Текст книги "My Soul to Keep"

Автор книги: Kennedy Ryan

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

ANXIETY ABOUT MY FATHER SQUEEZES AROUND my chest like a belt pulled to the last notch. We’ve gone twelve years without any real relationship, but the possibility of losing him for good has leveled me. This scare bulldozed my emotions, overturning my perspective completely. If he had died with our last words, angry and bitter, hanging between us . . . but it didn’t happen that way. I hold on to that reassuring thought, even though I know he’s not out of the woods yet.

Just getting out of that hospital helped. Those sterile walls and the antiseptic smell were driving me crazy. And my mother. She kept . . . touching me. Like we have a relationship. Like she’s ever been an actual parent. It was freaking me the hell out. And I hated the way she looked at Kai, like she was a bug in her salad.

I finally have just a few minutes alone with Kai. Well, minus Gep, of course, who’s driving us to my parents’ house. But no one will be there except us. I need to take advantage of what little time we have, since apparently, she has to leave tonight.

I consider her in the backseat beside me. The dark hair spills around her shoulders, and if she had makeup on at any point, it’s long gone. She’s been wearing the same jeans and T-shirt for more than twenty-four hours. She dropped everything to be here for me, but I know she has commitments back in Los Angeles I’m so selfish because despite everything she has already done, I want more. I want her to stay.

“So when does your flight leave?”

“Oh, uh, Grady said he’d talk with Bristol about getting me back tonight.” Kai looks at me, eyes cautious. “I have that music video tomorrow and need to get back.”

“Dub’s video?”

“Well, the one he booked me for. It’s actually that guy Luke Foster who won Total Package last season.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s a friend of mine.”

I hate that show and advised Luke against going on. Guess that shows how much I know. But the producers involved are all douches, and I wouldn’t let them within spitting range of my career.

“He actually invited me on set. I think this is the video for his first single since he won, right?” I keep my voice neutral. “How long is the shoot?”

“It’s three days. My part tomorrow is pretty small. I’m mostly on day three.”

“So . . . Dub.” Our eyes catch and hold, and she knows what I’m about to ask before it leaves my mouth. “He asked you out yet?”

The fact that she doesn’t answer right away is an answer in itself. The one I don’t want to hear. She flips her phone over in her lap a few times before looking back to me.

“Yeah. A couple times.”

“And?”

“And I told him no.”

Relief pushes a breath past my lips. At least one thing is going right, though the fact that he’s asking her at all kindles my temper.

“Why’d you tell him no?”

I’m pushing it, but I need something from her. Something that says she knows she’s mine. That what we shared on that pool table wasn’t a quick fuck we’ll always ignore and pretend never happened. I didn’t want our first time to be in my rec room on a pool table, but it still meant something to me. It meant . . . everything to me, and the possibility that it didn’t turn her inside out is killing me.

“Rhyson, let’s just focus on your dad for now and deal with all our stuff later.”

I nod, though I hate that. I know that motherfucker Dub has ulterior motives, but if I press the issue, Kai will get defensive or push me away. I can’t afford that.

The SUV comes to a halt in the circular driveway of the house that never felt like home. I get out and hold the door, helping her down. I don’t move back when she steps out. Her petite frame presses into me, the brief contact giving me a whiff of that cinnamon pear soap her mother made. Before I know it, my palm is at the back of her neck, and I’m dipping my head to lay a kiss on her lips. She tips up on her toes, opening her mouth under mine. God, I need to taste her. Her tongue meets me halfway, and her hand presses into my side, drawing me closer. We can talk later, but we have this right now. Our bodies have missed each other. The communion of this kiss loosens everything wound tight inside of me. This kiss is fresh air in a tight, padded cell.

The sound of Gep stepping out of the SUV disrupts the quiet, and Kai pulls back, glancing in his direction self-consciously. She steps away and starts toward the house.

“Sorry,” Gep whispers, shrugging.

I roll my eyes at him and follow Kai, pulling ahead to ring the doorbell. I don’t even have a key to this house anymore. How could this ever be home?

Bertie opens the door, concern and curiosity wrestling on her face. She eyes Kai for a second before turning her attention back to me.

“Rhys, you’re home.”

Bertie reaches up and hugs me. She’s always been really good at pretending we’re a normal family.

“I heard your father is out of surgery.”

“Yeah.” I nod and step back. “He won’t be awake for a while so they sent me home to sleep for a little bit. Bert, this is my friend, Kai.”

“Hello,” Kai says with a tentative smile.

“So pretty. Nice to meet you.” Bertie’s eyes drift between Kai and me. “You hungry?”

“Starved, but sleepier than anything else.”

“I swept out the tree house for you.” Bertie covers her mouth and glances at Gep and Kai, like she’s made a faux pas. In a way, I guess she has since she’s the only one who ever knew what that tree house meant to me.

“It’s fine, Bert.” I lean down to kiss her cheek and realize I’ve actually missed at least one person from this house. “I’ll take a look.”

“I’m gonna check the perimeter. Hit me up if you need me.” Gep leaves the way we just came.

“I’ll go get lunch started.” Bertie gestures up the steps. “I’m sure you remember the way, Rhys, and the guest room is ready if you want to lie down, Kai.”

She bustles off toward the kitchen, leaving Kai and me standing in the foyer and looking at each other carefully, like if we do or say the wrong thing, the fragile peace between us will shatter.

“Tree house?” Kai offers a small smile. “Somehow I didn’t envision the young Beethoven climbing trees.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t get to spend much time in it.” I hesitate. I’d love to show her the place that held some significance for me years ago, but if she’s tired, I won’t. “You wanna see it? I mean, if you need to sleep now—”

“Lead the way.”

We walk in silence through the kitchen to the rear of the house. I open the door to the backyard, and immediately the sight of the well-manicured lawn, an almost unnaturally vibrant green in the dead of winter thanks to our gardener, transports me to the lonely afternoons I spent out here. At the far end of the yard, a hundred-year-old tree holds the one place I felt at home here. I grab Kai’s hand and walk her across the yard, my heart growing heavier instead of lighter with every step.

I take the first rung and then the next, glad to see Kai right behind me when I look down. She doesn’t break the silence, but her eyes show her concern.

It hasn’t changed. Other than Bertie’s sweeping, it’s like no one has been here since the last time I was at sixteen years old. Grady found me up here that Christmas, sick and shaking, fiending for Xanax. Trying to quit on my own, but having little success. That night set into motion all the events that saved me, but ruined my relationship, and Grady’s, with my parents.

Even with my father in the hospital, still fighting for his life, and even with a possible second chance to restore our relationship, I can’t hold back the bitterness that almost chokes me. The small space at the top of the tree is empty except for a few music books, a composition notebook, and a sleeping bag. So bare, but it was all I needed. With that beautifully decorated house just yards away, I preferred it out here because it was my only escape from my parents. From their agenda. From the demands of a career I never asked for.

I sink to the sleeping bag, my back to the wall and my legs stretched out in front of me, and can’t help but remember all the nights I spent here alone in the dark.

“What’s going on in there?” Kai taps my temple with one finger.

I grab her hand and press my lips to her knuckles. She’s so sweet. She’s everything I never thought I would deserve. I don’t deserve her, but the idea that I might not ultimately have her turns a knife in my chest.

“Rhyson, talk to me.” She settles beside me, not pulling her hand away, but linking our fingers on her thigh. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me about this place and what it means to you.”

I don’t want to. I don’t want her to know how pathetic and weak I was. How I allowed them to control me with music and medication. How they withheld their approval to keep me coming back for more. But it’s Kai, and she is my irresistible force.

“When I was twelve, I told my dad that I wanted to go to school.” A half smile twists itself on my face. “Not like tutors, but like school with other kids my age. He said I’d be on the road too much for that but promised to consider it later. He got me this tree house as some kind of compromise. I guess to make me feel like I had something other kids had. I was already too old for it, but I wanted it. I loved it because they never bothered me here.”

I squeeze her small hand in mine.

“I used to pretend I had friends coming over. I used to imagine how we’d roast s’mores down in the yard and then sleep up here at night.”

“Sounds like fun,” she says, her voice small, her head resting on my shoulder. “Where was Bristol in all this?”

I frown, struggling to place Bristol in my life all those years ago.

“We weren’t your typical twins. We weren’t close at all in anything but looks. She wanted my life, or at least she thought she did. The supposed glamour of being on the road, earning money, having my picture taken, and being respected by adults.” A short laugh ruptures my words. “But I wanted what she had. She went to school. She had friends. She had a life.”

“And every time we’d come home off the road, I’d come out here, hoping my dad would come looking for me, but he never did. He just bribed me with it and forgot it was even here. Once we were off the road, he forgot I was even here.”

The tears burning my throat make me so angry. I’m not some punk ass kid with no friends falling asleep in this dumb tree house anymore. What the hell do I have to cry about? I escaped this glittering prison. I made my own way. I made my own money. I even made real friends. Does remembering the cold past hurt that badly? Is it the uncertainty of my father’s health? The relief that he pulled through surgery? I’m not sure where this flood of emotions comes from, but I don’t want it. I fight it.

“It’s okay,” Kai whispers, reaching one hand up to cup my jaw. She crawls onto my lap, straddling one knee on either side of my legs. She presses our foreheads together, her breath cool on my lips. “It’s okay if it still hurts. It’s over, but it still hurts, and that’s normal. Don’t bottle it up, Rhys. Whatever it is, you can let it out with me.”

I know that. I believe that. As I bury my head in her neck, my whole body relaxes into her. My arms wrap around her, squeezing at her back. She doesn’t complain. She just squeezes me in return. The hurt is draining away with every second I have with her. I’m sure it’s not gone completely. I know it doesn’t work like that, but she is a balm to my wounds and makes everything feel better.

A snapping sound startles us. I look over her shoulder just in time to see the lens of a camera as someone backs down the ladder of the tree house. A flash makes us both squint and throw our hands over our faces, but too late.

“Fuck!” My head falls back to bang against the wall. “Photographer.”

I know I should chase them, but I don’t have the energy. So they got a picture of me collapsing all over a dark-haired girl. I just hope they didn’t see Kai’s face. I don’t care anymore what they say about me.

“A photographer?” Kai’s eyes go wide, and she springs off my lap and out the tree house door before I can stop her.

“Kai, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” she yells back up. “How dare they invade your privacy at a time like this.”

I rush to the door and almost fall out of the tree house with shock. Really, with laughter.

My girl, no bigger than a minute, all five feet two inches of her, has caught that poor, unsuspecting pap. She is on his fucking back! I should go help, but this is just too entertaining, and she seems to have it under complete control.

“Get off me!” the photographer screams, shaking his back like Kai is a pesky spider monkey he can’t get rid of.

“Give me that camera!” Her legs clench him, and her slim arms have his neck in a death grip. She finally grasps the camera strap and tugs until the camera hits the ground, breaking into pieces. She’s immediately off his back, scooping up a chunk of it and sprinting back toward the tree house. He grabs Kai around her waist, lifting her off the ground so her feet dangle and kick.

Motherfucker just crossed the line.

I’m down the ladder so fast I almost lose my shoe.

I grab Kai’s waist, pulling her from the ballsack who is by now red in the face and sweating.

“Keep your hands off her,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Little bitch broke my camera.”

My fist is halfway to his face when Kai grabs my elbow, stepping between me and this lowlife.

“Your camera is broken and you’re trespassing,” Kai snaps. “So let’s call it even. We won’t press charges if you don’t.”

Gep comes rushing through the back door, gripping the piece that’s usually concealed in his boot or at his back. The pap starts stuttering as soon as he sees Gep’s nine.

“Uh, yeah. Sounds good,” he gulps, one eye on my fist still checked only by Kai’s small hand, and one eye on Gep’s Glock.

“’Bout damn time.” I narrow eye Gep, and he has the decency to look slightly embarrassed. We’re in the middle of Nowhere, New York. He can’t keep one half-assed pap out of my backyard?

“Sorry, boss. I was—”

“Checking the perimeter, yeah, I know.” I jerk my fist free of Kai’s hand, pulling her to my side and slipping my arm around her waist. “Maybe you should have started a little closer in.”

“He said he was sorry, Rhyson.” Kai gives me a look that tells me she thinks I’m mistreating the help.

What the fuck ever. Instead of being a harmless pap, it could have been a stalker. Someone packing real heat. For me, I’ve never worried about security much. I know it sounds reckless, but I always feel like I can protect myself if it comes down to it. But now that Kai is in the mix, it’s a different story. I need to make sure everyone on my team knows that.

“Get this trash out of here, Gep.” I glare at the red-faced photographer. “I’m sure you have insurance for your camera, right?”

The pap nods, glancing between Kai and me.

“What are you looking at?” I demand.

“This your new girl?” the pap has the nerve to ask.

“Are you kidding me?” I take a menacing step closer. “You’re still trying to get a story? Seriously?”

“Just thought you should know I wasn’t alone.”

“What do you mean?” Kai frowns. “There was someone else?”

“Yeah, he got away.” Pap shakes his head. “Never seen him, but he got shots of you guys. If you’re trying to keep whatever you got going a secret, just thought you should know it’s out. Those shots will fetch high dollar.”

“That’s enough.” Gep tightens his meaty fingers around pap’s arm, making him wince. “Time to go. You’re lucky we aren’t calling the cops.”

Under Gep’s escort, the pap leaves the way I assume he came, through the back fence that can be accessed from the sidewalk.

Kai turns worried eyes up to me, a frown crinkling her pretty face.

“If those pictures get out, everything could change.”

She’s right. If they got a clear shot of her face, she’ll have paps at her house maybe by the time she returns home. The intimacy between us was obvious. There’s no playing that off or spinning it. We could say we’re just friends, and she was comforting me because of my dad. That’s true, except I’m so tired of that. We’re not just friends. I can’t help but remember how Kai rushed down that tree, no thought for herself.

“What are you grinning about?” Kai asks, eyes suspicious.

“You should have seen yourself on that dude’s back.”

Despite the lingering worry about my dad, the close call with the pap, and the pictures probably releasing soon, I laugh. It starts as a chuckle, but it builds and gains steam until I can barely stand. Maybe it’s hysterics, and I’m finally cracking. Maybe it’s exhaustion. I don’t know, and I don’t care. All that really matters is that on one of the shittiest days of my life, I’m still laughing.

And I know it’s because of Kai.

She sees the humor in it too. Laughter lights her face up, stretching her mouth wide and squinting her eyes until tears run down her cheeks. We’re both caught up in this ridiculous day that has roller coastered me from exhaustion in Chicago, to fear at the hospital, to anger and frustration in these last few moments. There’s no one else I would want with me on the ride this day has been.

On the verge of a huge music video, the kind of opportunity she’s been waiting for, she dropped everything to be with me. She endured Bristol’s and my mother’s downright rudeness to stay by my side. She took off after that pap like her life depended on it because she thought I depended on it. Grady is the only person who has ever fought for me, ever put me first, and he has earned my undying gratitude. He’s earned my love.

And so has she.

The laughter drains away, leaving only that shake-me-to-the-core revelation and a rock solid resolve behind. A resolve to do something I should have done, should have said a long time ago.

“Pep, things are about to change.”

A grin lingers on her lips, fading slowly as she realizes the shift in my mood.

“You mean because of the pictures?” She nods, twisting her lips to one side. “I bet Bristol can spin it. Say we’re just friends, and that I was—”

“We’re not.”

She frowns up at me, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

“We’re not what?”

“Just friends. We’re not just friends.”

Caution takes over her face, and I can already see excuses and rationales lining up in her head.

“Rhyson, let’s talk about this. Listen to me.”

“No, you listen.” I stroke a finger over the curve of her cheekbone. “This all started with your ultimatum, but it’s ending with mine.”

“Ending?”

I wonder if she realizes she’s leaning into my hand or that her face softens when she looks up at me. Every touch between us, every look, tells me she wants this as much as I do, and I’m going to give it to her. It goes completely against my nature to allow anyone to control anything in my life. I’ve bucked my better judgment long enough.

“You have a decision to make, and you need to make it now. I’ve given you time. I’ve given you space, now I need you to decide.” I pull in and exhale a quick breath. “Either I’m yours, and you’re mine, or we’re nothing.”

“What?” She blinks her confusion.

“I said,” drawing out the word and giving her a few seconds to get accustomed to our new reality. “Either I’m yours and you’re mine, or we’re nothing. I don’t want to be your friend. I want to be . . . yours.”

“I think—”

“Rhyson.” Bristol’s voice cuts in from the patio where she stands at the edge of the yard.

Seriously? If we’re interrupted one more time . . .

“What, Bris?” I snap.

She lifts her brows before dropping them into a frown so like my mother’s it’s eerie.

“Your father is awake and wants to see you.” Her voice bites me even across the yard. “Forgive me for thinking that’s why you’re here.”

“I’m sorry.” I’m so twisted around right now. One minute all I can do is worry about my dad, and the next, I’m lost in Kai. “Of course.”

Kai walks with me across the yard. I shove my hands in my jeans pockets to keep myself from reaching for her. In my head, I keep hearing Grady harp on space. He’s forgotten more about life than I know, so maybe I’ll listen. I told her what I want. Now she has to tell me what she wants, and I have to let her.

“The car’s waiting out front.” Bristol looks between Kai and me, speculating or judging. I’m too tired to tell which. “We blocked off the street so no one can get down here. The neighbors aren’t happy, but they’ll be all right.”

“Great.” I step into the kitchen, grabbing one of Bertie’s still-steaming blueberry muffins from a basket on the counter, offering one to Kai. “Muffin?”

She doesn’t look me in my eyes, accepting the muffin and perching on one of the high bar stools at the marble island in the center of the kitchen.

“Picked up a few things for you, Kai.” Bristol sets a GAP and a Victoria’s Secret bag on the counter. “Everything you need to change before you leave should be there.”

“What time does her flight leave?” I bite into my muffin and take the stool beside Kai.

“In a couple of hours.” Bristol raises both brows at Kai. “That okay? Grady said you need to get back for a video or something.”

“Um, yeah.” Kai sets her unfinished muffin down on a napkin. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” Bristol nods briskly, returning her eyes to me. “The car’s still waiting.”

I flick a glance to Kai’s profile, hoping she’ll give me some sign of what she’s thinking, but her face is a blank page. I know she feels my eyes on her, but refuses to look up from the muffin she’s shredding on her napkin.

Fuck it.

Without even a good-bye, I follow Bristol out of the kitchen and to the SUV parked in the driveway.

I’m such a pussy. I’ve fully given Kai the reins since the first time we met. I’ve known what I want all along, but I compromised and took whatever she wanted to give. The one time I assert my will, which is what comes most naturally to me, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to stick to it. I gave her an ultimatum I’m not sure I can enforce. The thought of being without her strips away all my bravado. She has no idea how much power she has over me. I’m the famous one. The rich one. The one who has nothing left to prove, but she holds every card. Especially the ones with hearts.