of was and when , morgan.

[kade trent.]

Kade had thought that getting fired from the auto garage where he used to work was a bad thing. He had been working there for nearly three years and it had been what had supported him and his son for that amount of time. He liked to work there. He liked the people, and he was damn good at what he did. Getting fired for fighting with another employee had been stupid. Kade’s boss there, Jim, had hated to do it, but it hadn’t been Kade’s first fight there. Kade had raised his fist quite a few times, and Jim wasn’t able to overlook it anymore. So, Kade had lost his job. It wasn’t so much that he needed it anymore. He had Jared’s and the bar was doing really well. He also had a coaching job at his old high school that was putting a little extra money in his pocket. He didn’t need the job at the garage anymore, but he would have liked to keep working there. Well, that’s what he had thought in the beginning. He had the whole day to do nothing. Usually, he’d put in his hours at the garage, go to the school if he had something that he needed to do, and then head over to Jared’s to get a jump start on the night. Now, he had that great big gap. He’d been bored the first few days, but had then taken up wasting the time with Micah, sometimes Hunter now that he was on summer break. Brit was too, but she did productive things with her day. Kade seemed to be at a lack of anything productive to do. He and Cooper hung out a lot, but there was only so much that he could do with his two-year-old son. Yes. At the beginning, Kade had thought that getting fired from the auto garage was a very bad thing. Not only because he had lost a good job, but because he thought that he was going to die of boredom if he didn’t find something to do.

But, as always, something happened. Kade had lost his job, but he could at least say that his life was going smoothly. There had been a small bump when he’d gotten into that fight to help Micah, but other than that, it’d been great. He and Brit were going strong. Cooper was happy and healthy. Hunter and Anna were engaged and happy. Zach and Tyler were getting where they needed to be. Micah was with Ali. Tish was, well, she had her problems but they were being worked through. Things had just been good all the way around. That was usually when Kade knew to look for something to go wrong. That had been the pattern in his life for awhile now. It was all going good and then something happened to shove him back down onto the ground again, reminding him that he wasn’t meant to live an easy life where all the pieces just fall into place and things go the way that they’re planned. It had happened so many times before, but Kade was beginning to see another pattern. Most of the bad things that happened to him or the people around him involved cars. Jared had died in a car accident. Kade had almost died in one twice. Brit and Anna had both gotten hit by cars and had nearly lost their lives. The only exception to that was Vivian’s death, but Kade could reason that they’d used a car to get her to the hospital. That was close enough for him. Then there was also the fact that he had lost his job at a car garage. That’s really not the point, though. The point is that Kade’s days of nothing got filled up whenever Brit got put in the hospital. He was there by her bedside all the times that he was allowed to be. The only times that anyone managed to pry him away was when the doctors needed more room or when his family and friends convinced him to take a break and get himself cleaned up.

Thankfully, Brit was home now. And so was Anna. Anna needed a little bit more recovery time than Brit did, seeing as Anna had actually flat lined and had nearly been lost. Brit was already up on her feet again, walking slowly with a cast on her right leg and some soreness still in her body. Kade stayed home with her, helping her out and letting those wounds have their time to heal. It seemed like a repeat of a time not so long ago when Kade had been the one that everyone was babying, only reversed. He would have given anything to trade places with Brit, though. He hated seeing his girl in that kind of pain. Hunter also stayed with Anna. He was at her side twenty-four/seven, always ready to help. That meant that Jared’s had lost three vital members of the staff: two bartenders and one of the co-owners that kept the place running. Zach Cool, the other owner, and the remaining bartenders were having to double their time and put in more shifts to cover for the missing members. They all said that it was nothing to worry about, that they could handle it and for the people that were gone to take their time and get everyone healed back up. Kade knew that they all meant it. Tyler had even started working behind the bar to help cover shifts and the counter. Zach was trying to keep track of the bills and the inventory and everything else. Micah and Tish were training Tyler while trying to keep the customers happy with their drinks. To say that they were understaffed was a major understatement, and while Kade knew that he, Hunter, and Brit were all doing what they needed to be doing, he felt almost guilty for abandoning the place like that. Jared’s was busy. It’s popularity had risen fast, and people were there every night that it was open. Lots of people. Kade felt that he needed to help out somehow, and he had done some work from home when it came to ordering things that they needed or handling some of the finances.

His opportunity to do something more came soon enough. Brit was doing well, and she had said that Kade should go out and do something fun for a change; let her take care of Cooper. Kade had known what she had meant for him to do. Call Micah up and go do something. Get his father out of his office for the afternoon and do something. Go to the school and do his coaching job. Anything that would get him out of that little apartment and help him unwind a bit that afternoon. They had plans to go out that evening, just the two of them, so she didn’t feel the need to be with him that afternoon. Kade had grinned when he heard those words come out of her pretty little mouth, but he had known where he’d end up. Not twenty minutes after leaving the apartment, Kade was behind the bar at Jared’s. It was closed, opening hours away. It was almost odd being there in the daylight, but Kade had unlocked the front door and got to work. The least that he could do since neither he nor Brit were going to be there that night was to get things set up for the people that would be there. Zach and Micah usually came in to do that, but Kade figured that their feelings wouldn’t be hurt when they showed up to find that the counters had already been wiped clean and the bar restocked and ready to go. At first, they had tried to make a habit of setting things up after the bar closed, but everyone had gotten to the point where they just didn’t worry about it. It was late and they wanted to go home, so they’d do it the next day. There was no harm in that. Only, it seemed to Kade that it had been left messier than usual for the day that he chose to clean up. He supposed that it was okay, though. Someone would have had to of done it. Might as well be him.

And it wasn’t like it was all that hard. He wiped down the top of the bar, removing sticky residue left over from spills and God knew what else. Kade then took to cleaning the small round table tops that were placed to one side of the club, and then to the table tops of the booths that were along the other side. He had known how many tables there were in the place, but it had been along time before it had been brought to his attention like this. His next task was to sweep. The floor wasn’t too bad, surprisingly. He only had to use the dust pan three times, which he thought was pretty good considering how many people come through and what kind of things they leave behind. He pushed the chairs in, along with the barstools. Kade even thought about going to see what kind of shape the restrooms were in, but passed on it. That was one thing that he would leave for the rest of the crew to handle. After his cleaning was done, restocking the bar came next. Napkins were brought out to give to people that would surely need them later. He checked all the glass bottles that were lined up, finding the ones that were low and bringing out fresh bottles that would be on hand and ready to be opened when they were needed. Kade had the sense to keep track of inventory while he was doing this, picking up where Zach had left off the last time he had been in the storage room. They were doing pretty good. Only a few things needed to be bought, which meant that they didn’t have to spend a lot, and that was always good. Kade still had a little bit of money to pay back to his father for this place, but all the other loans had been paid back within the first few months of opening. Robert Trent had said that there was no rush, and while Kade hated owing his father, he decided to take that literally and not rush it. When the money was there to give back, that’s when Rob would get it.

Kade had just sat down in the less than comfortable chair in his smallish office when his cell phone rang in his pocket. After retrieving it and checking the number, he saw that it was home, which meant the apartment. He pressed the green button, connecting the call and bringing the phone to his ear. Before he could even speak, he heard Cooper laughing on the other end of the line. Kade grinned. ”Hey buddy. Does Mommy know you’re on the phone?” More laughs. “Hi Daddy,” he said through the little giggles that only a small child could make. Cooper had just recently taken an interest in the telephone system and he loved to push buttons. Kade would often let him have his cell phone, the power off, and Cooper would just sit and talk to no one at all. Today, Kade guessed he had found the speed dial buttons and had gotten lucky by finding the one that dialed Dad’s cell phone. “You at work?” Was it that obvious that Kade wasn’t out doing something fun that even his young son could pick up on it. ”Yeah.” No point in lying. ”Are you supposed to be on the phone?” Kade was still grinning. He didn’t let Cooper on the real phone when he was home, but it was just too funny that Brit wasn’t there taking the phone away from him and trying to apologize and then correcting the child for it later. Oh, nope. There she was. Kade could hear Brit in the background, just realizing that Cooper was actually talking on the phone to someone. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” came her voice, then more about a two-year-old that had just discovered the wonder that was the phone. Kade stayed quiet, but he couldn’t help but to chuckle at the end. That gave it away. “Why didn’t you just tell me it was you?” She asked him, though he could hear amusement in her voice. ”It was more fun my way.”

They talked for a few minutes, Kade asking her how she was and if she had heard anything from Hunter about Anna yet today. Their conversation was interrupted when Kade heard the sound of the front door of the bar opening and slamming with a slightly loud thud behind it. Usually, there was so much chatter and the loud pulsing of music that there was no way in hell that someone in the back rooms like Kade’s office would hear that front door opening and closing. Actually, when the bar was open, that door rarely closed. Kade had his office door open, as well as the door that lead to the back part of the bar. He had heard it very clearly, and it had made him stop mid-sentence. Jared’s wouldn’t be open for another couple of hours. Why the hell was someone coming in? “Kade? Are you okay?” He stood from his desk and was already headed toward the front. ”Yeah. Someone’s here so I need to go. I’ll be home around five, okay? Love you.” Five was the time he was supposed to be home to get ready for their evening out together. That he had already planned out in his head. He heard her say her love you back to him, and then he ended the call, replacing his phone to his pocket just as he came out of the back and into the main part of the bar. His hazel eyes were already on the hunt, and they found a small brunette standing just inside the door, looking around the establishment. Kade would have usually asked what he could do for her, his subtle way of figuring out what the hell this little woman thought she was doing in a bar that was closed. But this wasn’t a stranger that he felt he needed to interrogate. No. This woman he knew quite well, but he was having a hard time processing that she was actually there.

[Morgan Mae Brennan]

It had been a real long time since Morgan had been in Seattle. She had left that placd right after she graduated, and she had not looked back. Sure, she had had some pretty amazing times in Seattle, but she had needed to run, and run fast. She knew things were going to end sourly with her and Kade, and she had run without so much as a good bye. She had not really intended to return to this place of hell. The place where she had found so many good memories, yet so many terrible memories as well. She could only think of a few good memories here, and all of those had inclued her nightmare, Kade Trent. No, he was nothing for her to be ashamed of, nor hate, it was the fact that she had found herself falling, and she knew she had taken the easy way out. She had seen how he had looked upon Brit, and that had caused her to feel as though there was nothing there for her, so right after graduation she had fled. The worst part of all that was that she had not said good bye, and she had hooked up with him just the night before at a graduation party. He had called her cell phone a few times, causing her to break down and cry every time she had to hit reject, but she was over it now, and she figured it would be pretty easy to get him back. Kade Trent did not settle down for anybody, or maybe he did.

Morg had not int town for that long, but upon coming back many people recognized her instantly from her small frame, gorgeous eyes, and brunette hair. Course, Morg had always been known around that town, it was her parents’ fault. They were well known, so in return so wasn’t Morgan, but that was just Course, another thing Morg had been known for was the fact she had been with Kade. A lot of girls wanted Kade with a flaming passion, and she got him easily.ell, not so easily, but easy enough, and that was what had made a lot of girls her enemy. Not that Morgan had really cared. She was indeed the kind of girl that really could not have cared less what it was that people thought of her, she could have the best damn party all by herself and she didn’t care what people thought about it.

Morgan had actually been in town since the last Monday, so almost two weeks she had been there. She had bought herself a condo on the other side of town, and she had been bunking down in the comfort of her home, sleeping, resting and relaxing, and getting the courage to show her face at Jared’s. Morg really had no desire to be there, but it in contribution to Jared. He had been a good friend of hers, and it had killed all of them when he had died that fateful in the car crash that ended everything as it once had been. They had all lost a dear friend, and for a few of them as close to a family member as they had. Now Kade had opened a bar under his name, and Morgan knew that she should pay a visit, just to show her face and say hello to something that had been dedicated to such a loyal friend. Morgan had found herself able to tell Jared anything, and it had killed part of her as well when he had been taken from them all so abruptly. It just did not seem fair. They were all alive and kicking, and Jared was dead. It had hit a few of them harder than the others, but all around it had been sucky and hard.

All day she had been sitting around her home. Hunkering down and munching it out on some cheetos and other guilty pleasures of hers. She knew that eventually she was going to have to go into town, and get some groceries and probably shop a bit. What girl went into town and didn’t shop? She was just the kind of girl who loved shopping. She knew how to find the perfect shoes to go with a head band. She was just like that, she had always been that way. But eventually Morg had grasped the concept that it was time for her to nut up and go down to that Bar and see what all the fuss was about. She had heard that the place was pretty popular. That made her happy, but what didn’t make her happy was how long she spent fidgeting over what it was that she was going to wear. Morg must have tried on everything in her closet before deciding that she liked the first thing she tried on best. She wore a pair Gucci flips on her feet, matched with her denim mini skirt paired with her pink tank top and Chanel sunglasses. Morgan looked like her good old self again as she sauntered down the street, not really paying attention to much as she went.

Her dark locks hung down her shoulder, casting back every once in a while with the cool wind. It was a rather hot day in Seattle, which was new, but it was not humid in the least. The gorgeous weather had seemed to put everyone in a good mood. Her eyes falling over all the other women holding their boyfriends close to them. Kissing and hugging each other in such a loving matter. Morgan wished she had something like that, but she didn’t. She never had really settled down. Of course she had had a few boyfriends while she was in LA but none of them were serious. In all reality she considered them more of fuck buddies than anything else, which was much like what she and Kade had been, and maybe would be again. Unless he was serious with Brit. She and Brit had really never been close. To be quite honest Morg had hated the girl when she had come up that summer and had taken all the attention away from her. She had not liked that at all.

Now Morg stood in the Bar. Her brown eyes casting slowly over everything. The alcohol filled bar. The stools all placed neatly on the bar top. Apparently the place was closed, but she figured if the door was unlocked that someone had to be there. She also knew that she had a ninety percent chance that whoever was there knew her, so she did not let the “closed” sign bother her. The scents of beer greeted her senses harshly. Morg never had been a big beer fan. She stayed with the hard stuff. Vodka, whiskey, gin, and rum. Those were her love affairs, but now that harsh scent greeted her, and she almost met it with open arms. The light billowed through the wind shining upon all the sparkling spec of dust around her. She did feel a little awkward as she pushed her sunglasses up atop her head. She fought hard to hold back those tears that threatened as the picture of Jared filled her mind with happiness and sorrow at the same time. Morgan never had been good with her emotions, hence her running from Kade and not saying a good bye. Morgan just was not so good with good byes, so it had been better that way. To her, she had been saying good bye the last time they had been together. After letting the door close hard she figured someone would come.

There he came, standing, looking at her in rather disbelief. She half expected him to tell her to get the hell out, but she flashed him a gorgeous smile anyway. She let a hand run nervously through her hair as she shoved that tiny cell of hers into her pocket. She pursed her lips for a moment. It would have been rather stupid for her to introduce herself, it was apparent by the look on his face he knew who she was. ”Hey, Kade.” she gestured around ”Nice place you have here.” Oh shit, things just seemed so weird. Now she wished she really had just become a hermit and had lived out the rest of her life bribing the neighbor hood kids to go and get her groceries for her. Thing would have most likely worked better that way. Anything was better than standing where she was, having him look at her the way he was. Hey, but he was still standing there, wasn’t he?

[kade trent.]

Morgan Brennan used to be a name that had been on the tip of everybody’s tongue back in high school. She was the beautiful, popular girl that seemed to have nothing that was short of perfect. Her face, her eyes, her nose, her lips…everything was desirable. All the girls wished that they could have something of hers, whether it was her beauty or her popularity. All the guys wished that they could have her, pinned beneath them and getting a piece of her. Her name was also mentioned a lot because she was a party girl, a rebel from her parents’ strict ways and one that you could always count on to be the life of the party. Of course, there was the fact that she was frequently with Kade Trent that helped her gain more of that popularity that she had to her name. Kade had been a popular one in high school, everyone knowing his name when he was a freshman because of his early introduction to the partying and drinking world. Not to mention that he was like a freaking prodigy when it came to the game of football, but the only freshman that year to make the varsity team and to see a fair amount of playing time. Kade and Morgan had met up at a party that was being held at a senior’s house one weekend, and after that, you really didn’t see one too far away from the other, nor did you hear one’s name in a sentence without the other’s being attached to it somehow. They hadn’t started off that way, though. No, at that party that they had met, Kade hadn’t even known the girl’s name. All that he had known was that she was a damn good looker and that he had to try and snag her attention. It hadn’t been all that hard. She’d been sitting on one end of a couch, and he’d come up and taken the seat beside of her.

He didn’t even remember what he had said to her, exactly. Whatever it was, it had been enough to get a little bit of flirting going on, and then Kade, being so confident as he was, had moved in and gotten that first kiss between them. After that, it seemed that they had abandoned everything else that they might have been thinking of doing at that party. Their drinks sat forgotten on a coffee table, their hands starting to roam and their tongues meshing together as that make out session of theirs progressed. It wasn’t long, though, before they had decided to move upstairs. This had been Kade’s idea, him knowing the boy that owned this house and knowing his away around very well. There had been a room upstairs that was free, and the two had had the good sense to lock the door behind them so no other needy couples could come and kick them out. Kade and Morgan had made themselves quite comfortable on the bed, and Kade had had it in his mind what he had wanted to come from it. Of course, he had been nice and polite, telling her that they didn’t have to do anything. That was just the way he was, never wanting to push a girl into anything that she didn’t want to do. Morgan hadn’t told him no, though, and that’s when the clothes had started to be shed onto the floor. They had sex, and it only occurred to Kade after he had already put his boxers and jeans back on that he didn’t even know this girl’s name. That was the first time that he had ever heard of Morgan Brennan, but it certainly wasn’t the last. It turned out that they had the same lunch at school. Kade had found her that following Monday and gone over to sit at the table that she was at, making friendly conversation. At the time, he didn’t know what would come from it. She might have just been an one night stand, or maybe they could be friends.

What happened was kind of a mixture of the two. Kade and Morgan did become friends, despite their somewhat differing personalities. But, their friendship wasn’t typical. They were friends with benefits, the two of them kissing and groping and having sex whenever they both found a moment to do it in. Kade’s other group of friends, Tyler Durden, Vivian Anderson, and Zach Cool, had never really seemed all that found of Kade’s relationship with Morgan. Kade and the other three were as tight as could be, best friends without a doubt, but Morgan was one thing that they couldn’t see eye to eye on. They were civil with her, though. They really hadn’t had a choice. Morgan was around Kade a lot of the time; he just hated that they all clashed they way that they did. Though, he guessed that he could kind of see what her and Vivian didn’t get along. Kade was with Morgan a lot, but he was with Vivian almost if not as often as he was with her. Both girls were seeing the same guy, and it was just one of those chick rivalry things that Kade reasoned that he wasn’t supposed to understand. He liked them both, though, and he just continued to stay in the middle, trying to find a good way to balance it all out. What worked best was when he was able to see Morgan during one part of the day, and the rest during a different part. When they all shared a class or the same lunch period, things became a little tense but Kade never let it ruin his good time. He was most thankful for his little brother, Jared, though. The reason that Kade was able to not let it all get to him was because Jared hung out with them when he could. He was friends with everyone, and when Jared was around, you couldn’t help but to relax and enjoy the entertainment that the kid provided. He was really the middle ground, keeping Vivian and Morgan from ever getting too testy with their words or actions around one another, and stepping in to defend Morgan when Tyler would start on one of her rants about how she just didn’t see what Kade saw in her other than a nice chest and the obvious sex potential.

Jared and Morgan had been close, but it was nothing that Kade had ever been jealous of or minded. Kade wasn’t a guy to stick to just one girl, him having more than just Morgan and Vivian to balance. Jared spoke highly of Morg, actually, seeing in her the good that Kade could often see as well. Hunter had also liked her okay, though he had never taken the time to get to know her like Jared had. When Jared had died in that first week after Kade and Morgan’s junior year, Kade knew that Morgan had been just as devastated by his death as everyone else. Though, he hadn’t gone to her. He hadn’t gone to anybody. Brittany Morgan had flown up from North Carolina, and she was the one that he sought comfort and refuge in that summer while she was there. If they went out somewhere, his arm was always around her waist, holding her close to him. If not that, then he took her hand in his and kept her there. He knew that it was that summer that the way he looked at Brit changed; that was the summer that he had fallen in love with the girl. There were a lot of girls that didn’t like the attention that Kade gave Brit, and he knew that Morgan was one of them. It was plain to see in the way that Morgan acted whenever Brit was around. Vivian, on the other hand, had been one to stand up for Brit and shut all those other girls the hell up when they were bad mouthing her. Vivian and Morgan hadn’t been friends at all after that, but Kade hadn’t cared much about what was going on with them. He had Brit, and he was so perfectly happy and content with that that nothing else mattered. She was able to take some of the pain from the loss of his brother away. She made it seem like he really could live without Jared being there; that maybe it wasn’t all his fault that his brother had died.

But, Brit had to go back to North Carolina at the end of the summer. Kade had wanted her to stay, and he now knew that she had wanted him to ask her to stay, but she had left. Without her keeping him together, Kade had come unraveled. He turned to Tyler first, the two of them taking advantage of one another almost everyday, but never really going all the way with it. Soon, the two realized that they couldn’t do that, and Tyler went back to her peppy little self as Zach’s almost other half, and Kade was back to his old ways. Morgan once again came to be one of the main receivers of his attention, along with Vivian and Lord knew how many other girls he had been with at that time. Kade had been numb throughout that whole school year, what was their senior year. It was like he trying to figure out how to function again, but he really hadn’t wanted to. He’d turned to drinking, drugs, and sex to get him through it all and to help him forget his problems. But, then Morgan and a few other of his friends had helped pull him away from the two more destructive things there. His drinking went back to a normal level, and he quit the drugs all together. He still fooled around with the girls, though, but he limited himself to just a few instead of finding a new one any chance that he could. Morgan and Viv were the two that he depended on the most, Morgan a lot for the sex, but for her friendship as well. Graduation had come before any of them had realized, their last year of high school going by so quickly that it almost hadn’t seemed right. Kade and Morgan had been together the day before graduation, and then the day of graduation, after the ceremony had been held. The next day when he had tried to call her, there had been no answer. Kade called her cell phone several times, but after a few weeks, he got the message. She had left, and she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

And that had been the last time he had seen or heard anything from Morgan Brennan. After knowing their history and how it had ended, one really couldn’t blame Kade for how he was looking at Morgan as she stood in Jared’s, looking him with that same, flawless smile on her lips. How long had it been? Three, almost four years? No, that wasn’t right. Wait, yeah, it was. Kade was horrible with mental math, and it didn’t help that he was still in a state of shock. He blinked a few times, but when she didn’t disappear, he knew that he wasn’t just seeing things. Morgan was back in Seattle, and she had somehow found her way to Jared’s. It was just baffling to him how she could really be there, this ghost from his past that he had stored away into his mind, rarely thinking about her anymore. Now here she was, bringing all of what they used to be back to his mind. “Hey, Kade.” Wow, she even sounded the same. Just like he remembered. “Nice place you got here.” Had he still not been putting so much effort into comprehending that she was there, Kade probably would have picked up on the fact that she was searching for something to say, something that wouldn’t make this as awkward as it was bound to be. All that time and not a word, and all of a sudden she just shows up out of the blue. And she seemed to bring some blue skies with her, a very pleasant sight to see when the norm for Seattle weather is rain. All rain, all the time. And when it wasn’t raining, it was cloudy and overcast. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that Morgan Brennan was there, and she had spoken to him, and Kade really needed to respond before she thought he’d gone retarded or something.

”Thanks,” he said, his voice a little cautious. But, it was slowly sinking in. This was one of his best friends from high school, someone that he hadn’t seen in a very long time. That was her fault, but he wasn’t going to go pointing fingers or start off by being cruel or hateful with her. He had reasoned with himself long ago that she had had her reasons for leaving like she had, and they probably seemed like good ones to her. One of those seemingly perfect grins came to his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling softly like they always had. ”I’m sorry, but you were really the last person I expected to see here, let alone in Seattle again.” He looked at her another moment. God, she still looked just as good as she ever had. So pretty, and so damn sexy without even trying. Just like how he remembered. Maybe her hair was a little different, but that was all he could see. When she would look at him, she would see pretty much the same Kade that she had known in high school. Neither of them had changed, and yet Kade was a totally different person from how he’d been back then, and he didn’t really feel that he could say that he knew Morgan anymore. But she had obviously come here to see him, or maybe it was more of the bar that she had come to see. ”Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, gesturing over to the bar, his tone warm and friendly. ”On the house.” Of course it was on the house. He was one of the owners of the bar. He was waiting on her cue, wanting to see how this slightly awkward meeting would go.

[Morgan Mae Brennan]

It was definitely true that Morgan had hated it when Brit had gotten all of Kade’s attention. His hands always being on her in some whether it be simply around her waist or him holding her hand. He looked at her the same way she had began to look at him, course he never noticed it. To her, all Kade wanted was her body. He didn’t actually care about her. What he cared about was their next encounter in bed, and just how good it would be. Course, every time the two were in bed it was excellent, but that was not quite her point. Morgan had had very good reasons for leaving without a word said to anyone but her own folks. They were even lucky she had said anything when she had left. Goodbyes would have been awkward, and she wanted to leave things they way they had been that night after the graduation ceremony; perfect, simple, and to the point. She had been saying good-bye the whole time, just not out loud. Maybe that was shady, and maybe that had been wrong of her, but in her mind that had been the way things were easiest, and Morg had always been the girl to find the easy way out. And that was what she had done, and she knew that Kade had a right to be cruel and point fingers at her; it had been her fault.

There had never been any signs on his half that he held any special feelings for her at all. She did get her own time with her during the day, but he also did that for many other girls such as Vivian; a girl she rather hated. Now Vivian was dead, and she was not one to speak ill of the dead at all. She would leave it at the fact the two wanted the same man, enough said. Still, that was not quite the point. He had never shown any feelings towards her. It had always been about sex with them, and that was probably her fault. The first night they had met Morg had slept with him, course it had been her first, but she had done. That had basically set the tone for the rest of their relationship, so in a way, yeah, maybe that all had been her fault, maybe she should have played things a little harder. Maybe she could have put up a little fight, but she never had. That was sort of the reason why all his friends except Hunter and Jared disliked her. They never saw anything in her except a good body and great sex. She actually had hated that at the time, but now looking back upon that she really didn’t care what they thought about her. They were just mad because Kade did spend so much time with her,

Morgan would be the first to admit that their relationship had been that of the platonic decree. Most people would have denied with tooth and claw, but she didn’t. It was the truth. She and Kade had become rather good friends, but mostly they were just fuck buddies. Kade had never even brought up a thought about taking things more seriously, and she had spent four years trying to coax him into it. In the beginning there had been no feelings on her end either, but slowly, more and more feelings began to grow inside her. She could not help it; it was nature. She was sleeping with the man almost every day, and everyone expected her not to have any feelings for him at all. That was another reason why all of his friends really did not care for her at all. They thought she was a slut. A girl who would simply have sex with men to fulfill her needs and then be done with it. Really, the only one who did that was Tish. No, Morgan had never liked Tish from the beginning. Maybe it was because her name meant table in German. Of course that was just her lame ass reason for not liking Tish. She really did not have a reason at all. She just didn’t like her. Their personalities just did not click, and with that she chose to just not like the girl in general.

So what really happened, and Kade didn’t know, was that Morgan had fallen for Kade, and she had fallen hard. Those four years she had fought all through two of them to keep those emotions out of her system, but instead they came to her. Haunting her every waking moment with him. Torturing her. She wanted she badly just to tell him that she loved him, but seeing him looking at Brit the way he did, well, she had not wanted to be rejected. So once Brit was out of the picture, Kade had come back to her, and that had shown her. It showed her that he was using her for nothing but the sex she gave him. He did not care about her, or he would have been able to come to her when Jared had died, leaving her basically all alone. Jared had been almost her best friend, and she had loved him. Had she not been so hooked on Kade, she probably would have been with Jared in a heart beat, but no, Morgan had always been with Kade. Sure, she had moved around to a few different guys, but Kade had always been her main attention, him having taken her virginity. So after those two years of battling herself she lost. She allowed all those feelings to course through her body. So, Morgan eventually got most of Kade’s attention back, and things just went from there. It was the last week of her Senior year and she had slept with Kade the night before, the day of, and after the ceremony. So Morgan had felt herself falling for him more and more, and lets be honest, that scared the hell out of her. So she had fled. She ran fast from him. He didn’t know why she had left, and she cried every time she glanced at her cell phone and saw that sexy little picture of Kade pop up. He had left her a few voice messages and every one had left her more and more distressed. Morgan could not even count the times he had cried over him and what she had done. Jared would have been so disappointed in her. He was the only one who knew her real feelings for Kade.

So she moved to Los Angeles. It was really the only place she figured that she could forget him. Course, Morgan never forgot Kade, she simply pushed him to the back of her mind. She figured that she would find some super hot model who treated her as good, if not better than Kade had, which was quite the bright prospect, but she never had found anyone. Sure, lets not kid ourselves, Morgan had dated a few men since she had been gone, one for two the years. His name was Max Reynolds. He was a great guy, totally loveable, rich as hell, but he never had been her cup of tea. He was way too prim, and much to proper for her. She loved partying, she loved dancing, and she loved having fun. Max was all about work, all about money, and all about killing her fun. Two years had been very pleasurable for her and him, but they had both realized that she was perfect for his soul, and he was perfect for her heart, but together they were perfect apart. So they had split. The other two years had been spent with different men. Michael Anderson, and Colby Roy. Both men had been amazing. Mike had always treated her like a queen, but they were far too different, and they both realized that. Colby had been the man of her dreams, so much like Kade that it was not even funny, but in being like Kade, he partied like Kade, and he had not stayed faithful to her.

Morgan stood there, looking rather dumb with that smile on her lips as he looked at her in utter shock. She knew that things could either going great, or they could go bad. Morgan knew that Kade had a son, she did not know his name, but she knew he was farley young, and apparently he was with Brit, what a fucking shocker there. Morgan did not care for that at all, but hey, Kade was not her property, nor had he ever been as much as she had wished he was. So she had no right to say anything to him. He was staring at her, as if he was trying to figure out if she was real, or a figment of his imagination, but she was real, and she was standing there. Kade had not changed hardly at all. Still had delicious as he had always been, and she fought back the memories of them tangled in her bed sheets, a film of perspiration coating their bare bodies as their breath moved as one. There had been so many guys back in high school that would have given anything to be in Kade’s place, and he had never fully appreciated her. ”Thanks.” He sounded so cautious, she was not sure why. Did he think she was going to blow up on him or something? That was the last thing on her mind. As a matter of fact she was a little worried that he was going to blow up on her for leaving him like that. There was another long pause, but then that perfect smile came to his lips. She had to give a little bit of a grin as her eyes fell to the floor, but quickly reconnected when he began speaking again. Oh, trust me, he was last person she had ever expected to see again, but there he was standing in front of her.

Ahh, same old Kade; offering her a drink on the house. She smiled at him, her choice of drink had not changed either. A good coke and rum always quenched her need for alcohol. She was not one of those martini sipping froo froo girls. She liked the hard stuff. ”You know what I like.” Wow, that could have been taken in so many different ways, but all of them were true, so it was not like she was lying. She flashed him one of those devious little smirks of hers as she saunter over to the bar, pulling out a stool as she slapped her pure down on the bar top and took her seat. ”So how have you been.” There was only one question that she was dreading, and she had a feeling he would ask it sooner or later. ”So why didn’t you say good bye.” She could not wait to hear that, not. She never wanted him to ask her why, because she could not lie to him. She could lie to the preacher of any church, but she could not lie to him. So she sat there in her flawlessness and ran a hand through her dark hair. She watched him for a moment, or maybe he would not ask, and make her life a whole hell of a lot easier.