A Is for Abstinence (5 page)

I turned and banged my head against the wall. “Cara, please. I came to the damn party. Can’t that be enough?”

“I’m worried about you, Kyle.”

I stopped abusing my forehead and turned back around. “I’m fine. I’m just sick of dating. All the women people have pushed at me since Adrianna are all the same. I want something real. I want what you and Shane have, and I’m not going to find it with Muffin or Lollypop, or whatever her name is.”

“Candy.” Cara sighed.

She looked up at me with a calculating expression that I found highly disconcerting. I loved the woman dearly, but she was a meddler, and her schemes had a tendency to end in disaster.

“Can I go find Shane now?”

“Promise the two of you won’t disappear?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Cara narrowed her eyes. “You
will
hope to die if you let my husband ditch this party. I will bring you so much pain I’ll have you begging for mercy.”

“Understood.”

Cara gave me another warning look, then stepped aside. “Check out by the pool.”

The backyard was even more spectacular than the house. The people who went crazy with the twinkle lights had not forgotten about the trees and bushes around the edge of the lawn. There was a fire ablaze in a pit on the deck, and the pool was lit up. Candles made the water lilies floating on top of the water glow and caused shadows to dance around the yard. And then there was the view. The house was perched on the side of the hill, and the entire city of Los Angeles spread out for miles below.

I found Shane standing near the gazebo, looking absolutely miserable as he nodded along to some conversation he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to. When I waved and held up the six-pack, his eyes lit up with relief and he practically ran across the yard to me.

“You’re a saint! I thought for sure you’d bail.”

I laughed. He was truly desperate. “Please tell me this place has a secret man cave somewhere.”

Shane took one of the beers and snapped the top off on the deck railing. After he chugged half the bottle, he headed back in the house. “This way.”

“We just can’t get caught by your wife. She promised to make me suffer if I let you skip out.”

Shane laughed, but he still stopped heading toward the living room and took me to a stairway on the other side of the house. “She knows I hate this crap. Her bark is worse than her bite, I promise.”

“Says the man peeking his head around a corner to make sure the coast is clear.”

Shane flipped me off, then pushed me up the stairs. “Hurry. There’re enough people here that she’ll never miss us, but if she
sees
us leave, we’re dead.”

We made it safely to Shane’s den. There was a pool table, a minibar, and a killer entertainment system. I smirked as I eyed the room. Should have gone with the pinball machine after all.

“Now this is more like it,” I said, falling to the leather sofa.

Shane cracked open another beer and handed it to me.

“Hey, does that door lock?” I asked. “I really have to stay hidden. Your wife’s trying to set me up again. Jolly Rancher or Snickers or something.”

“Candy.” Shane shuddered. “Run while you can, dude. That one is crazy.”

A comfortable silence settled between us as we each sipped our beers.

“So, how’s the married life treating you?” I asked.

Shane let out a breath and bobbed his head. “It’s good. Not a lot different than the last three years we’ve been living together, but Cara seems happier.”

I had to agree. “She did have a certain glow about her tonight.”

Shane smiled. “The woman loves to entertain.”

I finished my scope of the man cave and noticed that the far corner of the room was all devoted to Shane’s music. Framed photos hung on the walls with some of our band’s awards, and his instruments all stood on their stands, polished and shiny.

I emptied the last of my beer, then wandered over and picked up a bass guitar. My voice was my main instrument, but I played a little piano and could get by on bass, electric, and acoustic guitars.

My fingers curled around the neck of the guitar. I hadn’t picked one up in months, but plucking at the strings was instinctive.

“Hey, remember this?” I asked, laughing a little to myself. I plugged the guitar into an amp and ripped out the bass line to Metallica’s “Orion.”

Shane laughed. He plugged his guitar in too and nodded at me. Before we knew it, we were jamming the way we used to back in high school. One song became two, became three. Metallica, Pink Floyd, The Beatles. Hell, we even got some Chili Peppers in there.

Then, suddenly, for no reason, I wailed out the intro to “Cryin’ Shame.” Shane didn’t question me; he just followed along and I fell into a zone. When I opened my mouth, the words came out impassioned—filled with confusion, anger, and even desperation. I sang my heart out as I hadn’t done in years.

She’s smokin’ hearts with a burnin’ flame

She’s got a wild side without a name

And when she’s riled it’s a cryin’ shame

Yeay! Yeah! Yeah! I’ve got it bad

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I’m goin’ mad

’Cause in your head you’ve got it right

Won’t go to bed without a fight

You think you’re wise, you think it shows

So show me wise without those clothes

She’s playin hardball and it’s nothin’ new

Short skirts so enjoy the view

She’s a cold blooded tease baby through and through

Yeay! Yeah! Yeah! I’ve got it bad

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I’m goin’ mad

’Cause in your head you’ve got it right

Won’t go to bed without a fight

You think you’re wise, you think it shows

So show me wise without those clothes

Come on legs don’t go to waste

I could be your only savin’ grace

Put those morals on the backburner

Something tells me you’re a fast fast learner

Yeay! Yeah! Yeah! I’ve got it bad

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I’m goin’ mad

’Cause in your head you’ve got it right

Won’t go to bed without a fight

You think you’re wise, you think it shows

So show me wise without those clothes

When it was over, I stood there: chest heaving, heart pounding, hands shaking. I wasn’t sure where that had come from or why it chose that moment to burst out of me, but it had been a release I’d desperately needed.

“Feel better?”

Shane was watching me with a curious look.

I took a deep breath and attempted to pull myself back together. “A little,” I admitted as I set the guitar back on its stand. “I don’t know why that song haunts me so much.”

“It’s not the song that haunts you,” said a soft voice, startling both Shane and me.

We whirled around at the intrusion to see Cara standing in the doorway to the den, clutching some kind of book to her chest. Her eyes were misted over.

Shane panicked. “Babe! Hey! I was just giving Kyle the grand tour. I swear we were on our way back downstairs.”

“I’m sure.” Cara gave us a knowing smile and shook her head. “It’s okay…this time.”

She stepped in the room and shut the door behind her. Shane rushed to her side, whispering apologies and gratitude and other stuff I didn’t need to hear that made Cara giggle and stick her tongue in his mouth. They’ve always been gross like that.

I cleared my throat, and Cara smiled at me. “It sounded good,” she said.

I shrugged uncomfortably, having no idea what to say.

She held out the gigantic book in her arms. “I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

She laid the book on the pool table and opened it to the first page. “This is the keepsake journal I made during the
S is for Sex
tour.”

“You made a scrapbook?”

I slid up next to her and stared down at the pages as she slowly turned them. They were filled with pictures, magazine clippings, ticket stubs… Each page brought back a minefield of memories.

“It’s not the song that haunts you, Kyle,” she said again. “Remember this?”

She flipped to the last page in the book where a small, clear pencil bag was clasped into the book’s rings.

Something twisted inside me at the sight of my old abstinence bracelet laying in the bag. I pulled the leather band out of the pencil bag and ran my fingers over the small silver
A
charm. “I thought I lost this.”

“You almost did,” Cara said. “I was backstage with Adrianna the night she found it. I barely stopped her from throwing it out. It was near the end of the tour and the bracelet was in the pocket of the pants you’d worn onstage that night. Adrianna was livid when she realized you’d been carrying it with you all that time—that you kept it on you while you performed, like it was some sort of lucky charm.”

When I squirmed and started to back away, Cara grabbed my hand. “It’s okay,” she said, which only embarrassed me even more. “I kept my necklace, too. You weren’t the only one who felt her loss.”

“I don’t know why I kept it.” The confession came out in a whisper.

“Because you loved her, Kyle.”

I’d been staring at the bracelet, but my head snapped up. Cara met my gaze with solemn determination. She was not about to let me deny it.

I dropped the bracelet and pushed away from the pool table. “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I asked, raking my hands through my hair as if that could solve the mystery. “Adrianna accused me of the same thing. Hell, it was the reason we broke up. But I
didn’t
love her.”

Cara gave me a look as if to say, “Yeah right.”

She was crazy. I liked Val, sure. Wanted her? Hell yeah, more than anything. I’ll even admit that I cared about her. But love? How can you fall in love with someone you never even dated?

“Maybe I was a little infatuated, but—”

“People get over infatuation. They don’t take their biggest hit out of the set list, even when their management team threatens to sue.”

When she put it that way…

But that was crazy. It wasn’t possible. Was it?

“Maybe you didn’t know it,” Cara said, breaking me from my thoughts, “but you loved her.”

For reasons I couldn’t explain, anger swept through me. “So what if I did?” I snapped. “What the hell does it matter? That was years ago. It’s
over
.”

“Is it?”

So now she was accusing me of still not being over Val, too? She was as bad as Adrianna. What the hell? Was the whole world conspiring against me? Why couldn’t anyone just let it go? If I was still hung up on Val, I didn’t see how people constantly throwing it in my face was supposed to help me.

I grabbed another beer from Shane’s six-pack. Shane was ready and waiting with a bottle opener, a look of apology in his eyes.

I fell to the couch again and tried to drink away my frustration. Cara sat down beside me and placed her hand on my knee. “I haven’t kept in touch with Val, but it seems Google still knows her pretty well.”

I stopped drinking my beer and eyed Cara. I didn’t know where she was going with this, but I was sure it was no place good.

“Word is she’s single.”

And now I understood. I buried my face in my hands and resisted the urge to yank fistfuls of my hair out.

“You said you want something real,” Cara said. “I think you and I both know where you can find it.”

I cursed Cara for even suggesting the idea, but at the same time the seed was planted. Hope exploded inside me. As much as I tried to push it down, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Cara.” I groaned. I didn’t know what I felt right then other than an urge to strangle my best friend’s wife.

“How long has it been since you’ve been with a woman?” Cara asked.

I glared at her, and she pinned me with a defiant look. I lost the battle of wills. “The cheer squad,” I admitted with a sigh of defeat.

“That was two months ago, Kyle.”

I glared again. “I don’t need the reminder.”

Cara’s answering smile was full of mischief. Her face lit up and she grabbed my hand. My heart skipped a beat or two when she clasped the abstinence bracelet around my wrist. “Why don’t you give your dry spell a purpose?” she said.

The bracelet felt heavy on my arm—its significance weighed me down. In all the months I’d carried the bracelet with me, all the shows that I’d kept it close, I’d never actually put it on. I couldn’t do it, knowing what it stood for.