Effortless (Thoughtless, #2)(112)

Sighing, he looked over my shoulder. A reminiscent smile on his face, he shrugged. “She’s…she’s great. She’s warm and sweet…loving.” He looked at the table, a small flush coloring his cheeks. I felt the same mild embarrassment, but I did my best to ignore it. We should be able to talk about the people who were important to us. His fingers flicking over 312



the menu pages, he exhaled softly. “I was really…broken when I got home. She helped me through it, made me smile again.” His warm brown eyes looked up at me and I clenched my stomach, willing my eyes not to water. I’d done that. I’d broken him. Smiling softly, he shook his head. “I think I love her, Kiera…really love her. I think she’s the one,” he whispered.

Then my eyes did water and I couldn’t possibly stop the reaction. I nodded as I swiped my fingers under my eyes. “Good, I’m glad, Denny.” And I was happy…and devastatingly sad too. It was hard, watching someone you had once loved, loving someone else, and loving them more than they’d loved you. But, really, that’s exactly what I’d done to Denny with Kellan.

Denny’s hand stretched across the table to rest on my arm. “I’m sorry if that hurts you. I just wanted to be honest with you.” He stressed the word honest.

As I considered all of the multiple things that I hadn’t been honest about in my life, Denny tilted his head and asked, “What about you and Kellan? Are you guys really okay?” His hand on my arm squeezed it.

“Are you happy, Kiera?”

Shaking my head, knowing I was worrying about things with Kellan before their time, I smiled as effortlessly as I could. “Yeah, I am.” I nodded, remembering all of the good times Kellan and I had shared. “I mean, being with him has its challenges…but…we’re good.” I absently stroked the ring on my finger and Denny’s eyes locked onto it. The dark depths glossier when he met my eye again, he smiled effortlessly too. “Good, I’m glad, Kiera…I really am.” 313





17


Chapter


Boise


A month later, nothing much had changed in my life, even with Denny back around. I went to school, I went to work. I had coffee with Cheyenne, while she tried to make poetry make some sort of sense to me. I spoke to Kellan three or four times a day, more if he was having a traveling day, for hours when he called me on Valentine’s Day. Denny came around to the bar for dinner most nights, and we spent the time catching up on our year apart.

I even agreed to take a more advanced art course with Jenny and Kate on Saturday mornings…even though I was atrocious and the instructor humored me with every comment he made. I made a note to not repeat the six-week course with her. Her talent was just way beyond my skills.

But as much as the good things stayed the same, the questionable things stayed the same as well. I avoided computers, too tempted to Google my boyfriend, too afraid of what I might find. And I definitely didn’t want to see any more footage of him with Halle 2. I just couldn’t handle seeing it again.

But I never asked about it when we talked. And I never told him about Denny being back in Seattle. My mouth locked up when I tried. Just the idea of Kellan cheating on me terrified me so much…I didn’t want to give him that same fear. Not when it wasn’t warranted. Denny and I were only friends, truly, just friends.

So the nagging doubt lingered between Kellan and me, and I let it, not ready to confess what I knew, too scared to hear what he knew…

Getting home from class on a windy Thursday afternoon, I collapsed beside my sister on the sofa, grateful for a few hours respite. I didn’t 314



have to work tonight and I didn’t have class again until Monday. Until work tomorrow night I could just be a couch potato.

Anna sighed, irritably tapping her foot as she flicked through channel after channel on the television. I tried to ignore her restlessness. She’d been getting more and more agitated since the holidays. I suspected she was more peeved that Griffin hadn’t asked to see her than she let on. I suspected she missed him more than she let on. Since they hadn’t had any romantic rendezvous, she hadn’t been with him, well, since the night of the going away party. And Anna, for some godforsaken reason, liked being with him.

Tossing the remote on the floor, she laid her head back on the orange monstrosity we were sitting on. “God, I’m so freaking bored.” Popping her head up, she excitedly leaned forward. “Let’s go to Boise.” I blinked at her. “What?”

Nodding, she leaned forward even more, her tight sweater showing off a décolletage that I’d never have. “Let’s go to Boise. The guys are playing a show there tonight and it’s the closest they’re going to be to us until the end of the tour. So let’s go to their concert!” She gave me puppy dog eyes, sticking out her full bottom lip. I shook my head. “Idaho? By tonight? It’s almost five now…we don’t have time to drive that far, Anna.”

She sat up on her knees, really excited now. “So we’ll hop a flight. It’s probably only an hour or so on a plane.”

I raised my eyebrow. “We can’t just ‘hop on a plane’ to see a concert, Anna.”

She raised her eyebrow right back at me. “We can do anything we want, Kiera. Come on, live a little.”