Hard As Rock (42 page)

“Cuz you fuckin’ clocked me, shithead! And you were hurting Ryan!”

Derek looked past Riley and sneered, “Ryan needs to learn how to handle his own shit and not have to get a chick to save him.”

“Excuse me?” I snapped.

Derek looked at me quizzically. “What?”

“That’s a chauvinist asshole thing to say.”

He rolled his eyes. “Give me a fuckin’ break.”

“I’ll give you a fuckin’ break,” Riley yelled.

She grabbed a drumstick she’d left lying on a nearby end table and brought it down
hard
across the edge, snapping it in two and sending one end flying across the room. Then she turned back to Derek with the jagged remains still clutched in her hand. The point looked sharp as a knife.

“You
ever
go after Ryan again, I swear to GOD I will skull-fuck you with this. But I won’t do it til
after
you hit him. That enough of a fuckin’ break for you?”

The entire room went silent. Nobody moved. None of the roadies liked messing with an unarmed Riley; Riley with a deadly weapon was decidedly on the ‘no thanks, I don’t get paid enough for this shit’ list.

Derek – clearly freaked out, and newly respectful of badass girl power – stared at the jagged stick.

“Ryan,” he said quietly, “I am apparently never, ever hitting you again.”

“Good,” Riley said, and threw the drumstick on the floor. At which point there was a collective exhale.

“But we still have a few things to settle,” Derek said as he looked at me.

“We’re going to need the room for a minute, Miles,” Ryan said.

I felt like I was about to throw up.

Miles gave one short, mirthless bark of a laugh. “Ha – you two are funny.”

“I give you my word, I won’t touch him,” Ryan said.

“Like you could,” Derek sneered.

Ryan stared him down, as did Riley.

Derek caved immediately. “Alright, alright, sorry.” He turned to Miles. “I promise I won’t do anything, either. But we need to talk to Kaitlyn – alone.”

I was hoping Miles was going to snort derisively again and refuse – but he looked back and forth between the two of them for a long moment, then nodded.

“Right, then – everybody
out.
” He pointed at Derek, then looked at me and Ryan. “This shite had better be handled when I walk back in, or else.”

He waved the roadies out. Killian quickly followed.

Riley stood her ground.

“I said everybody,” Miles snapped.

“Fuck that,” Riley growled.

“Riley,” Ryan said quietly.

She turned around to look at him.

He nodded. “It’s okay.”

She hesitated for a moment… then picked up the jagged piece of drumstick she’d dropped and walked past Derek, picking her teeth with it.

“I hear you, loud and clear,” Derek griped as she passed by.

Miles was the last one out of the room. He pointed at the three of us. “By the time I walk back in this room. Or
else.
”

And then he shut the door, leaving only me, Derek, and Ryan.

I stood there staring helplessly at the two men in my life.

They looked back at me, waiting expectantly.

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I started with the most elementary thing I could think of.

“Did she bite off your ear?” I asked Derek.

“No,” he said, and unconsciously reached up to it, though he stopped short. “She just bit into the earlobe pretty good, is all. It’ll be fine.”

“Shouldn’t you go to the hospital and have it looked at?”

“I think we have something more important to talk about,” Ryan said.

“Yeah,” Derek agreed.

I felt like I was about to hyperventilate.

“We need to know,” Ryan said. “Now.”

“Know what?” I asked, though I knew exactly ‘what.’

“You need to choose,” Derek said.

I looked fearfully over at him.

“This has to end tonight. One way or the other,” Ryan said.

“So,” Derek said. “Who’s it going to be?”

I looked between them, unable to speak.

This was it, the moment that everything came down to.

But I couldn’t decide.

The Gordian Knot was still there, hopelessly tangled and strangling the life out of me.

If I chose Derek, it would break my heart to leave Ryan – and I would be crushed to know I had betrayed all the kindness and sweetness he had shown me.

Not to mention I was deathly afraid that Derek might have changed for the moment… but that he wouldn’t stay that way. Cheetahs don’t change their spots, I reasoned, and Derek would never be faithful.

Or do they?

My mother had changed. Could Derek do the same?

The only danger was, I feared he was still a scorpion – and if I gave him the chance again, I would end up getting stung.

On the other hand, if I chose Ryan, I knew that something inside me would still yearn for Derek. He was a hunger, an itch, a drug, an addiction. Deeper than that, though, he was still the boy I had fallen in love with four years ago. The one who had told me that
Dumbo
made him cry, the one who had told me how his father had sung ‘Under The Bridge’ to him when he was four years old… the one who had begged me to stay.

The one I had walked away from, whose heart I had broken.

Either way, Bigger was over. Tonight had been their swan song. Ryan would give up the thing he loved and created, Riley would lose her surrogate family, and everybody would lose. You only capture lightning in a bottle once, and if Ryan left, so would the magic.

As I stared at them, weighing all my fears and desires, I suddenly saw the solution. Like Alexander, I had found the way to untangle the knot.

Or so I thought.

“I’ve decided,” I said.

Both Derek and Ryan watched me closely, neither one wanting to show their fear.

“Who is it?” Ryan asked.

“Me or him?” Derek demanded.

I took a deep breath.

“Both.”

They stood there staring at me mutely for what seemed like ages.

Derek spoke first.

“…what?”

“I want both of you. I
need
both of you in my life.”

“We’ve both been in your life the last few weeks, and I think we’ve seen how
that
worked out,” Ryan said darkly.

“Which means you two are going to have to work it out and learn to live with each other – if you want to stay with me.” I turned to Derek. “I know you can’t be faithful. Not forever, anyway – ”

“I can and I
will,
” he protested. “You just have to give me a chance.”

“I already gave you a chance,” I said. “You even said back in Vegas that you would have cheated no matter what.”

“That was the old me!”

I shook my head. “I can’t – I
won’t
– be with somebody who would lie to me, who would rip away everything we built together like that,” I said, snapping my fingers.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Derek protested.

I just looked at him for a moment like,
Really? REALLY.

He sighed in pain. “You won’t ever trust me again, will you?”

I hesitated for a long moment.

“Not until I see something to
make
me trust you again.”

Then I turned to Ryan. “I love you so much… but you know that I love Derek. I have, for years. I can’t pretend I’m not still in love with him. But I need you to know that it doesn’t mean I love you any less. You’re the person I want to build everything with… you’re the man I want children with, that I want a family with. But… I can’t deny that I love him, too. Maybe that makes me an awful person. Maybe it makes me somebody
you
don’t want to be with. I can understand that. But if you want us to be together… I need you to accept it.”

He just stared at me, looking hurt and confused.

“When did you come up with this wonderful little plan?” Derek asked.

“Just now.”

“I think this is just you chickening out and not having to make a decision.”

“To have your cake and eat it too,” Ryan said bitterly.

“It’s not,” I said.

“Riiight,” Derek smirked.

“If I go with you, I lose Ryan, and that will break my heart. Not to mention I know you’ll cheat on me. Maybe not next week, maybe not even for years – but you
will
cheat on me. Thinking anything else is just deluding myself. And if I go with Ryan, I
know
you. You’re obsessed, and you’d just keep on coming, no matter how many times I told you to get lost. And you know what? I’d want you to. I wouldn’t
want
you to give up on me, because deep down, I want
you
, too, the same way you want
me
. But if I cheated with you, then I rip Ryan’s heart out, and I lose him all over again. And then you go off and cheat on me again anyway, sooner or later.”

Derek gritted his teeth. “Okay… those are some pretty good reasons for
you,
but give me one good reason why both of us should have to put up with this half-and-half bullshit while you get everything you want? You’re not having to give up a damn thing here.”

“Yes I am.”

“Oh yeah?
What,
exactly?”

“Either I get you both at the same time… or I don’t get either of you.”

Ryan frowned. “What does
that
mean?”

“It means that if you can’t agree to share me… then I’m leaving tonight, and I won’t be seeing either of you ever again.”

That
got their attention.

“What the fuck?!” Derek raged.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “You and I could leave and do everything you say you want – start a family, build a life together – but you’d throw it all away because you can’t fuck him on the side?”

“It’s not like that,” I insisted.

“Sure sounds like that to me,” he snapped.

“And I’m not sharing you,” Derek said. “With
anybody.
”

I breathed out heavily.

This wasn’t going the way I’d wanted.

But I knew it was an all-or-nothing gamble… and I knew myself well enough that if I couldn’t have it, I would be unhappy for the rest of my life.

“Then I have to leave,” I said. “I can’t be with just one of you, because it will break my heart to lose the other, and I’ll end up destroying both of you.”

“No one’s making you leave,” Ryan said.

“I know.”

“You’re
choosing
that.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“Why?”

“Because if I can’t have both of you, I’m going to be miserable, and one of you will be miserable, and probably the other person will be miserable, too. You want me to choose
you
, and be happy and joyful and pretend like that’s exactly what I always wanted. But I can’t. I can’t pretend, and I don’t ever think I
will
be happy and joyful about only having one of you. So it’s better that I leave entirely, and maybe we can all start over again. But none of us will be able to do that if I go with one of you.”

Ryan shook his head in disbelief. “You would choose making yourself miserable just because you can’t have
everything
you want?”

“If there’s a shot I can have both of you, then yes.”

“Well you can’t,” Derek snapped.

“Then I guess I don’t have a choice.”

I walked over to Derek and looked him in the eye. He frowned, not understanding what the hell was going on.

“I love you,” I said, and smiled sadly. “I’ve loved you since that first night we met – I just didn’t know it at the time. You make me feel wild and free and alive. I love you… and part of me always will.”

I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. He tried to kiss me back, but I pulled away and walked over in front of Ryan.

“I love you. You are the kindest, gentlest, most wonderful man I have ever met, and I don’t deserve you.” I started to cry. “I love how safe and cherished and loved you make me feel… and I’m sorry I can’t give you everything you want.” By now I was sobbing. “And I am so, so sorry I hurt you. But at least I can set you free. I hope you find someone better than me, because you deserve that. I love you so much.”

I reached up and touched his face, then stood on my tiptoes and pulled him down to me. I kissed him passionately, knowing that this would be the last time.

I pulled away and looked at both of them, the tears blurring my eyes. “Goodbye.”

Then I turned and walked out of the room.

That was it. That was the grand plan. Ask for what I want – ask for what I needed – and if I didn’t get it, then walk away.

It hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped, so now it was time to exit.

I was bawling as I stumbled down the hallway. Part of me wondered if I was being foolish – actually, part of me was screaming,
Go back! Go back and choose one of them, you idiot!

But I didn’t, because everything I had said in that room was true. If I chose Derek, my heart would break over Ryan, and I would just be setting myself up for future misery when Derek cheated again. If I chose Ryan, then I was denying the part of me that desperately wanted to feel alive and free and wild.

The only reason to go back was to make do with a half-measure of happiness. That, and for the financial security. But I wasn’t a gold-digger. I couldn’t live with myself if I chose to stay because of money, and both of them deserved way better than that.

I would go back out into the world and make my own way.

In the end, I had myself – and that was enough.

I was almost to the elevator when I heard the door crash open and Derek yell, “KAITLYN – WAIT!”

Shit.

I jabbed the elevator button five or six times, fruitlessly praying that it would speed it up.

I heard footsteps running behind me, then felt a hand on my arm turning me around.

Derek was the one who grabbed me, but Ryan was right there behind him. Both of them were staring at me in absolute shock.

“What?!” I sobbed.

“You’re serious!”