d separated before she’d even begun attending school.  If it hadn’t been for her earliest nanny, a lovely soul named Sandy, she doubted school would have ever been a priority.  Sandy had been a big part of her life until Heather was seven, and she’d had a huge influence on Heather.  Hell, she was probably the only reason why Heather wasn’t so fucked up she’d need to be committed.

Some days, she was close, but most times she managed to maintain.

She had to find a way out of this pit.  There were two ways she could usually manage.  Three, actually, but her therapist was on vacation in the Australian outback and had asked Heather if she’d be okay for a couple of weeks without him.  Heather had assured him that she’d be fine, and she’d also taken his colleague’s phone number in case of emergency.

There were two ways—aside from therapy—that she could deal with her mental state, and one was out of the question.  She’d just pulled herself out from that pit of despair and self-loathing and she couldn’t go there again.

Kiefer…he was another way, and—thanks to their arrangement—their activities might be a way she could cope with the feelings
without
giving in to a second, and almost as deadly, emotional abyss.

First, she’d have to get control of her emotions, so she sat on the floor of her room, sitting with her legs crossed, and closed her eyes, trying to tap into her strength, what she knew was the best thing about herself.

Chapter Eight

KIEFER HAD BEEN feeling fine for the past several hours.  Ever since Heather had made her offer, he hadn’t been able to think of much else.  Yeah, Katie and Johnny’s announcement had been awesome, and he’d given them his sincere congratulations, but he hadn’t been able to fully wrap his mind around the implications.  Would that mean less time that Johnny would spend with the band?  Was that maybe why he was going to let Kiefer start penning some lyrics?

Oh, yeah, and that…Kiefer almost pissed himself when Johnny had given him the go ahead.  No way was he going to tell his boss that he’d already been writing poems and half lyrics since joining the band, hoping someday Johnny would say yes.

The barbecue was over and he hadn’t seen Heather for quite a while.  There were still lots of people around, and Kiefer had no idea if some of these newer folks were going to be spending the night at the cabin now too.  It wasn’t that he wanted to be antisocial, but he wanted to spend some alone time with Heather.  It had been all he could think about since she’d whispered those words on the deck, and he wanted to take her up on her offer.

He stood in front of her door for several seconds.  He’d just done the same thing the night before, staring at the wooden barrier between him and her, trying to talk himself into knocking.  Tonight, though, he really didn’t have anything to worry about.  He was being a chickenshit now.  She’d already given him the green light.  Yeah, she’d told him things would go back to normal after this week, but he had time…time to convince her that maybe they should try something permanent.  Sure, he knew that maybe spending lots of time together might help them to both see that they weren’t compatible and didn’t belong together, but he knew her heart.  He knew they
did
owe it to themselves to at least try.

He simply had to convince her as well.

One more deep breath and then he rapped on the door.  He could feel his heartbeat in his eardrums and wondered why the hell he was so nervous about this.  He and Heather had already broken the ice.

He knew why, though.  His heart was invested in this woman and he could sense that she wasn’t going to want anything other than what he was going to give her in these few days.  Then, they’d go back to their sterile cyberspace friendship, but he didn’t think he could tolerate settling back into a just-friends relationship after bonding with her on another level.  What was saddest was he was already there, feeling way more than he should.

Pussy.
  He could hear Mickey and Sage taunting him in his head.  He knew when they called him that it was mostly in jest, that if he told them in earnest that he was fucked up inside, they’d take him out for a beer and get him laid.  Those guys were, in all essence, his best friends, for better or worse. 

It was taking her forever to answer his knock.  He considered leaving…
like the pussy he was
, wondering if she was even behind the door or if she’d maybe changed her mind.  But before he turned, he thought he saw a shadow move under the door.  Sure enough, Heather opened the door right after, and he couldn’t help the lopsided grin that he felt form on his face.  He was getting ready to say something simply to relieve the tension, something about wondering if she’d even been there, when she wrapped a fist around the neck of his t-shirt to drag him inside.

Aggressive
.  He thought he could get used to it.

He thought he could enjoy it without even having to learn how.

Before he could give it any more thought, she pulled him the rest of the way inside the room and slammed him up against the wall, her hand splayed on his chest, as her mouth collided with his in spectacular reunion.

There
was
no thought in his head as his body shifted to pure instinct.  His hands grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close and his tongue danced with hers.  His heartbeat stopped pounding in his ears and began thudding in his chest…and it was no time for his jeans to grow tight.  That discomfort in his nether regions forced him to process what was happening, and so he brought his hands to Heather’s face and gently pulled back.  “Hey.  Maybe we should slow down.”

“What?”  Her face reflected a look of disbelief.

He sucked in a deep breath and scanned her eyes.  Then he shrugged.  “I don’t know.  We don’t have to jump in with both barrels blazing, do we?”  He saw a twinkle in her eyes and so he added, “So to speak.”  Most times, he forgot Heather had not one but two college degrees and was probably the smartest person he knew.  When he remembered, it intimidated the hell out of him.

“Did you not hear a word I said?  I distinctly remember telling you that I wanted us to get this shit out of our systems.”

He shook his head, hoping his disappointment didn’t show.  “Yeah, I know, and I’m cool with that, but…does that mean we can’t talk a little first?”

Heather blinked, not once, not twice, but several times in rapid succession, as though the very act helped her to understand Kiefer’s words.  She looked disappointed.  He didn’t want to say it, but Heather was beginning to feel like someone with multiple personality disorder.  Online, she was one person—sweet, caring, inquisitive—the same person he’d met at the Shock Treatment concert in Denver three years ago.  Now, though, the woman was aggressive and demanding.  Granted, she was also hotter than hell, something he knew she hadn’t been at the concert.  Cute, yes, but…

It really
was
like she was two different people…and maybe he needed to address that issue.  He didn’t think he could go on without talking about it, whether she liked it or not.  In spite of the disappointed look in her eye, she let Kiefer take her hands and lead her to the bed where they sat down.  He felt a little relief that she wasn’t attacking him.  Yeah, that shit was a turn on, but he wanted to talk first.  He wasn’t sure where to start, so he just began talking and hoped what he needed to say would find its way out.  “You might not know it, Heather, but you really have become my best friend.”

She was quiet for a moment before nodding.  “Aside from Katie, you’re
my
best friend.”

He looked down at his hands that still had Heather’s tinier ones inside.  He inhaled sharply, trying to find the words he needed to say.  “Sex?  It’s awesome, but I have groupies throwing themselves at me all the time.  I’ve had more sex over the last four years than I’ve had in my entire life.  And not just any sex.  We’re talkin’ anything you can imagine.  The kind of women who throw themselves at me are hell bent on one thing—they want to be the one I remember out of the vast ocean of pussy.”  He closed his eyes for a second, shaking his head.  “Sorry.”

He met her eyes.  A tiny smile formed on her lips.  “It’s okay.”

“And I know you only know about me the things I’ve told you, so it might not seem realistic to you when I tell you how much you mean to me, but it doesn’t matter.  You do.  And, much as I want to take you up on your offer—and
I will
, by the way—I’m not ready yet.  I just want a little time to enjoy you as my friend first.”

His appeal worked.  He saw her eyes soften before she nodded her assent.  Her eyes dropped to his hands and then she said, “So…what do we do?”

He hadn’t premeditated any of it but it seemed like the perfect answer.  “How about we lie down here on the bed and I hold you and I just talk for a while?  Maybe tell you some of the shit I’ve never said in an email?”  Not only had emails been woefully inadequate, he wasn’t much of a typist, and he’d grow tired after a while.  Their emails had mostly consisted of plans for the future (both of them) and funny stories about their days…or shitty stories of things they needed to vent about.  Heather might not have realized it, but she’d not only been his sounding board but his pressure valve as well.  He’d likely have ripped Sage a new one a long time ago had Heather not been there to listen to him and give him sound advice.

He was relieved when she nodded and he lay back on the bed, his back supported by the headboard.  He held out his arms and felt his heart swell when Heather lay her head on his chest, resting her right hand next to her head.  He could handle the heart swell right now and was grateful that his cock had since chilled out.  Her voice was quiet when she said, “So what’s all this stuff you couldn’t say in an email?”

His smile was small.  “I never said I
couldn’t
.  I just said I
didn’t
.”  He took several deep, slow breaths, contemplating how to explain his thoughts.  “Would you really have wanted to read long, depressing emails from me all the time?”

He could hear the smile in her voice even though her face was turned away from his.  “Don’t friends do that?”

“Yeah, but I was afraid of scaring you off.”

She was quiet for a few seconds, and he could feel her finger swirling a pattern on top of his t-shirt.  “I don’t think you could scare me off.”

Kiefer chuckled.  Man, if she knew how messed up he was inside.  He’d go ahead and tell her some, but no way was he going to hit her with both barrels.  “Let’s just say I had a shitty childhood and this might sound cheesy and stupid, but Johnny took me away from all of it.”

“Tell me that story—how that happened.”

“Well…I was kind of a bum.  I worked little jobs here and there, just enough so I could afford more weed, but I had no real direction, and I didn’t care to.  I didn’t have any real friends.  I had some friends I called the
ganja guys
.  They were around when I had shit and gone when I didn’t.”

“Fair weather friends?”

“Yeah.  Something like that.  They didn’t care about
me
; they cared about if I had any pot or not.  And that was okay at first, because it was just nice having people around, people to talk to and hang with, and I was stoned most of the time, so I was pretty mellow about it.  As long as I stayed high…it didn’t bother me.  But when I’d sober up, I’d realize what a bunch of losers I was hanging with.  So I decided to stay high all the time.  I made that my goal.  Until one day it just didn’t feel right anymore.  I felt like my brain was somewhere else, like I was empty inside, you know?  If you don’t think that was stupid enough, I started drinking to escape that feeling, and it was night three in my new alcohol strategy when I met a guy who went by the name of J. C. Gibson, and he started chatting with me.”

Heather sounded like she was growing sleepy, but she said, “Yeah?”

“Mmm-hmm.  This little bar just off the beach.  It had been a hot fuckin’ day, but the breeze off the ocean was nice and smelled fresh, and I was downing some stupid fruity drink.  I wasn’t completely blitzed yet, but I was feeling pretty light, and this guy sits next to me.  Looks really sad.  Looks like he feels worse than I do, so I say something to that effect.  He kinda laughed, but it was one of those polite laughs, you know, where you can tell he didn’t really think it was funny.  So I said, ‘What happened to you was so bad you’re drinking that shit?’  I had no idea what he was drinking.  I could only tell he was drinking it straight, and the bartender kept pouring new shots.  So he laughs again and tells me he’s had the most incredible week in his life but also the shittiest.  I couldn’t afford it, but I offered to buy him a drink anyway.  Then he
really
laughed and said he’d buy me as many drinks as I could handle if I really wanted to listen.  So I did.  You probably know the story.  He was putting together Shock Treatment, but he and Katie had kind of hooked up but that whole thing went down the shitter fast…so he was drowning out his sorrows.  And he might have been putting together a band, but he had a drummer and bassist but no singer.  Well, don’t tell the drunk guy that, ‘cause he’ll make an ass out of himself.  So I sang shit all night long and we laughed our asses off.  They kicked us out of the bar at closing time and we took a cab to Johnny’s place and kept drinking till we passed out in his living room.  I woke up with a hell of a hangover.  Johnny hardly seemed fazed.  But after we had some coffee, he asked me to sing again.  I said, ‘No way in hell.’  He asked me again then, because—he said—he’d heard something the night before that he thought he could work with.  He said there was a kind of
earnestness
in my voice that couldn’t be taught or begged out of vocalists, and he’d be honored to hear me one more time.  So I had another sip of my coffee and sang ‘Man in the Box’ and Johnny offered me the job on the spot.

“The guy who was our original drummer flaked out.  Not sure what happened there, so when we had our first rehearsal, Mickey brought his friend Sage, and we’ve been a band ever since.  So these guys…they’ve been like brothers to me.  Friends, sure.  Best friends?  Nah.  I don’t tell them stuff that really matters to me deep inside.”  Kiefer got quiet for a few seconds.  He hoped Heather understood what he was saying and wouldn’t minimize it, but at the same time he didn’t want to seem like a whiny bitch.  He’d do fine without close friends—after all, he had for most of his life—but he
wanted
more, and that was the difference.  He didn’t want to come across as weak, because he knew he wasn’t.  He’d survived a lot.  He just wanted more now.  “So, when we connected, I found myself for probably the first time opening up.”  Heather shifted so she could turn her head and look him in the eyes.  He didn’t know that he was ready for that but damned if he could stop it.  He hoped the full spectrum of his emotions for this woman wasn’t showing in his eyes, because somehow he knew she didn’t feel the same way.  Somewhere along the journey he’d fallen for her and fallen hard.  Being a close friend was perfect, because she had a beautiful soul.  He knew it was a scarred soul, just because of things she’d said even though she’d never elaborate, but he loved her nonetheless.  And then their recent physical connection sealed the deal.  There was no getting out.