Chapter 29
"Are you sure you wanna go home?" Lennox asked for the umpteenth time, cracking a small smile. "You can stay here as long as you want, you know."
Keyla wasn't sure about anything, but since she had a flight to catch tomorrow to attend her parents' funeral, she had to go home and pack for it. There wasn't nearly enough clothes she brought to Lennox's to suffice and, besides, running away from her problems, from the past, wasn't the answer. It was time to go back to her house and confront Sami and Jon, hoping Jon wasn't in cahoots with her ex-boyfriend. It would break her heart further if that was the case.
"I appreciate the offer, but it's time to get back to reality." Keyla replied, zipping her duffel bag up and turned to face Lennox, not returning the smile. She couldn't, not with everything happening currently in her life. "I'll call you when I get to Florida."
"You'll do better than that. You'll call me when you get home, so I know you made it." Lennox dictated, standing from the bed and pulled Keyla into her arms for a hug.
Her friend didn't know it, but Lennox and Danny had talked about the funeral, deciding they would join Keyla. They didn't want her to be alone. CZW wasn't having another event for several weeks and Danny had nothing going on. The tattoo shop was being ran by a wonderful woman named Lauren, so Lennox didn't have to worry about her business. Lauren was smart, educated and a former store manager of Hot Topic, so she had a lot of experience in customer service. Not to mention, she was covered in tattoos and knew how to do them, owning her own tattooing equipment with a license included. The moment Lennox met her, she knew Lauren was the perfect person to make the store manager while she remained the owner. Decisions still went through Lennox before anything was finalized, but she encouraged Lauren to make a few on her own since she wasn't always around the shop.
"Thank you for everything, Len." Keyla whispered in her ear, not wanting to let go because Lennox had been her security blanket for the past few days. "I'll never be able to repay you."
Lennox pulled back enough to cup Keyla's face and softly kissed her forehead, shaking her head. "Don't thank me. You're my little sister, never forget that. Now get out of here and go pack up. I'll see you soon."
Nodding, Keyla swung the duffel bag on her shoulder and grabbed her car keys along with her purse. "Thank Danny for me too, will you?"
"No need to thank me, Keyla." Danny entered the room with a smile and pulled her into his strong arms to hug her the same way Lennox had. "Sorry, didn't mean to eavesdrop."
"It's okay." Keyla whispered, pulling back after a moment and looked up into his worry-filled green eyes, tugging lightly on his chin hair. "Make things right with Sami, please."
Danny shook his head, the smile instantly turning into a frown. "No, he…"
"What he did to me has nothing to do with you or your friendship. Jon too. They don't deserve to be hated on by you just because we're friends. Don't burn bridges, Danny boy." Keyla didn't want to be responsible for his friendships with Jon and Sami deteriorating. "You asked if there was anything you can do for me. That's it. Do that for me and I'll be happy as a clam."
Keyla didn't play fair, Danny thought, a grumble rumbling from his chest. "Fine – fine, you win I'll talk to them when we all work out again."
"Thank you." Kissing his cheek, Keyla managed to crack a smile to show her appreciation and patted the other side of his face gently. "Take care of my girl here. I'll see you both in a couple days after I get back."
Danny and Lennox watched Keyla leave the house to get in her vehicle, speeding away down the street. "She doesn't know we're coming, does she?"
"Nope." Lennox grinned up at her boyfriend and pulled him down for a soft kiss. "Now get your ass moving. We have a flight to catch in a couple hours and then I'm spending the rest of the day and night fucking you in our hotel room."
Danny growled, green eyes glittering with wicked intentions. "Not unless I fuck you raw first, baby." He smacked her jean covered backside for good measure and licked his lips, watching her saunter down the hall of their house toward their bedroom.
It took him 3 seconds to follow, deciding they had time for a quick bout before heading to the airport.
The smell of bacon permeated the house when Keyla arrived, her heart picking up speed slightly. Someone was here and she hoped it wasn't Sami because Keyla wasn't ready to face him yet. If it was him, she would have to and refused to run again. This was her house and Grandpa George's; nobody would force her out of her own home unless she left willingly. That wasn't happening anytime soon either. Keyla loved this house and fought to keep it several times, which was the main reasoning for letting Jon and Sami become her roommates in the first place. Licking her suddenly dry lips, Keyla shut the front door and stopped in the middle of the living room when Jon's head poked out from standing at the stove.
Jon hadn't expected Keyla home so soon after the fight between Sami and Danny, but wasn't complaining either. He had taken the last piece of bacon out of the frying pan to place it on several paper towels to soak up the grease before checking to see who was home. Taking another paper towel, Jon wiped his hands off and tossed it away, fighting the urge to take Keyla in his arms. She looked broken, the light in her amber eyes gone and he wanted it back. What the hell happened while he was gone on his trip? Merely standing there, Jon didn't move toward her and Keyla stayed where she was, her eyes remaining on him. Since when did they act like foreign strangers with each other? Finding the courage somewhere inside of her to make the first move, Keyla turned to head toward the stairs and froze at the sound of Jon's voice cutting through the awkward silence between them.
"What happened, Keyla?" There was no point exchanging pleasantries, not after the fight between Sami and Danny. "Hey, I'm talking to you, damn it!" Jon growled when Keyla tried escaping up the stairs again, quickly closing the distance between them. "What the fuck is going on around here?"
He looked genuinely cross and confounded, questions swirling through those electric blue eyes Keyla couldn't stop dreaming about. Of course Sami didn't tell him about their past. Why would he? It was back in high school and Sami had taken the blood money from her parents to pursue his dream. They were too young to be parents anyway, but that still didn't excuse Sami's actions toward her. Leaving her high and dry to deal with the abortion alone and shattering her heart at the same time. Dealing with both changed Keyla and, soon after, she was shipped to Philadelphia to live with her grandfather. It was because of him she slipped into a deep depression and never fully recovered from what happened. Lately, her nightmares about the abortion had returned and most of them ended with her dying during the process, Sami and her parents standing over her grave laughing.
"Darlin'…" Jon took another step up the stairs, only a few away from her now and reached his hand out, seeing the hesitation and fear in her eyes. "You can trust me."
Up until now, Keyla had fought off her emotions and the tears burning her eyes, but Jon's pleas were tearing her insides apart. She wanted to trust and believe him, for him to love her the way she did him. Extending her hand toward him, Keyla immediately snatched it away and froze when the front door opened, Sami walking inside.
"Hey Jon, I need to-" The words died on Sami's lips as soon as he walked in and saw Keyla and Jon on the steps, tears flowing down her cheeks. "Kayleigh."
That was a name she hadn't been called in years and it also verified Sami was her ex-boyfriend from high school. It was all speculation until now. "It really is you, isn't it?" Her voice remained calm, cracking from the intense emotions flooding through her body.
Jon looked back and forth between Keyla and Sami, feeling completely out of the loop. "Would someone mind telling me what the fuck is going on before my head explodes?" He demanded, more than a little irritated now.
"Trust me, bro, you're better off not knowing." Sami muttered, slipping his black shades off and set them on the kitchen island, looking away from his ex-girlfriend. "Kayleigh…"
Suddenly, all the pain, angst and anger filled Keyla from head to toe, her fists clenching at her sides. Jon noticed her body shaking and backed away down the stairs, having a feeling she was about to either explode or topple down them. He wasn't sure yet.
"Don't you EVER call me that again!" She erupted, shoving past Jon down the stairs until she stood in front of Sami, amber eyes nothing more than pools of molten gold rage. "You don't have the right to call me that anymore, do you understand me?!"
"I'm sorry…" Sami whispered remorsefully, not knowing what else to say to make this right between them.
That mediocre apology fueled her temper more. "Sorry? You're sorry and that's all you have to say to me? HOW FUCKING HEARTLESS CAN YOU BE, SAMUEL CALLIHAN!" Before Keyla could stop herself, her hand connected with the side of his face and the sound echoed throughout the kitchen. "HOW DARE YOU STAND THERE AND TELL ME YOU'RE SORRY! YOU DON'T KNOW HOW SORRY YOU ARE BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I WENT THROUGH – WHAT YOU PUT ME THROUGH! I-I thought you didn't love me anymore and you left me of your own free will, not because you took blood money from my wretched parents! I thought you were better than that, Samuel, but I was wrong. DEAD WRONG! You broke me and I've never fully recovered from it, because you along with my parents convinced me to get rid of our baby! YOU LET IT HAPPEN AND DIDN'T FIGHT FOR US! YOU TOOK BLOOD MONEY AND USED IT TO MAKE YOUR FUCKING DREAMS COME TRUE! YOU ARE SCUM OF THE EARTH AND I HATE YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU, SAMUEL CALLIHAN!"
All Sami could do was lower his head shamefully, her words cutting through him like a hot pulsating dagger right into his heart. He had cried for hours after the puking incident, not believing the information overload he discovered regarding Kayleigh. She would always be Kayleigh to him, not Keyla, no matter what happened between them or what she did. Kicking him out was inevitable and Sami didn't blame her, hating himself for taking the blood money from her parents because there was fixing that. There was no returning it either or bringing their dead unborn child he helped murder back into their lives. The damage was done and it couldn't be changed.
His silence made her back up because it was clear Sami had nothing to say to her. So she decided to wedge the dagger in his heart a little deeper, refusing to live with this information by herself a day longer. "Thanks to you and my dead parents, I won't be able to have any children in the future. The abortion was botched. There was a complication and now I can't have children anymore." Now that Keyla thought about it, her mother and father more than likely ordered the doctor performing the abortion to sever her fallopian tubes to make it look accidental. "You blew my only chance at being a mother and having a family, if I wanted it. So I hope you're happy while you stand there stewing in your own self-pity, Samuel. I hope your dream of becoming a professional goddamn wrestler was worth costing me a shot at motherhood and parenthood."
Hearing that was all Sami could take, his head snapping up at her confession with wide watery green eyes. He had no idea the abortion had been botched because after receiving the money, Sami took off and never looked back. Jon watched his best friend, someone he thought he knew, flee from the house like his backside was on fire and Keyla crumbled to the floor in a heap, his arms catching her before she hurt herself. He held the shaking woman against him, wrapping his arms around her waist and tried digesting everything he just heard. It was a lot to take in, an information overload, but Jon had to stay strong for Keyla since she had fallen apart at the sight of Sami.
"I got you, darlin'. Come on, you gotta lay down." Jon murmured, lifting her in his arms and carried her upstairs to her room, laying her down on the bed.
Keyla's hand shot out to grab Jon's hand when he tried to leave, shaking her head with tears still pouring from her eyes. "Please stay." She whispered pleadingly, not wanting to be alone right now and squeezed his hand, desperately needing his warmth.
"You sure you want me in here?" Jon had to ask, knowing Keyla was incredibly vulnerable and he caught what she said regarding her parents being dead. "I'm not the best when it comes to comforting, Keyla…"
"I don't care." Keyla pulled him closer to the bed and scooted over to where Jon had enough room to join her, immediately wrapping her arm around his waist burying her face in the side of his neck. "The funeral is tomorrow for my parents and…I don't want to go by myself." She looked up into his eyes and felt his thumbs wipe away her tears. "Please come with me."
Only because he didn't want her to be alone, Jon agreed, or so he tried convincing himself. Truth was, he cared deeply for this woman in his arms and Jon didn't know how to handle emotion or feelings. Usually, when he screwed a woman that was it. He never saw her again unless the broad showed up at one of the CZW events. Even then, Jon always kept the women he slept with at arm's length, but Keyla was the exception to so many of his rules. Long after Keyla had cried herself to sleep on his chest, Jon stayed and stroked her back, resting his chin on top of her head. What the hell was this woman doing to him? More importantly, what would happen once they returned from her parents' funeral regarding Sami?
