When Kayla saw a very 70’s looking Chris laying next to her in his bathrobe staring back at her like a satiated man, she about died. She wasn’t prepared for this. She absolutely wasn’t prepared for this. They both knew that they could easily jump into someone else’s bed at any time, but knowing it and experiencing it were two very different things. Again? Really, I have to do this again?! At least when she showed up with Shane she knew where she was and remembered her surroundings. Then again, here she wasn’t actually having sex with Chris at the moment, so thank God for small favors.
Another small favor? For the first time in days, her focus was on something other than loss. She didn’t really think about it that way but whether she realized it or not, having her mind solely on this at the moment was definitely a subconscious positive at this point.
The nausea would have been very strong, only her awareness was sleeping when she arrived, so she blissfully got to avoid it this time. Instead she got the disorientation of not knowing where the hell she was when she opened her eyes. Which right now were open wider than Chris had ever seen them, and they were lighting up the room as far as he was concerned. He didn’t realize that she was in shock and thought she was adorable.
“Well, now,” he said with that smooth, intoxicating drawl born of the south and made to woo women into his bed, “you are some pretty sight first thing in the morning, you know that?”
When did I jump? How long have I been here? Where’s Steve? Kayla audibly swallowed and remained completely frozen on her back looking up at him. Her hand was curled beside her cheek in the same position she woke up in. Inching that hand up to palm her hair was the first movement she made in this 1982 body. She tried to speak, but she wasn’t sure what to actually say. She just had to gather as much information about her whereabouts as possible, then she’d be able to figure out what to do next.
“You sure were somethin’ last night,” Chris said with a chuckle that kind of offended her a little. Then he reached over to drag a finger down her cheek. The gesture came with a knowing smile, but it didn’t actually feel sexual so much as personal. “How ya doin’?”
How ya doin’? That’s what he asks after spending a night that sure was something with her? Details swam on her periphery. She fought to catch them so she could get her bearings, but it was slow going.
Kayla started to reply to him, but the sound of her own voice was completely weird. It was husky with sleep and something else, whch she figured out as soon as she went to pull herself up against the very dated, dark, wood headboard. And that something else was a hangover. So what came out wasn’t a verbal answer to Chris’s question, it was a groan.
“Yeah, I knew that was how you’d be doin’,” he winked. Do you at least remember it?”
Kayla’s head was pounding. What year was this? She was so confused. “I … ah … I want to.”
“You don’t remember? Coming last night?”
She did not remember him being this forward about their sexual encounters, not that there were that many, and all of which had blended together in her memory. She was so many years removed from this and so bonded to her husband that she no longer really retained any one indivudal time she’d had sex with Chris – other than her very first real time, which was actually quite lovely. Chris was a good first choice, he was just a really bad future investment in the boyfriend department. She never really understood what drew him to her in the first place, as his type always seemed to be the dangerous ones – the ones you don’t bring home to meet the family. She’d lost touch with him years ago when he was in his 40’s, but even to that day he hadn’t settled down. He never seemed to want to. Which time this was she had no clue, she only knew that this was not her first time, because that happened at Chris’s apartment, which this place was not. So this had to be after.
Kayla rubbed her fingertips above her brows in reaction to the pounding in her head and tried to piece together this time in her life. She could see that she was wearing a robe and could plainly feel that she wasn’t wearing much of anything underneath it. She wanted to get out of that bed with Chris’s bedroom eyes undressing her, because that’s most certainly what they were doing, but her head throbbed.
“Yeah, ah … yes, I remember, but, … I think I was drunk at the time …”
“Hell yeah, you were,” he grinned. Don’t you worry, though, you knew what you were doing, I made sure of that. And I took good care of you.” Kayla’s skin crawled just a little bit. “I’m just glad to know you won’t be forgetting any of that,” he smiled with a wink.
Kayla shifted her eyes toward him in a bit of a sneer, which he wholly missed due to the hangover all over her face, anyway. She wasn’t thinking clearly enough to truly analyze her big picture, all she could do was focus on his words right now. And those words, tinged with the eternal come-on of an inflection that Chris would have his entire life, sounded to her like they’d just had lots of drunken sex last night. Which they did not. Kayla scooted just a bit to the left to try to put a bit more distance between them.
“Ya know, Chris, I-I-I’m feeling really hung over, and—”
“I’ll bet you are.”
“—and I think I’m just gonna go on home, now.” With difficulty, she got up out of the bed and pulled the green robe around herself very tightly.
“Not worried about your folks anymore?”
“My folks?” she asked absently as she turned in dizzying circles looking for her clothes. Underwear. I feel those. Where’s my bra?
“You were awfully worried about it last night,” he said getting up and facing her. The bed still between them, she finally located a tan skirt and brown patterned sweater folded neatly on the dresser. Steve would have been amused at her rare show of neatness.
“I was?” Her attention was completely on the small pile she’d grabbed, but then she looked at him with sudden understanding. “’Cause I didn’t go home last night?”
“You were pretty sure they were gonna skin you alive.”
She took a moment to try to make sense of that. “I’m a grown woman, why would they be angry?” Chris leveled a pointed look upon her beneath raised brows. She knew what he was trying to say, she just had a hard time remembering her parents this old fashioned. But this was early in the Brady family tree. There was no revelation yet about Victor, Kimberly and her entire secret life, not to mention that the many men she’d been through weren’t even a glimmer in their eyes as far as they knew. And her niece, Samantha? Boy, would that be a wake up call. And all that time they spent giving Kayla their trust with a man she barely knew in 1979 was not part of this timeline. It made her angry, it really did. This starting all over again stuff. It was a novelty at first, and there were opportunities there that she had a hard time regretting. But when they got erased? When she had to remember how she was supposed to act and who she was supposed to be? Again?! It was such a struggle, and it made her want to just lash out at the world.
She spotted her tall, brown, leather boots. Where is my bra? She continued to look around the all-inclusive room and realized that this was a hotel room. “Well, I’m not a child, and I’m thinking pretty clearly now. I’ll manage.”
“Yeah, well, I called your brother, he said he’ll smooth it over with them.”
Kayla’s head snapped up, the pounding taking a back seat. “Bo’s here?” Wait, she was confuing her realities, Bo was on a boat right now. “What year is it?”
“That would be Roman, Blue Eyes” he chuckled, then said, “Kayla, if you forgot what year it is, then we’ve got ourselves a problem.”
“No, I—I know, it’s ’83.”
“Two!. 1982, Kayla, you alright?”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you said 1983.”
“Well, like you said, it was a hell of a night, I just didn’t get enough sleep.”
Chris smirked. “I’ll tell you what, Kayla, you slept like a baby last night, believe me.”
“Ok,” she tried to seem normal. “I’m just gonna go ahead and get dressed.” Bra … bra … where was her bra? She turned in a couple more circles before Chris caught her by the shoulders and held her out.
“You don’t have to be so nervous with me.” This time his demeanor was kind, not smarmy.
“I’m not!” she said too enthusiastically. “I’m not,” she toned it down. “I’m just …” She caught a really good look at that headboard now; the dated, tan latticework was god-awful. “Wow, that is something else,” she whispered. Chris looked over his shoulder, but he had no clue what she was referring to. Finally she let her eye really rake over the entire room. Despite being two years over the decade mark, the place hadn’t caught up yet, and the décor was to the ‘70’s what shocking neon was to the ‘80’s. It really hit home just how off the beaten path of her life she’d jumped. Unshared time. I’m in unshared time. She knew what that meant. Instability. Dammit. It was also completely off-putting. It was more recent than 1979, but this was a lot worse, because she had no anchor here. Steve was somewhere off being a bad guy at this time unless he jumped first, but she just kind of knew he hadn’t. Steve … “I’m not nervous,” she lightly brushed his arm in the hope that it would suffice, and Chris smiled at her. “I’m just thinking I need to get home right away.”
“Yeah, well, alright,” Chris replied eagerly. “That’s the spirit.”
She made some motions indicating she was going to change in the bathroom, and Chris made way for her. She gave up on being subtle, though, and asked him, “Ah … I can’t seem to find my bra.”
Now Chris’s bedroom eyes were definitely exactly that – bedroomy in an unabashed show of intense flirtation. “Well, now, you weren’t wearin’ one.”
“Oh,” she said with as little shyness in her voice as she could muster so as not to appear like she didn’t belong in this conversation.
“You really were completely plowed last night,” he said, shaking his head at her lack of memory. “When you came …” Chris meant when she came to his hotel room after he’d sent her home from Shenanigans where she’d drank herself into an inebriated stupor over her breakup with David Banning; Kayla, however, took this statement and the other one just like it entirely differently, “well, I’d hoped you’d remember it.”
“I do! I do remember it, it meant a lot to me,” she said. This made Chris feel better in the context in which he assumed she was speaking. That their talk had been a good one, because he liked her. She was just trying not to spook him like she’d done with Shane, because she needed to find somewhere to catch her breath without any drama. So, she played along with whom she thought Chris was to her right now, which was her boyfriend. As it was, they weren’t quite there yet. “But, I just … I have to go, I think I might have work.”
“Oh, you definitely have work. Our great, big, metal friend is waiting for us.”
Kayla was stumped. “Our what?”
Chris stood back one step and put his hands on his hips. “Kayla, you really drank too much last night. Happy drunks are fun, but the kind that black out are scary, so you might wanna lay off the liquor next time.”
She glared at him. “What metal what, Chris?”
“The robot. Gene’s robot?”
It all came roaring back to her. Chris had worked for a company she’d long since forgotten the name of and oversaw a project that built a robot to help with various tasks in the hospital. Eugene Bradford had built it. This was that time? She’d been mistakenly poisoned by that robot, which was the beginning of the end of that project for Chris. This just wasn’t a time she remembered with any true clarity, especially with the chemical poisoning. Unlike the slow effects of the atropine, the solvent that ended up in her coffee had more acute effects, and it caused the entire time to be kind of fuzzy. And honestly? In retrospect the whole concept seemed kind of ridiculous.
“Right! How could I forget? I think I need a whole pot of coffee once I get to work!” she said amiably. “Don’t worry, I won’t let the robot serve it to me.”
“Alright …” Kayla detected a little hesitance in his reply (because he was confused, since the poisoning was yet to happen) but gave it no thought as she headed to the bathroom. “Well, yeah, you go ahead and get changed, and I’ll drive ya back. Oh, and Kayla!” She turned around in the doorway. “About,” he pointed to her breasts, “I didn’t peek.” If only he hadn’t winked she would have done a double take on what she thought was happening here. But his demeanor said nothing to her but we sleep together, so she thought he was being facetious and didn’t put two and two together on that.
Not long thereafter Chris had dropped her off, and now Kayla was looking at the front door of her parents’ house. The house she was still living in here. The house that sat above a fish market where both of her parents were now downstairs working. She had no idea what was expected of her or what she was supposed to do right now. Chris said she had a shift at the hospital, but that didn’t really make anything clear for her. And when she stepped inside the house, that didn’t make it any better. It was like one of those strange moments where you remember something, but you’re not sure if it was a dream or if it really happened. Now inside the livingroom, Kayla was reminded of when she existed here for five months with Steve on that return trip through time. She remembered how they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other on the couch. She remembered sneaking out to their Dodge Dart and having hot, lusty sex. She remembered two birthday parties that were so meaningful and filled with so much love for each other. She remembered sitting by the fire helping Bo with his homework. All these memories were filling her heart and making it ache for the first re-lived existence she didn’t want to leave. It was so compelling that she could practically smell her husband as he lowered his lips to her neck.
“Mom?” she called out very quietly. She knew there would be no answer, but it was all she could think to do at the moment. When the inevitable silence greeted her, she called for her father. “Pop?” Here here voice betrayed her a bit. When she first saw her father again, she really didn’t think she’d have another opportunity. She did, though, more than once. But she never took it for granted that there would be more jumps, more third, fourth, fifth, and sixth chances. Shawn Brady was dead in 2009, and that was not going to change. Whether Kayla jumped until the end of time or ceased to exist with an implosion of their slipstream, his death was a real fact, and each occasion to see him again was a gift. When no answer came she considered running downstairs, but something stopped her this time. Something told her that this timeline was going to be messy. That she had to get out. It wasn’t rational, but nothing was rational anymore. She had no grasp on this timeline and what she was “supposed” to do. Hell, her first inclination was to gather up her schoolbooks and head to class with David Gold. Of course, this was three years later, and as far as she knew, she and David hadn’t remained friends in the original timeline. But she missed his friendship, actually, and she would have appreciated someone familiar.
Find Steve. She needed her anchor. A plan was forming at the very outskirts of her mind, but she was still operating in the blind, really. She walked into her room and was kind of surprised to find that it was almost the same as when she’d last left it. She did, after all, still live in it, so maybe that didn’t surprise her, after all. She pulled open drawers, looked in her closet, and took stock of her clothing. Ever the fashion plate, as Steve would say, not a lot was the same as it was three years ago. Especially the bellbottom jeans, all of which were gone. She was a little disappointed, because she loved every bit of that 1979 wardrobe.
Kayla laid on her bed and covered her head with a pillow. She took deep breaths and tried to find a center so she could think clearly. The smell of her pillow was so very familiar, and that helped.
Steve …
The need for her husband compelled Kayla through the adjoining bathroom to the bedroom beyond. Unlike her room, this one had changed. It was … strange. A few of the posters remained on the walls, but the bedspread was now yellow with little flowers on it and a quilt of pastels she didn’t remember folded across the foot. That’s when she remembered, Carrie had entered their lives. Several memories of playing with her impossibly young little niece through the Jack & Jill bathroom when she’d sleep over rose up, and she smiled. Carrie had been one of the cutest, sweetest little souls she’d ever met, and the girl had taken to her very quickly. She still remembered Roman and Marlena’s first real wedding, Stefano’s men had shot at Roman from the balcony, and Carrie had clung to her with a serious death grip of terror. Kayla really loved her, and a surge of feeling came over her for her niece at this age. She couldn’t help it when those thoughts turned to Stephanie and Joey … and Emily. God, how she missed them.
The tears came quickly as she let herself feel the longing for her children. She sat on the edge of the bed and tried very hard to find her husband in the energy around her. But this was a room he’d never slept in. A room he’d never occupied. A house he’d never lived in for eleven days, keeping them together, waiting for her to arrive. Her need for him grew with every passing second, and so did her anxiety.
The reality that Steve was so completely out of reach scared her. It was just this side of losing him in time, and her need to find him ignited like a rush. Part of it was the nagging guilt that she’d chosen not to find him before, but most of it was the icy fear that she wouldn’t be able to find him now. The fear infused her with resolute purpose, and before she’d given it any truly coherent thought her decision was made: She wasn’t going to stay there and wait, she was going to go to him. For one thing, she couldn’t fathom the risk of missing him before the next jump came – and the miles between them meant it could happen. For another, they were in such a bad place right now, and the insecurity was dark and horrible. Finally, Kayla missed him so badly that the loneliness was crushing her. She was so starved for him to hold her tight and make her feel something other than how she felt day in and day out since they were torn from heaven that if she didn’t find him in whatever version she could, then she was going to collapse under the weight of that loneliness.
She should have stopped to think, reach for the details, and pin down when she was. But it wasn’t in her, and now she was on automatic.
The Hotel LaSalle was once a thing of luxury and beauty. Fire ravaged it in the early 1970’s, and it had slowly become a barely more than an abandoned building for vagrants and grifters when it was torn down in the ‘90’s. Here in 1982 it was somewhere in between. It called itself a hotel, but it was really three floors of “transitional” apartments where month-to-month was long-term; there were no leases, most of the residents paid by the week, and it was dirt cheap even by 1982 standards. The lobby consisted of a strange mix of visuals, and a strange mix of individuals, for that matter, too. Businessmen looking for peace and quiet read newspapers on beautifully crafted chaises and chairs that had, clearly, seen better days; others in the very same lobby engaged in one dodgy activity or another. Only one of the three elevators still operated, a physical arrow pointing to the floor the car was on like some kind of ornate leftover from another era, and an open stairwell with filthy walls yet a surprisingly beautifully carved railing was the more heavily trafficked means of getting up and down the stairs. The dingy, yellow lighting came with a permanent buzz, but the faded red wallpaper actually complimented it rather nicely, really. It wasn’t the sketchiest hotel (or whatever) Kayla had ever been in, but he’d warned her, and it was definitely the kind of place that would have fit Steve right about now.
She approached the desk clerk sitting behind a plexiglass window with bars on it, a small hole in the center the only means for contact. He wasn’t actuqally very imposing. In fact, he was kind of non-descript. Yet, she was nervous, anyway. She swallowed and put on a face so brave that it was obvious she was trying.
As it happens, Frank Russo was not a good person. When the beautiful blonde girl with the best lips he’d ever seen called him sir and asked him about some guy named Johnson, all he wanted to do was ask her to turn around so he could see her ass. He loved a good ass on a woman. And she was a hell of a sight, too. Women like her did not walk through those front doors – not for a decade or two had women like her walked through those front doors. It’s not that women didn’t spend time here; they just weren’t women like this one. He watched plenty of them walk right by this eyesore of a hotel in the middle of the downtown Chicago business district, but not once that he could remember had one actually entered. And he wasn’t the only one eyeing her. Two other men in the lobby were looking at her like she was the goddess Aphrodite. It didn’t get by Frank when she flushed, and he liked it.
The girl said that her information was that this was the last known address for this Johnson guy as late as a couple weeks ago, but this wasn’t a place where people really cared what your name was. The girl was completely confused and asked how they knew who their guests were. Guests? He’d begun laughing hysterically at this. That’s when she mentioned that the guy’s name might actually be Patch. That guy was definitely there, but Frank couldn’t imagine what she’d want with a loser like that. Still, he gave her his room number and told her to knock herself out waiting for him wherever she’d like, encouraging her to head up the stairs to the second floor. This gave him a great view of her ass, which, as he’d suspected, was perfect.
A lot ran through Kayla’s head as she waited at his door. Like how she got here in the first place. “What on earth do you need something like that for?” Abe Carver had asked when Kayla came to him with the one favor she really had to have fulfilled if she was going to be able to find her husband.
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“You have a friend with a rap sheet?” Abe’s dark brown eyes drilled into her like the inquisitive detective he’d always be.
“It’s not what it seems, it’s kind of complicated. But, yes.”
She hated that he was questioning her, though rationally she knew that she shouldn’t have expected him to just say, sure, here ya go, buh-bye, now. It didn’t help her frustration level that the police station was really pretty foreign to her. In all their jumps, Kayla had not seen the inside of this place yet, and she didn’t remember her way around this version of it before they’d gutted and remodeled years and years ago while she was still living in LA. Somehow she managed to find her way to Roman’s office and couldn’t believe her luck when she managed to evade him in favor of Abe. It was a relief that she wouldn’t have to navigate her sex life now that Chris had, apparently called him to “smooth things over” with her parents due to getting drunk and not coming home last night. But more than that, asking Roman for Steve’s rap sheet was going to elicit a score of questions she really didn’t want to have to come up with answers for. She thought she could manage it with Abe, though that was before he’d launched into his own version of the big brother act wanting to know why she needed the rap sheet for one Steven Earl Johnson, whereabouts unknown.
“Is he in jail?”
“No, nothing like that,” though he could be for all she knew.
“Then what do you need it for?”
Kayla had ten years on him at this point in their lives, and she wanted to smack him. “I’d rather not go into the details.”
He leaned his elbow up on the file cabinet and deepened his look. “You’re going to have to do a little better than that.” His scruitiny was very purposeful, and she did not appreciate the tone that begged to have a “young lady” attached to the end of the sentence.
“Abe, I can’t tell you. It’s that simple, I can’t tell you.” Abe’s face shifted to something she couldn’t really identify.
“I think you should ask your brother, Kayla.”
“Abe, no! Listen, it’s private, and he’s my brother not my babysitter. Please, it’s just a rap sheet, it’s a matter of public record, isn’t it?”
“Not exactly …”
“Abe! I am 23 years old. I have to have this document. Roman’s just going to ask these same questions and a million more that are, frankly, none of his business. I’ve never been in trouble a day in my life, and I’m telling you, no one’s in trouble now, either. Nothing’s illegal, and I’ve never given you a reason to doubt me. I’ve never asked you for anything. Please, Abe, I need this favor. Please.”
It was only minutes after this that she was on her way to the Greyhound station. Sure enough, Steve’s last three crimes had been in Chicago. Two public displays of drunkenness, which got him time in some south suburban drunk tank, and then a petty theft that he ended up serving a small stretch of time for in the Cook County jail. That had been just last month. There was also a two-year old solicitation charge in Miami that made the strangest combination of feelings – none of them good – rumble inside of her. “Great.” She pushed through it and hightailed it out of the station before Roman saw her, because one more tenuous grasp on relationship management and she was going to scream.
That was six hours ago. She’d spent the last 45 minutes of it parked on the floor at the door to his room, but no one had made an appearance. She and Steve had discussed all kinds of scenarios about where he might be and what he might be doing during these years before 1985 when he’d come to Salem. He was basically doing lots of off-the-books jobs, most of them being an enforcer, messenger, or mule for whomever was paying him at the time. She knew none of these jobs were good, and the look on Steve’s face when he fessed up to some of them made her very worried. Steve hated himself during these very dark days in his life. He’d never hated himself and felt more worthless than he did in these years following the mess with her brother in Stockholm. He hustled a lot of cons, scared a lot of people, drank a lot of alcohol, and slept with a lot of women. He didn’t want to be found this way, she knew that. But her need for him was so deep that she had no choice but to go to him. So, here she was. Staring at the stucko wall as she sat on the floor with her back against the door. Waiting.
Kayla knew that Steve may have arrived before her and that leaving Salem, where he knew he could find her, was possibly the wrong move. She was nearly positive, however, that he wasn’t here yet, because she was really sure that he would have communicated with her, left word somehow. But just in case the timing was off and he really was already here, she had covered that final base with the very last thing she did before getting on the bus. It made her very nervous, but it had to be done. Phone calls were not simple screen taps that were covered nationwide with a monthly flat fee. In 1982 they involved cash money per call, and long distance was a real concern. So she had to do this now while she was still in Salem. She smiled as she got in the completely antiquated phonebooth, but then got down to business.
“Hello?” the kind voice answered.
“Ah, yes, Mrs. Horton, this is Kayla Brady.”
“Kayla!” she replied with pleasant surprise. “Why—well it’s nice to hear from you, dear.”
“Thank you. Ah, it’s nice to talk to you, too.”
“What can I do for you?” She sounded so much younger it should have been shocking, but Kayla had long since gotten used to the vast age difference when talking to the younger counterparts of the people she knew. The very elderly version of Alice Horton that lived in Kayla’s rightful timeline didn’t even feel real anymore. “I know that David—“
Kayla hated to cut off Mrs. Horton, whom she respected greatly, but she knew her window of time to get that bus to Chicago was closing, and the alternative was waiting another day, which meant having to talk to her parents and Roman about Chris, and her ability to do that intelligently was about non-existent since she couldn’t even think straight. “It’s rather urgent, actually, and I need to ask for a very important favor. I have to go out of town for a while, a close friend needs my help very badly, and so I’m going to help him.”
“Him? I see.” Something in her tone made Kayla feel like she’d forgotten a pot on the stove. “How can I help?”
“His name is Steve, and I think he may call you.”
“Me? What ever for?”
“I know it seems—strange—but he might be trying to get a message to me or—looking for me.”
“Well, that certainly is strange, Kayla, I—Wouldn’t he call Shawn and Caroline?”
“Ah … you would think so … and I can’t explain it, but if he calls someone, he’s going to call you.”
“Kayla. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know. I’m sorry, I don’t want to impose, but, well, like I said I can’t explain it.”
“Mm. Can’t or won’t?” Mrs. Horton sounded a lot less understanding now than she would in only six or seven more years. It wasn’t that much time, but Kayla had to remind herself that Alice didn’t know who Steve was, and she didn’t have the experiences with them that now only existed in Kayla’s memory. She just hoped that their instincts for secret-keeper weren’t wrong.
“I can’t give you an answer you’ll understand. I … just …” She felt very meek about this whole thing, but the desperation to not lose Steve in time drove Kayla to take a long breath and a leap of faith. “Mrs. Horton, I’ve known you a long time. It seems a lot longer to me than it does to you. I’m going through something right now, and it’s very hard on me emotionally. I am taking a risk asking for your help, because I can’t ask it of anyone else, not even my parents. I’m asking you, because I know the kind of heart you have. You know people and are a good judge of character. Steve is a good man, and when you meet him, you will think so, too. I just need you to tell him one thing if he calls you. And he probably won’t. But if he does, that’s all I’m asking.”
After a long pause, Alice replied. “You know, I think David may have made the wrong choice,” she said. Kayla had all but forgotten her very brief relationship with David Banning, but he was Mrs. Horton’s grandson, and she suddenly felt embarrassed that she was talking about another man. “What is it you want me to say?”
Kayla let out the breath she’d been holding. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Horton. Please just tell him I’m on my way,” then she gave him the address that was on his rap sheet from the Cook County Sheriff’s office. Alice agreed, and promised that she would not tell the Bradys on the condition that when Kayla found this Steve of hers that she would call and confirm that she was ok, which Kayla thought was more than reasonable.
“Kayla … are you sure you’ll be alright?”
Kayla shrugged inwardly, because her world was so not alright that there was no word in the English language to describe it. But she placated her old family friend, anyway, assuring her that, of course, she would be.
She was not alright, though. Not when she exited the archaic phonebooth, not when she got onto the very old bus that smelled of lavatory despite the fact that her seat was near the front, and not when she got off at Union Station in downtown Chicago with her one duffel bag pilfered from Bo’s room at just after 4:00 in the afternoon was she alright. She wasn’t alright now, either, as the sky had darkened and no more sunlight came through the hallway where she sat with no Steve having yet shown up.
“You waiting for Patch?” The voice belonged to an older man of about 60 who’d suddenly appeared in front of her, pulling her from her thoughts. He had well-kept white hair and sun-reddened skin that would have otherwise been very fair. Kayla nodded and told him she was, but she was wary of whomever this was, even if he was old enough to be her grandfather. He had a settled kind of way about him that seemed pretty harmless. “You’re not exactly his type, blondie. What do you want with him?”
“Ah … he’s an old friend.”
He did a double take. “You and him? Friends?”
“Yes.” She was getting testy at this man’s opinion of her husband. She understood why he likely had this opinion, but she just was not in the mood.
The man lit a cigarette. She’d gotten used to a lot while living in the past, but people smoking in public like this wasn’t one of them. “I think you need better friends.” Now the look in the man’s eye shifted just slightly, and he lost a few points on the harmless meter. Kayla got up and held her bag protectively at her side, ready to hurl it if she had to.
“You know, I think I’ll just come back,” she said as she quickly made for the stairwell.
“If you really want to find him, try Murphy’s across the street.” She stopped short and turned back.
“Is that a bar?”
The man cocked his head with an arrogant chuckle and blew his smoke up at the ceiling. “My sister’s kid rebelled, too. Found herself a rock star. And VD. Think about it, kid.” Then the man went into his room, which was right next to Steve’s.
“Great,” she said under her breath as she headed down the stairs. “Who asked you?”
Kayla didn’t have to look too far to find Murphy’s, it was exactly where the man said it would be, which was directly out the front door on the other side of Washington Street. As soon as she entered she was immediately hit with an onslaught of sense memory. It smelled exactly like The Cheatin’ Heart: beer, hard liquor, greasy food, and a faint undertone of perfume.
The sweet memory of their pool game washed over her, but the fresh memory of their last bitter fight came in right behind it and washed it clear away.
“Keep em coming baby, now gimme three …You didn’t try hard enough to make me hear! You just left!”
The place was about mid-size, the bar stretching down the long and narrow space. A few degrees seedier than the hotel, it clearly catered to the kind of blue collar, relatively transient clientele that the Hotel LaSalle seemed to attract. So Kayla wasn’t really surprised at the well-worn feel of the people, place, and things inside. It was exactly what she expected. The décor reminded her a little bit of the pub, actually. Lots of dark wood paneling, only unlike her family’s restaurant, this woodwork had seen far better days, and the long stretch of mirrors lining the back bar was dingy with scratches and nicks from the liquor bottles constantly rubbing against it. With a little work, the place could be truly beautiful.
Once inside, the bartender looked up at her and flashed a quick grin. He didn’t see girls like her in there too often. He asked her what she was having then nudged his head toward a stool. She raked her eye anxiously down the bar and back again, but to her disappointment, Steve was not there. Not sure what else to do with herself, she took the seat, ordered a Budweiser, and began nursing it. He tried to strike up a conversation with her, but she wasn’t interested and just … sat and drank her beer feeling very alone.
What was she going to do when she found him? Kayla bobbed her knee up and down as she drained the last of the the Budweiser and admitted the doubt to herself for the first time. Just because she found him didn’t mean he was going to accept her.
“You’re the finest man I’ve ever known, Steve Johnson. I love you.”
Steve frowned. “I was a serious f*ck-up, Kayla. If you find me and I’m not there yet in 1984 or something, I might not be so nice to you.”
“You will be the incredible, stand-up man that’s lived inside of you since the day you were born whether you know who I am or not.”
The wave of anxiety that hit her as she recalled this conversation from their 1979 jump made her heart pound. She combed anxious fingers through her very 80’s feathered hair and longed painfully for the warmth she last felt when she was re-living the hustled kisses. That Steve didn’t have their shared life behind him, but he was her husband to her, and she felt their connection, drew strength from it. The connection between them was there then, and she was going to make him feel it when she found him here, too.
The bartender set another beer in front of her with a clack against the wooden counter. She didn’t ask for it, but she was content to have it. The cold, barley-infused liquid felt good sliding down her throat. It didn’t burn like hard liquor did, but she welcomed the sharpness against the back of her throat. It was half gone when Steve walked in. She froze with the bottle mid-way to her lips and gasped her joy at the fact that he really was there, right in front of her. The joy was tempered with sadness when she took him in, though. He was only three years older here than he was in 1979, but he was so far removed from that. She saw, now, first hand, what life had brought him by way of the vast change in his look. It wasn’t the patch or the scar, which looked a lot more recent than she’d ever seen it, a lingering pink coloring the curved groove. It was his spirit. He was lean, his hair was slicked back, and there was a hardness to him that she hadn’t seen before. Even when she’d first met him in 1986 some of that hard demeanor had been chipped away by Bo and, especially, Hope. Even the quest to free Britta had peeled back a few of those outer layers by the time Kayla had come into his life. He sat down only a few seats away from her, and she saw that the man she knew was buried away under layers of invisible body armor. But she smiled despite this. Because no matter what, that was Steve. That was her husband under there somewhere, and he was hers. She needed him, now she had him, and that’s all that mattered.
It was when the the very skinny, raven-haired woman sidled up to him and draped her arms around his neck that Kayla dropped her smile.
She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were only feet away as they sat on the two stools at the short end of the bar. A picture is worth a thousand words, and she didn’t need to hear any of their words to get the picture. The gesture of his head, the smarmy look on his face, the promiscuous nature of her reactions and the not-so-subtle way he grabbed her bony ass and pulled her into him made it very clear. She wanted sex and alcohol, and that was just fine by him.
Kayla was frozen with shock. She wasn’t naïve, she knew she might find him with a woman. But now that she’d really done so she was speechless with jealous, angry annoyance. She had no idea what to do with this reality. That was Steve. Right in front of her. Obviously not yet relieved of his destination awareness. Publicly groping someone. Her husband was ten feet away humping another woman right in front of her. And it hurt. She had no right to hurt, this wasn’t her Steve, and they were four years off from even meeting each other, yet she truly felt so hurt. She tried to tell herself to stop right now and just get a grip, but the scene unfolding before her escalated when the woman took a swig of her beer and pressed herself up against him.
The bartender was watching but it was the show the young, innocent-looking girl in shock was giving him, not the bar skank and Patch, who’d become something of a regular when he wasn’t in the slammer. And it was quite an entertaining show for the guy, too, because she seemed enthralled and horrified at the same time.
Steve looked eager but also detached as they came on to each other. The woman was painfully thin; Kayla easily weighed 20 more pounds than she did, and she was pretty sure the woman survived on nothing more than cigarettes and booze. She wore a short-sleeved, blue, very low-cut scoop-necked t-shirt that very successfully allowed the enormous breasts attached to her slight frame to nearly spill out into the waiting fingertips of her husband. The woman’s white jeans were skintight, and she made no attempt to keep her legs closed as Steve’s thigh had found a way between them. Even from this angle facing mostly away from her, Kayla could see that she was wearing a full palette of heavy makeup. Their gestures weren’t the least bit affectionate, but they were definitely hot, both of them obviously having only one thing on their minds. Strangely, Kayla noticed that they weren’t actually kissing. Their mouths were engaged, just not together. It was so striking of an omission of this basic tenet of making out that she was beyond simply gaping and was now actually observing them like some kind of clinician. The woman was almost riding Steve’s leg, she was gnawing on his neck, and his hands were far enough up on her ribcage that he was getting handfuls of her breasts every time she shifted; but their lips did not touch. Kayla cocked her head with interest. Was he avoiding her kiss? Kayla’s heart sped up when the woman reared up her head for one; but when Steve moved his face so that her fire engine red lips missed their mark it sped up a lot more. He was avoiding a kiss. This act of basically refusing intimacy – if that’s really what he was doing by not kissing her on the lips – sent a possessive thrill through Kayla. She was still processing it when Steve uttered his first words to her.
“You wanna take a picture, baby?”
Kayla’s head snapped up to meet his eye, and while his suggestive voice was familiar, his gaze was not. Instead of the bawdiness she would have expected, his eye was dark and … kind of threatening. The woman had turned to look her irritated nose down at this distraction. Kayla swallowed and blinked, and that was enough to ease his countenance into something she knew a lot better. He raised his eyebrow and smirked with such a strong representation of her husband that she momentarily forgot that he didn’t know her. He suddenly felt 100% like her Steve, and she was so glad she’d come. She knew she’d done the right thing. That’s when he turned on her.
“’Cause I’m a little busy over here right now, little girl, and I’m not into havin’ an audience.”
“I’m not a little girl!” she snapped with so much fire that it now commanded his full attention while the brunette clicked her tongue in frustration that her fun was on hold for the moment. Steve widened his eye.
“No?”
“No.”
“Patch,” the woman said as she tried to return his attention to her. But he put the side of his hand to his lips and shushed her before eyeing Kayla very curiously.
“The way you’re watchin’? I think you’re a sweet little girl who’s never seen the big, bad city before.”
“I’m 23 and all grown up for your information.” Only now the fire was gone, and she sounded very much like a whelpy little girl, even to herself. Steve laughed, and Kayla rolled her eyes.
“Ok,” he laughed – and the laughter was at her, not with her, “you win, sweet girl.”
“You don’t like sweet, do you, Patch?” the brunette said, grabbing his chin and turning him back to face her. Kayla cringed when the woman kissed his neck wetly. Steve moaned slightly and licked his lips at Kayla, purposely trying to intimidate her.
“Nothin’ not to like about a thing like this one, sweet as sugar, gettin’ off for the first time. But, you, baby,” he assured the woman nipping at his neck, “you’re hot.”
“I am hot,” she said before arching her back and licking her lips with obvious invitation.
They started to get up, Kayla all but dismissed. She had to stop Steve from leaving with her. She knew he’d freak if he jumped in with this woman all over him. Plus Kayla really wanted to stop this woman from being all over him.
“She’s hot, alright. Probably the raging infection.” It was out of her mouth before she knew she had it in her.
The brunette rounded on Kayla like Pink about to start a fight. “What did you just say to me, bitch?”
“I didn’t say anything,” she said raising the shoulder closest to the woman in an acquiescing buffer. “I’m a really sweet girl, I wouldn’t say a thing.” Steve’s eye only got wider than it already was, because that was a hell of a line, and Kayla’s adrenaline spiked with the knowledge that she sure as hell did have it in her.
“Bullshit,” you prissy little cunt.”
“Uh oh,” the bartender said, “looks like the out-of-towner took Candy down a notch.”
Kayla hated that foul word, but she didn’t react. “Hmm,” she said non-chalantly, “nice comeback. What other clever things can you say? You know what, you take a minute to figure it out, I can wait.” Then she took a lazy swig of her beer.
“Are you gonna let her talk to me that way, Patch?” Even today when he was as badass as they came, Steve was no mysoginist and hated that word even more than Kayla did. He didn’t hear a word the woman he’d just been groping had said, though, because this blonde spitfire in front of him had his full attention.
“Oh, honey,” Kayla bravely countered before chugging the last quarter of the bottle with an adept and impressive speed, “you are out so out of your league. Then again, with a name like Candy, you never really had a chance.”
“F*cking cunt!” she reared back her fist, but Steve got between them and told Candy to cool it. Which did not sit nearly as well with her as it did with Kayla. “What you got a hard-on for her now? Is that it?”
“I just don’t want you to break those pretty, red nails of yours, baby, that’s all,” he charmed. “I need ‘em in tact, ya know what I mean?” He wrapped his palm around the back of Candy’s neck seductively, and she gave him back her focus. “That’s it, baby. How ‘bout you take yourself a ride across the street with me.”
“You mean on you?” Kayla interjected. “Hey, it’s your genital health.”
Steve huffed and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, it’s on,” Candy insisted, “Let’s take this shI*t outside. Right now!”
“You’ve got a mouth, baby, you know that?” he said to Kayla.
“So, not so sweet, then?” She stuck out her chin as far as it would go.
“Oh, you’re sweet, baby,” he snickered, “so whatever you’re playin’ at, you’d better watch your step.” The snicker, the look in his eye – none of it was pleasant. There wasn’t an ounce of affection in this man’s face. It was more of a lascivious come on meets having been duly warned. Ok, she said to herself, Noted.
“Get out of the way, Patch!” Candy shouted. “I’m gonna tear her up!”
“Do it outside!” the bartender warned.
“Ya know what, let me give you some advice,” Kayla said as she took a casual stance that completely belied the jittery nerves she was hiding. “You get yourself some amoxicillin or maybe doxycycline and that vaginal itch will go away in no time.” Candy’s eyes flared, she was speechless.
Kayla had no idea where her hubris was coming from, because this behavior – these in-your-face insults flying out of a mouth that had never said words like this to anyone with this kind of contempt – was not her at all. It was, in fact, the opposite of her. But she was desperate to keep Steve in that bar with her and to make that woman go away. The fact that this was an unqualified change to the timeline didn’t get past her, but for her marriage and for her sanity, she needed Steve right now so much more than she needed the stability of the slipstream.
Without missing a beat from what she’d just said to Candy, Kayla leaned in toward her husband and said softly, “Might wanna go home and wash that leg.” Steve’s eye then flared to match Candy’s. Kayla sat back down, her eyes refusing to drop his gaze.
Something about these direct statements spooked Candy, who backed off the threatening tone and just wanted to leave with Steve. “You’d better watch your own twat I don’t put a fist in it. Fuckin’ cunt.” Kayla actually saw Steve’s reaction to Candy’s filthy words play out on his face and knew she had a chance. “Come on, Patch,” she said. “Let’s take that ride.”
“Or stay here, and buy me another beer.”
Steve knew what kind of women wanted what he had to offer, and those kinds of women were tweakers like Candy who needed to f*ck to maintain their highs when they couldn’t get their hands on the speed to do it for them. They weren’t well-raised young women more beautiful than anyone he’d ever seen, and that included Farrah Faucet, and obviously smart as a whip. So, whatever this chick was doing, she was about to get in over her head, because he did not like being made fun of this way. He dismissed her with a sneer in his lip and grabbed Candy around the middle.
“Go take your little act to the Palmer House, ‘cause those sugardaddies are much more your type, baby.” Then he turned to go with his hand on Candy’s ass again.
“You’re making a big mistake, Steve.” Her voice faltered just slightly here. Her whole look faltered with it when Steve whipped his head around to glare at her with real menace.
“What did you just call me?”
“I …”
Steve entered her personal space, lifted her up off the stool by her upper arms, and leaned her back against the bar getting right up into her face. It was the frist time he’d touched her in this timeline, and the thrill of that touch was powerful. There was a dangerous look in his eye, though.
“I’m not playin’ with you,” he hissed. “How do you know my name?” Kayla started to stammer. She’d made a big mistake. “How!” He squeezed her arms tighter, and it hurt, but she liked it. She wanted it to hurt. She needed to feel him in whatever way she could, and right now, if this was the way, then she welcomed it, because she was that starving for an emotion from him that was directed at her. Steve, however, saw her brow furrow in obvious pain and did not like that effect his anger was having on her. He was into scaring people, but he didn’t get off on injuring women, and he could plainly see from the look on her face that he was hurting her right now. Deep-seeded hatred for himself welled up from the pit of his stomach, and he released her.
Kayla never dropped her eyes. She held his gaze the entire time he’d had her in his grip, and now that he’d released her, she still had those unbelievable, blue eyes fixed upon him like some kind of beacon trying to capture his attention. She was beautiful. And she was looking at him like he was someone to her. Why? And how the hell did she know his name? The cops knew his name, his public defender knew his name, and that was about it. Who the hell was she?
Kayla watched all of this play out on his face. She couldn’t be sure exactly what he was feeling, but she knew for sure that she was having an effect on him. She was only further bolstered in her efforts when Candy tried to coax Steve out of the bar once and for all, because it seemed that Steve was no longer interested. She went in to kiss him, but Steve moved his head out of the way. Kayla licked her lips with nervous tension, and something in her went ding, because Steve blinked. She licked her lips, and he blinked. “Baby, you’re killin’ me …” She remembered the countless times that the innocent or not so innocent gesture affected him, and she was not above using that to her advantage here.
“Not tonight, baby,” he said to Candy while looking only at Kayla. “I got somethin’ I gotta do.”
“What? Patch, she’s a little bitch, she’s not your type!” Kayla saw the twitch in Candy’s face as the muscles beneath her eye involuntarily spasmed. Then she darted her eye to Candy’s arms and saw the track marks. She got it now. Candy was coming down off whatever high she was on. And despite the tacit animosity she had for the woman, Kayla felt sorry for her.
“Go!” he growled. “I mean it.”
Candy’s face turned beet red with anger, then she wiped a palm across her runny nose. “You’re an asshole with a tiny little dick,” she spat at Steve. Knowing neither of those things were true gave Kayla a huge amount of satisfaction. Steve reached back just his right arm to shove his middle finger in her face, then the woman whom Kayla speculated was no longer living in 2009 left the bar.
Once gone, Steve sat down heavily on the stool beside Kayla. He peeled off his jacket and laid it across the bar then looked at her significantly. “Ok, Sweetness. You got my attention. Now you’re gonna tell me right f*cking now. Who the hell are you?”