Sunsets and Shades Read online

  A half grin surfaced on Kinsley’s face. “A box, huh? Filled with mementos of your love?”

  I looked down at my plate and began pushing the food around with my fork. “Something like that…”

  “Perfect! Bring it in here, and meet me in the living room around 3:00!” Before even letting me answer, Kinsley grabbed both of our plates, put them in the sink, and walked back to her room.

  At 3:00, I sat in the living room with a large box sitting in front of me - one that I hadn’t dared to look at for the past three months. The first three months of our breakup had been spent with me looking at it almost every day, poring over every word of every single note, wondering where it went wrong.

  “Well, shit,” Kinsley laughed, as she sat down next to me. “I didn’t think you would have that much. Did you seriously not get rid of anything?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, unwilling to admit that I truly hadn’t. I could only imagine how hilarious Kinsley would find that and found myself getting angry over that fact. She couldn’t possibly understand. She never would.

  “It’s OK,” she said more softly. “This just makes today’s task even better.” She opened the box and picked up a tiny stuffed bird. It was a prize that Becky had won me from a claw machine the very first summer we were together. We had made a trip to the beach and… I was brought back to reality by the sound of ripping fabric and saw my bird, in two pieces, sitting in Kinsley’s hands.

  “What the hell did you do that for?!” I spat. Who did this girl think she was? Did she really think that just because we had amazing sex, now she had the right to do whatever she wanted to my personal property?! Oh no. This wasn’t OK.

  “I’m destroying everything that reminds you of your ex. Well, I just did this one. You’ll take care of the rest. It’s therapeutic. Trust me.” There was a wide grin on her face as if she had no clue that what she was doing was wrong.

  “Oh yeah? And how would you know that it’s therapeutic?! I’m not sure how you suddenly labeled yourself the master of moving on.”

  A look came onto Kinsley’s face that I didn’t recognize. Hurt? Anger? I wasn’t sure. At this moment I honestly didn’t care because I was still fuming over the poor decapitated bird lying on the floor. “You know what? I was just trying to help. But if you don’t need my help, that’s fine. Keep holding on to all of this shit. See where that gets you.” Without another word, she stood up and stormed out of the room. Just a few seconds later, I heard her bedroom door slam shut.

  I stared down into the box in front of me and tears came into my eyes as I pulled out the first note. It was a small piece of paper that simply said, “Coffee tonight? - BC.” I remembered this note perfectly. That trip for coffee was what Becky and I always considered our first date. My first year out of college had been spent substitute teaching in a bunch of neighboring school districts. I noticed Becky the very first time I subbed at my old elementary school. She had confidence radiating from every pore, and I found that so attractive. Of course, she didn’t notice me. It took countless times subbing at the school and many stupid excuses, on my part, to stop by her room before she even remembered what my name was. By the time I got a full time job at the school the following year, we had become acquaintances. That quickly blossomed into a friendship when we discovered that we were both gay.

  I always knew that I was attracted to Becky, but I didn’t know how she felt about me. That was until the day this note was slid under my classroom door during my free period. I obviously accepted her invitation, and we spent hours in that coffee shop, talking about our lives and our dreams for the future. She stole my heart that day, and I always thought that would be the story that we told to our children and grandchildren.

  I placed that note on the floor and grabbed another one out of the box. I had to wipe my tears away so I could actually focus on it. This note was written on a piece of computer paper and looked like one that she would have left for me on her pillow or on the nightstand if she got up before me. “Happy December 1st baby!! It’s almost time for Christmas. I love spending holidays with you, and I’m so excited that we get to spend every holiday (and every other day) together for the rest of our lives.” I also recognized this note right away. This one wasn’t hard to remember since it had just been written this past December. Just 27 days before I caught her in bed with another woman. She had written me this note knowing that she was in the process of falling in love with someone else (or possibly already in love if I went by the timeline she gave me after the breakup). She hopped out of our bed early that morning, with the story that she had some sort of planning meeting. This was really just code for morning sex with her other woman, and she had the nerve to write me a note about spending the rest of our lives together.

  In the months following the break up, I had read this note over and over again as proof that she really did care. She did love me. She wanted to spend her whole life with me. She had written it plain as day. I figured that this note was the truth and everything else that had happened had just been a mistake. This was the real Becky. That girl who cheated on me and then tried to tell me that she hadn’t been in love with me for at least a year wasn’t her. But, as I read it now, I saw it in a different light. She didn’t want to be with me. She had found someone else. Yet, instead of telling me the truth, she had decided to string me along. Why was that? Was it just in case things didn’t work out with her new love? If I hadn’t caught them, how long would it have continued? Would I still be living in this messed up world where I believed I was with my soulmate, as she gave herself completely to someone else?

  My sadness turned into anger, and I ripped the note apart. Then, I turned to the other note that was already sitting on the floor and tore that apart as well. Man, Kinsley was right. This felt great. Oh. Kinsley was right. I gathered the ripped pieces of paper into my hands and marched over to her room, using my elbow to knock so I didn’t drop anything. When Kinsley opened the door, I dropped the pieces in front of her. She looked from the ripped paper and then up at me, confusion present in her eyes. Instead of saying anything, I threw my arms around her. I tried to ignore the feeling resonating in the pit of my stomach when she hugged me back, pulling me in close and breathing into my hair.

  We stayed lost in this embrace for what felt like forever, until I forced myself to pull back, immediately missing her touch. “You were right, and I’m sorry,” I apologized.

  Kinsley simply chuckled in response. “I’m sorry too. I probably shouldn’t have just killed a stuffed animal without asking you if it was OK.”

  Her laugh brought a smile to my face, and I hoped that I wasn’t also blushing. “Benny the bird totally deserved to die.” I hesitated, then added, “I’m ready though. Are you still willing to help me?”

  Kinsley’s smile grew even bigger. “Hell yeah. I love destroying stuff.”

  And destroying stuff is exactly what we did. For the next two hours, Kinsley and I made our way through the box, cutting, ripping, stomping, and even setting on fire (her idea, not mine) all of the items. I thought I would be sad to finally let go of all of my memories of Becky, but that wasn’t the case at all. I felt invigorated. By destroying those memories, I was also destroying everything that was trying to hold me back. I didn’t want to be held back anymore. I was ready to move forward.

  As I pushed the mangled contents of the box down the apartment’s trash chute, Kinsley put an arm around me. “Doing ok?” she asked sweetly.

  “I’m doing better than OK, actually.” I took the opportunity to lean in close to her, relishing the feeling of her strong, protective arm around me.

  “Good. Because the next thing I have planned is even better than this.” Oh no…

  Chapter 11: Kinsley

  “What is this place?” Grace moaned, as I parked in front of a building that looked like an old abandoned factory.

  “Just wait,” Leah answered before I could.

  Grace crossed her arms as she looked between us, and then ove
r to Liam, trying to get an answer, but none of us spoke. The way she pouted was so adorably annoying that it was totally worth keeping it a secret. “I don’t understand why you all get to know what we’re doing and I don’t.”

  Leah shrugged her shoulders. “I honestly don’t get it either. But Kinsley threatened to cut Liam’s balls off if we told you.”

  I rolled my eyes at both of them. “That’s because I was afraid she would say no if we told her what we were doing.”

  Liam hopped out of the back seat of the car like a giddy school boy. “I don’t see why anyone would say no to this. It’s going to be awesome!”

  As we all walked toward the building, I had to admit that this certainly wasn’t the type of thing that I would normally be doing on a Saturday night. Normally, I’d be at a gay bar trying to pick up a girl and not… “Ax throwing?!” Grace read after we walked into the building. “I’m not sure why you thought I would say no to this. It sounds awesome!”

  Hmmm... apparently I had misjudged her. I tended to do that a lot with Grace. Although she seemed to be an open book, there was much more to her than initially meets the eye, and I found that super sexy. Ever since we had sex a week ago, I was finding more and more about her to be irresistible. That would have been concerning for me if I didn’t feel like we were on the same page. But we totally were. We were friends. Friends that enjoyed arguing and getting under each other’s skin. Friends that happened to have had a one night stand that was sexy as hell. Just friends.

  The ax throwing was set up so two people competed at a time. You stood side by side and threw the ax at a wall that had a big target on it for scoring. Liam and Leah motioned for Grace and I to go first, so we each stepped up to the line on our respective sides. “Ladies first,” I said with a wink and watched Grace throw the first ax, which hit the wall sideways and immediately fell to the ground. I tried my best not to laugh, wondering if Grace was going to be super competitive over this.

  Grace glared over at me, clearly aware that I found her last attempt humorous. “OK, hot shot. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  I lifted the ax over my head and let it go at just the right moment for it to soar perfectly straight and stick right in the center of the bullseye. It was complete luck, but there was no way I was going to admit that. “Turns out, that’s what I’ve got,” I boasted.

  Grace groaned as she picked her ax up off the ground and walked back to the line to get ready to throw it again. As I watched her arms extend over her head, I could tell this was going to be a dud as well. I cleared my throat to get her attention. “Do you think I could give you some pointers?” Without waiting for an answer, I started walking toward her.

  “Listen I don’t need your…” Grace’s words fell as soon as I wrapped my arms around her from behind. I pushed in much closer than I had to, which immediately brought me back to the club. As much as I truly meant the reasons that I told Grace we should have sex, I had also gotten really turned on dancing with her. I couldn’t remember a time in the past when dancing made me that desperate to rip someone’s clothes off. I also wouldn’t have thought that throwing axes would get me turned on either, but here we were. I slowly moved my hands up Grace’s arms, satisfied with the goosebumps I felt forming, that told me this was affecting her just as much as it was affecting me. Once my hands made it onto the ax, I placed them over hers. “Do you trust me?” I whispered. I felt her body shiver against mine as she simply nodded in response.

  For a moment, I forgot what we were doing and got lost in the desire pulsing between us. When I finally shook myself free of the hold she had over me, I directed our hands back, then catapulted the ax toward the wall. Clearly we were both too distracted to throw it correctly because it landed outside of the target.

  “At least it stuck into the wall that time,” Liam yelled from behind us, causing Grace to jump out of my hold. Freaking men.

  We finished out the last of our throws for that round on our own sides, then Leah took Grace’s spot since I had won and got to keep playing. Leah brought the ax above her head to throw it, then brought it back down instead. “Aren’t you going to offer to give me a not-so-private ax throwing lesson?” she asked, chuckling at her own joke.

  “Ha-Ha,” I quipped. “No need to be jealous.”

  “Oh I’m not jealous. I honestly just thought we might get kicked out. I have a feeling they frown upon people having sex right out in the open here.”

  “If you think that was sex, then maybe I need to have a little chat with your boyfriend back there. He’s clearly doing something wrong.” I turned to motion toward Liam in an effort to sneak a peek at whether Grace was listening to our conversation. When I saw the two of them deep in a conversation of their own, I turned back to Leah. “Hey, I can’t help it that your childhood friend is smoking hot, and our sexual chemistry is off the charts.”

  Leah smiled slightly before becoming serious again. “Just please don’t hurt her, OK, Kins?”

  “You sound like a broken record. I don’t know what kind of person you think I am, but I told you that I wouldn’t hurt her. I mean that.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. She just has a tendency to get really attached to people, and even though she claims she won’t, I’m afraid that she’ll develop feelings, and you’ll hurt her without meaning to.”

  I didn’t know what to say in response to that, so I turned back toward my target and took my turn. It turned out that I was an ax throwing expert, so I easily beat Leah and Liam as well. Once I had successfully won every round, I motioned for Grace to come back into the ax throwing area. “Time for the next part of ‘Operation Love Sucks.’ There’s three axes here. I want you to think of three things about Becky that really piss you off, then pretend that you’re throwing this ax at her head.”

  Grace’s eyebrows came together, and she tilted her head, the slightest sign of a smile coming to her face. “That seems a bit harsh. How about I pretend it’s her hand or something?”

  This girl was too much sometimes. “I don’t care if you pretend it’s her pointer finger. I just want you to throw some damn axes.”

  “Fine,” Grace laughed, pulling the first ax from my hand. “This is for cheating on me.” As soon as the ax hit the wall with a loud thud, she turned to grab the next one from me. “And this is for insisting that you should get to keep our apartment.”

  She grabbed the last ax from me without even looking to see where that one hit. “AND THIS…” she screamed, getting really worked up with this one, “is for never letting me watch Pretty Little Liars.”

  When she looked back over at me with a fire in her eyes that I had never seen before, I nodded in response. “Good. Not sure I understand the passion behind that last one, but I’ll take it.”

  Before I knew it, that fire turned into joy, and she excitedly skipped over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder and a light kiss on my cheek. The surprise contact made me freeze up, and Grace quickly jumped back. “Sorry about that. I just got really excited. This has been a very therapeutic process for me.”

  I did my best to regain my composure. Get ahold of yourself Kinsley. It was one damn kiss on the cheek. One damn kiss on the cheek that somehow has your head spinning, but still. “I’m glad to hear that because I’m honestly making this up as I go along,” I teased.

  Grace relaxed in response to my teasing. “Well, it’s working. Also, all of this ax throwing made me hungry. What do you guys say we get some pizza?”

  We drove to a pizza shop just a block away, but Leah grabbed me before I could follow Grace and Liam in. “I’m really sorry about what I said earlier. You’re a really good person. I’ve obviously always known that, but I think it’s really cool what you’re doing for Grace.”

  I waved a hand. “It’s nothing. I’m sure you would have done the same if the timing was different. You know, minus the whole sex thing.”

  I turned around to go inside, but Leah pulled at my arm again. “I also wanted to tell you to be careful. I don’t
want you to get hurt either, and I guess I just finally realized that was a possibility.”

  I scoffed at her concern. “Come on Leah. The only way I could get hurt is if I developed feelings. We both know that’s not going to happen.”

  A look of disbelief came onto Leah’s face. “OK. Whatever you say, Kinsley,” she answered sarcastically.

  This time, I did turn around and head inside. What the hell was she talking about? As we all sat eating our pizza, I tried my best to forget about her words. I didn’t have feelings. Raging hormones? Obviously. But not feelings. That wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen.

  “What do you think Kinsley?” Liam asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  I shook myself back into reality and focused across the table at where he was sitting. “What did you say? Sorry. I must have zoned out.”

  “Leah said that this pizza is better than sex. I wanted to know if you agreed with that statement. You are the expert on both. Although, I have to admit, I’m a bit hurt by her conclusion.”

  Leah shoved him playfully. “Maybe I should rephrase that. This pizza is better than most sex. It’s not better than sex with you though.” They stared at each other lovingly, like she had just paid him the highest compliment in the world.

  “And, in your heterosexual opinion, what makes some sex better than other sex? A guy that can last more than five minutes?” I jeered, hoping my question would detract from the love eyes I was currently enduring from across the table.

  Luckily, my plan worked, and Leah took her eyes off of Liam so she could roll them at me. “You really need to stop believing all of these straight stereotypes. It’s not fair to us heterosexuals,” she joked. “But if you must know, it’s the love that makes it so great. I never thought I’d say this, but the more you care about someone, the better the sex gets.”