Chapter Nine
The grocery store was almost empty when Kevin walked in. He was thankful for that, because if there was one thing he hated more than anything, it was grocery shopping. He was only getting a few items that Gwen didn't have for the dinner she was throwing him.
Gwen knew that Kevin would be on a case and most likely she wouldn't be hearing from him for a while, so she wanted to have a family dinner before he took off. She hadn't done it the first time he'd gone undercover, because Kevin hadn't mentioned it to her, but after she'd gone to Javier and Beckett to report her brother missing, Kevin had learned his lesson.
Gwen seemed a little worried, but Kevin had tried to reassure her that he would be fine and that the chances of anything harm coming to him would be very low. He'd gone undercover before; he knew what he was doing. Sure, he worried too, but he also had confidence in his own abilities.
He just wanted Gwen to believe in him.
Walking down the aisle, Kevin searched for the assorted items that he'd need. Gwen had given him a list: assorted cheeses, beans, green onions, tomatoes, and corn chips. Kevin had gathered the three different cheeses that were required, grabbed the tomatoes and green onions, so all that was left was beans and corn chips.
Thankfully it was such a menial task that Kevin didn't need to put too much effort into paying attention. His mind was on other things. He was going undercover again. He had a lot of planning and information to remember, and if he was being totally honest with himself, he was probably putting more effort towards those things so that he wouldn't have to think about all the things that could go wrong.
As long as he had his persona under lock and key, memorized the pertinent information, and relied on his training, he wouldn't have to worry about much of anything, but he also knew that he could easily mess up the whole thing and that was what worried him the most. He tried to ignore those thoughts, though. They weren't of any help.
Every so often Kevin would think about the people in his life and think about what it meant to leave them behind. Not everyone knew that he was leaving for a undercover work, but he knew that they would come to that conclusion if they gave it enough thought. Javi had figured it out soon enough and Kevin didn't even have to tell him much of anything. Javi was smart like that though.
He wondered if Alexis would ever put the pieces together. It wasn't a huge leap for her to make, after all. He'd done a couple small stings undercover when they'd lived together, but nothing of this caliber. The assignment he was taking on could easily take months, if not a year.
Kevin didn't want her to know where he'd gone, and he'd given Javi a fake story to tell her if she ever asked about him. He didn't think she would, but on the off chance, he wanted to have a story ready for her. Javi didn't like it, but he could hardly go against Kevin's wishes and Kevin knew that he wouldn't.
Leaving and not telling Alexis seemed like the right thing to do. That didn't stop him from thinking about her though. Those few days of working on a case together, coupled with their moment in the training room, were evidence enough that they needed to stay away from each other. He couldn't be around her without hurting her, and having her around never failed to mess with his head. He wasn't even close to being over Alexis, and he had a funny feeling it'd take a long while to achieve that.
On the bright side, where he was going, he wouldn't have the time or luxury to think about her. Maybe a few months without her taking up space in his brain were exactly what he needed.
Finding beans had turned out to be harder than Kevin initially thought it would be, but after looking closer he saw a couple of cans pushed back farther on the shelf. He reached back, pulling both cans out and also knocking a can of kidney beans off the shelf. He cursed under his breath as he bent down to pick them up.
His phone starting ringing when he put the cans back on the shelf. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and saw Gwen's name across the screen.
He answered, "I've got everything but the corn chips, and I'm on my way to get them now. I should be there soon."
"Good. I was also going to ask if you could pick up a bottle of wine. I'll pay you for it when you get here."
"I'll see what I can do."
Kevin turned into a new aisle and stopped when he saw a woman further down. Her back was to him, but he'd know that red hair anywhere. He paused for a moment and vaguely heard Gwen saying something, but her voice seemed to be coming from far away.
Of all the grocery stores in all of Manhattan—
"Kevin?"
Kevin shook his head and pressed the phone closer to his ear. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that," he said, his voice much more quiet than it had previously been.
"I said that I would prefer red to white."
"Okay," Kevin said, debating whether or not if he should walk away. Why did she have to be down the same aisle as him?
"Alright. I'll see you when you get here."
"See you."
Kevin hung up and then carefully moved closer, almost sure that he was imagining it all in his head. She wasn't the only redhead in the world, so he didn't need to freak out. The jacket that she was wearing did look familiar though. He walked past her, forcing himself not look in the her general direction. He looked at the different brands, sizes, and colors of chips that surrounded him, but in his peripheral vision, his focus was on the redhead.
He absentmindedly ran his fingers over the bags, not really doing anything, but watching to see if she'd notice him. It wasn't as if he wanted to walk over and talk to her, but part of him wanted her to notice him.
It had been weeks since he'd last seen her, and though he'd been burying himself in preparations for his assignment, all those feelings he'd been carefully ignoring came rushing back.
Kevin, being a glutton for awkward situations, coughed loudly and made sure to knock a bag off the shelf. It was maybe the dumbest thing he could have done in that situation, but Kevin did it. He had a dinner to get to, but here he was trying to get her notice him, even if it did make him look like a moron in the process.
He tried to sneakily look in her direction, to see if she even noticed him, but she was putting something back on the shelf. Kevin sighed and bent down, picking up the bag placing it back on the shelf. He felt like a moron, just like how he looked. Before he could do anything else, he heard her voice.
"Kevin?"
He stopped, but didn't look in her direction immediately. He had no idea what to say. Why did he have to get her to notice him. He bit his lip and turned around. "Oh, hey."
"You okay?"
"Uh, yeah. I'm fine."
Alexis looked down at the ground. "You left your basket on the floor."
He looked down and then picked it up. "I'm headed over to Gwen's. She wanted to have a family dinner," he offered, even though she hadn't asked.
"Oh, that's nice."
"Yeah," he murmured. It was so awkward and Kevin didn't know how to move the conversation forward. A voice in his head was telling him to just say goodbye and get the hell out of there, but strangely he couldn't force himself to leave.
"It's been a while. How have you been?"
"Um, I've been good. Just working, you know? How've you been?" he asked, like he didn't just cause a scene in the hopes that she would notice him.
"Fine," she said quickly.
He wondered about what Alexis would think when she would find out about him leaving.
"That's nice that you have Gwen and the kids."
"Yeah, I've got them." Kevin said, looking her over. Even though she looked as beautiful as ever, he couldn't help but notice that she did look like she hadn't been sleeping good. "You have your dad, right?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Things with him are going well, but he's still a work in progress, you know?"
He didn't want to know, just as much as he did want to know. It was a struggle, but Kevin was weak and couldn't help himself.
"So, are you seeing anyone?"
"You mean, like dating?"
"Sure."
"No. I'm not. How about you?"
"Nope. Haven't really been searching out anyone. Don't know if I'm ready for a relationship."
Kevin blinked. What the hell was he doing? Why was he telling her that? Not only was that too much information for such a simple question, but he also just alluded that he didn't want to see anyone. What if Alexis was thinking about...No. Why would Alexis want to get back together with him? Kevin shook his head at himself.
"Oh, well that's interesting."
Interesting? "Why?"
Alexis took a deep breath and shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I thought that you might get back with Jenny."
Kevin stared at her for moment, trying to figure out if she had actually suggested that he would get back together with Jenny. Was she being serious?
"What?"
"I just thought that would be that case, you know, since I was out of the picture."
Kevin dropped his head, trying to gather himself. He could already feel heat waves coming off of him. "I don't know why you would think that. She was the reason we ended, so why would I be with her now?"
Alexis shrugged. "I don't know, I just thought…"
"That I wanted to be with her?" he guessed.
"Well yeah. I mean, it's okay to admit it now. You wanted to be with her when we were together, right?"
"Absolutely not!" Kevin yelled and then realized that they were in a grocery store and that he yelled loud enough for everyone to hear him. He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. "It was never like that."
"Okay." Alexis said with a nod, like the conversation was over, but Kevin was just getting started.
"No, why would you have asked such a stupid question?"
"She wormed her way back into your life when we were together, I figured that she would have done it again since we had broken up."
"And I would have taken her back, because I'm just that weak?"
"No," Alexis sighed and shook her head. "That's not what I said."
"You implied it."
"Maybe because…" she stopped herself. "I should get going."
"No, what were you going to say? I'm here, so say it."
"Kevin, I don't want to get into this."
"Say it."
Alexis looked around and shook her head. "Maybe I thought you would get back together with her, because you were feeling horrible about how things ended with us. Maybe she would play on your emotions and-"
"Seriously? You think I haven't learned my damn lesson? Letting her back into my life was a mistake."
"You didn't seem to care at the time."
"At the time, I wasn't thinking."
Alexis folded her arms across her chest. "Well maybe things haven't changed."
Kevin let out an audible breath. "Wow. Those are great words coming from the woman who fucked another guy behind my back."
"Yeah and while I was doing that, you were with Jenny just like you always seemed to be towards the end of our relationship."
"That's such a fucking cop out and you know it. I made a mistake by letting Jenny into my life again, but that didn't entitle you to go out and fuck someone else. I certainly wasn't fucking Jenny."
"Or were you? I remember the kind of guy you were when we first met, you'd sleep with anyone with a cute smile."
"I bet you wish that you could blame it on me, but what you're so pissed about is that you were the one to ruin it all. You couldn't keep your legs closed and that's why we ended. Don't try and get out of it, by deflecting. It makes you look weak and pathetic."
Kevin knew somewhere in the back of his head that he was letting the conversation get out of hand and saying things that he shouldn't have, things that he was saying just to make Alexis mad, but he didn't care. He only really felt comfortable being the "Asshole" version of himself, so that's what he was doing.
"Wow, so much for having a civil conversation."
Kevin rolled his eyes. "Blaming me again. I thought we were doing great up until you mentioned Jenny. Are you that stuck on it? Why?"
"I'm not stuck on it."
"Then why bring her up?"
"I wasn't trying to start anything, I truly wasn't, but I should have known better, seeing as how we can't have conversations like normal people anymore."
Kevin nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. The good thing is that we don't have to try these out anymore." Kevin almost wanted to tell her that he'd be going undercover, but he didn't. He didn't need her to worry about him. She'd already proven that she didn't care about him. To her, he was the same guy that he was when they first met. He couldn't change her mind.
"I have a dinner to get to, but I hope you have fun tonight, thinking about how you let your own insecurities lead you into a life of bitterness and loneliness." He turned away and almost regretted trying to get her attention in the first place.
He knew he was an asshole, he'd been told that by more than a handful of people and for some reason that asshole version of himself was at his best when he was around Alexis. He didn't fully understand why, though. It wasn't like he actually hated her or had a reason to be an asshole to her, that's just what he did.
He wasn't the type of guy who could lead a simple and happy life, his past had proven that time and time again. No, he was the guy who was doomed to repeat the same mistake over and over. That mistake being, love.
What good did being in love get him? It had brought him only pain.
He felt like a teenager complaining about being heartbroken. How could he have allowed this to happen? He shook his head, thankful more than ever that he would be able to get rid of Kevin Ryan for a while. Kevin Ryan was a fuck up.
Kevin walked through the store, not really sure what he was doing. He was so mad at Alexis and himself, hell, he was even pissed at Jenny once again. It was like nothing had changed at all. He checked the list Gwen had given him, making sure that he had everything.
Of course he didn't. He needed chips, which were down the aisle from which he just escaped Alexis. He said, fuck it to himself and grabbed a few bags of doritos laying on the shelf next to the check out lane. He'd tell Gwen that they ran out of corn chips.
If it weren't for the text Gwen had sent him, he might have left without getting the wine. He trudged through the store, keeping a watchful eye for a redhead and luckily he didn't see her for the rest of his time being there.
Kevin Ryan was a fuck up, but Fenton O'Connell would do better.