Whisper to Me(4)

“I’m getting another drink,” I said, jumping down from the truck. “Want anything?”

“No, I’m good,” Dakota said. She and Shane had gotten involved in a conversation with some former classmates who’d just arrived at the party.

I headed toward the cooler for another beer. As I passed by the bonfire, I heard Kai’s low and smooth voice telling his admirers how the red-light district wasn’t as it appeared in movies.

“Let’s drill Rachel about what the big city’s been like.” I felt strong fingers grip my hand, and then I was yanked into the hard wall of Kai’s chest.

“Sound good, Turtle?” he whispered, and I playfully elbowed him in the ribs. It’d been his nickname for me since middle school cross-country. I was one of the slowest on the team in my forest-green uniform, and he’d gotten a kick out of his joke. When I’d tell him where to stick it, he’d only change it to a turtle name like Shelly or Myrtle just to piss me off.

Kai’s arm immediately curled around my neck in a kind of headlock, like the three years had never passed between us. He’d made this same obnoxious move countless times in high school and I’d clamber to get away from him, because it always made me feel like a kid in front of his metal-head friends. And, more important, in front of him.

But this time felt different—he was all warm skin over hard muscles, and his arm had sprouted biceps I’d never felt before. Instead of trying to get away, I grew motionless as the enormity of my own smutty thoughts crashed down on me—thoughts about this boy who was now a man, who just happened to be my best friend’s brother.

Apparently, nostalgia was a bitch, too. I didn’t know what in the hell had come over me.

“Are you going for your CPA, Rachel?” Julia, one of my old high school friends, asked. I could muster only a nod, but that was enough of an opening as she went off on a tangent about how hard her own business classes had been at her university.

I remained hyperaware of the fact that my body was aligned with Kai’s, that my ass was right up against his crotch, and how it seemed so damn wrong to even think about the nice package he had going on behind me.

Kai would never know that I included him on the short list of guys who’d left me. Right there with Miles and my dad. When Dakota was considering her college options, I’d decided that, despite her impossible standards of perfection, I wouldn’t let her leave me, too. So I was the one who chose a college far enough away that I wouldn’t return to visit very often. I wouldn’t return at all. Until now.

Now Kai ran his thumb through the back of my waves like he used to do right before he’d fuck up my hair—usually after it had been carefully flat-ironed and sprayed. He’d always irritated the hell out of me.

I’d finally finished growing out my locks this past spring—my hair had remained short for too long after surgery and had been an almost-constant reminder to me that I had cheated death.

But this time I didn’t care if he messed up my hair or not. Having his strong arm around me made me feel protected. Safe. Like I was home.

I shivered as the edge of his nail skimmed my scalp in slow and lazy circles. Until it traced along the very edge of my scar. His fingers stilled and his grip on me tightened, as if to say, I know you.

It felt way too damn intimate, so I pushed on his forearm and broke free of his hold, scooting far away. But not before turning back and shooting him a scathing look.

But my cutting gaze didn’t faze him. He chewed on his bottom lip and stared at me with a questioning gaze.

Who have you become, Rachel?

Wouldn’t he like to know.





Chapter Two


Kai





As I watched Rachel walk away from me, I realized she was all grown up. And she was different.

Not only physically. Yeah, her rich brown hair had grown below her shoulders and it softened her carved cheekbones and strong jawline. But there was a sharpness in her eyes that I’d never witnessed before—not even during the months after Miles left her or while she’d worked her ass off during physical therapy exercises, determined to use her limbs again.

This was a different kind of fire. Harsh. Resolute. Unwavering. One that told me she’d drawn a line and anyone who crossed it might get burned. The severity in her eyes was like a road hazard, warning someone not to get too close. Not even me. Not even the boy she’d grown up with and told practically everything.

Sure, we hadn’t seen each other in three years, and it had taken me a long while to stop thinking about her every minute of every day. To stop hoping she was still healthy, and to prevent my fingers from dialing her cell too often. Instead, I got updates from Dakota or my cousin Nate, on my mother’s side. I only ever saw him at holiday time but I knew he also attended TSU. Hung in the same circle of friends, even.