I couldn’t hold back the sobs that burst from my chest, and I fell forward until my forehead hit the steering wheel. Kinlee kept brushing my hair away from my face as she mumbled words I couldn’t hear. All I could focus on were the words of that song, ten days prior with Brody, and how my world felt like it was crashing down around me. At some point her phone rang, and when she ended the call, she made me look at her.
“KC, please tell me what’s going on. You’re scaring me. The way you’ve been acting lately, and then whatever just happened with that song . . . what is it?”
I shook my head and cleared my throat. “You’re going to think I’m horrible, Kinlee.”
“Why?” she whispered and gripped my hand. “Kace, I’m here for you, just tell me.”
Another loud sob filled the inside of my car, and my body began shaking so hard that Kinlee’s eyes went wide. “I’m hav—I was . . . Brody and I—”
“Did you say Brody?” she asked when I couldn’t continue.
I just nodded and buried my face in my hands as my body was overcome with all the pain I’d been feeling the last week and a half and the realization that we were over.
“Jace just—you and Brody wha—oh, holy shit! KC, you’re with Brody? Brody . . . like my brother-in-law?”
“N-no . . . not anymore. He wasn’t—he lied to me. He wasn’t going to leave Olivia.”
“What the hell? When did all this happen, and how did I not know about this? I’m your best friend! How did you not tell me?”
“I couldn’t!” I cried out and pointed toward the screen where just minutes ago the name of the song had been sitting. “I didn’t want you to think of me like that! That isn’t who I am. I’m not that person. I don’t ruin marriages, but I love Brody—” I cut off quickly and sucked in air at saying those words again. “He called me ‘Liv,’ Kinlee.”
“He what?!”
“He was trying to get me to stay. I was breaking up with him last week, and he said, ‘I love you, Liv,’ and I—I just couldn’t. That was it for me, I can’t be with him when he’s in love with someone else.”
Kinlee sat back against her seat and just stared blankly ahead. “Oh, my God, how did I not know? How long has this been going on?”
“Almost two months,” I whispered and wiped furiously at my face.
After a long silence, she finally shook her head and huffed a sad laugh. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“Kinlee, I had an affair with a married man—”
“I don’t care.”
“How could you not?”
Her eyes searched around, like the answer was somewhere between us. “You said two months, so this started right after you first met Brody at my house?” I nodded, and she did the same as she continued: “I haven’t seen Brody this happy since his son, Tate, was alive. You don’t know what it was like watching him emotionally die a little more every time we saw him—when we saw him. We’ve seen him more in the last two months than we have in the five years since Tate died. You gave all of us our Brody back. How could I even begin to care that you had a relationship with him?”
“Because it’s wrong!”
“It is, but Brody is a different case. He should have left Olivia long ago, and he definitely should have left her when you guys got together . . . but you’ve seen his mom, she’s always trying to set him up. No one views Brody’s marriage as a marriage. They view it as a death sentence for him. And I know you, KC. You’re not a home-wrecker at heart. I doubt going through this was easy for you . . . and the only thing I’m upset about is the fact that you felt like you couldn’t tell me.” She held a hand up when I opened my mouth. “I understand, but it still hurts.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for so much, Kinlee. For lying about Brody, for not telling you about my past . . . all of it. Other than Barb, you’re the only friend I’ve ever had, and I feel like I don’t deserve your friendship with the way I’ve kept everything from you.”
She looked at me with confusion. “Barb isn’t your aunt, is she?” she asked so softly I almost didn’t hear her.
Shaking my head, I blew out a deep breath, and then told her everything as I drove us back to her house. I told her about Kentucky and the horse-racing world. About my family’s status in that world, and what people expected from a family like mine. I told her about my parents. How detached they were, how they expected perfection, and how they viewed me as property instead of as a daughter. I told her about Charles, how ridiculous he was, and how hard it had been to go through years of pretending to even like him. But mostly I told her about Barb. How she’d been my maid, how she’d raised me and been the only person on my side growing up, and how she’d been the one who helped me get away.
“Holy shit,” Kinlee breathed when I was done. “No wonder you never told anyone. You’re finally getting to be who you want to be. And for the record, I think I like KC a lot more than I would like the princess of the Kentucky Derby.”
I laughed sadly and turned onto her street. “I like KC a lot more too.”
“You’re really from Kentucky?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn it.” She hiccupped and sucked in a couple breaths before wiping at her tear-streaked face. “Don’t tell Jace. I bet him two hundred dollars you were from Alabama.” A startled laugh bubbled up in her throat as she wiped at more tears.