Read A Is for Abstinence for Free Online

to see Cara standing in the doorway to the den, clutching some kind of book to her chest. Her eyes were misted over.
    Shane panicked. “Babe! Hey! I was just giving Kyle the grand tour. I swear we were on our way back downstairs.”
    “I’m sure.” Cara gave us a knowing smile and shook her head. “It’s okay…this time.”
    She stepped in the room and shut the door behind her. Shane rushed to her side, whispering apologies and gratitude and other stuff I didn’t need to hear that made Cara giggle and stick her tongue in his mouth. They’ve always been gross like that.
    I cleared my throat, and Cara smiled at me. “It sounded good,” she said.
    I shrugged uncomfortably, having no idea what to say.
    She held out the gigantic book in her arms. “I have something for you.”
    “What is it?”
    She laid the book on the pool table and opened it to the first page. “This is the keepsake journal I made during the S is for Sex tour.”
    “You made a scrapbook?”
    I slid up next to her and stared down at the pages as she slowly turned them. They were filled with pictures, magazine clippings, ticket stubs… Each page brought back a minefield of memories.
    “It’s not the song that haunts you, Kyle,” she said again. “Remember this?”
    She flipped to the last page in the book where a small, clear pencil bag was clasped into the book’s rings.
    Something twisted inside me at the sight of my old abstinence bracelet laying in the bag. I pulled the leather band out of the pencil bag and ran my fingers over the small silver A charm. “I thought I lost this.”
    “You almost did,” Cara said. “I was backstage with Adrianna the night she found it. I barely stopped her from throwing it out. It was near the end of the tour and the bracelet was in the pocket of the pants you’d worn onstage that night. Adrianna was livid when she realized you’d been carrying it with you all that time—that you kept it on you while you performed, like it was some sort of lucky charm.”
    When I squirmed and started to back away, Cara grabbed my hand. “It’s okay,” she said, which only embarrassed me even more. “I kept my necklace, too. You weren’t the only one who felt her loss.”
    “I don’t know why I kept it.” The confession came out in a whisper.
    “Because you loved her, Kyle.”
    I’d been staring at the bracelet, but my head snapped up. Cara met my gaze with solemn determination. She was not about to let me deny it.
    I dropped the bracelet and pushed away from the pool table. “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I asked, raking my hands through my hair as if that could solve the mystery. “Adrianna accused me of the same thing. Hell, it was the reason we broke up. But I didn’t love her.”
    Cara gave me a look as if to say, “Yeah right.”
    She was crazy. I liked Val, sure. Wanted her? Hell yeah, more than anything. I’ll even admit that I cared about her. But love? How can you fall in love with someone you never even dated?
    “Maybe I was a little infatuated, but—”
    “People get over infatuation. They don’t take their biggest hit out of the set list, even when their management team threatens to sue.”
    When she put it that way…
    But that was crazy. It wasn’t possible. Was it?
    “Maybe you didn’t know it,” Cara said, breaking me from my thoughts, “but you loved her.”
    For reasons I couldn’t explain, anger swept through me. “So what if I did?” I snapped. “What the hell does it matter? That was years ago. It’s over .”
    “Is it?”
    So now she was accusing me of still not being over Val, too? She was as bad as Adrianna. What the hell? Was the whole world conspiring against me? Why couldn’t anyone just let it go? If I was still hung up on Val, I didn’t see how people constantly throwing it in my face was supposed to help me.
    I grabbed another beer from Shane’s six-pack. Shane was ready and waiting with a bottle opener, a look of apology in his eyes.
    I fell to