Whisper to Me

Chapter Seven Rachel

I woke in a bleary-eyed haze. I was only in my tank and underwear—no pajamas, no shorts from last night. How had that happened? I felt tender in certain areas of my body, like my neck, my nipples, and between my legs. And then it all came rushing back. My heart thundered in my chest, and I felt panic rise up in my throat.

A faint recollection of the sound of Kai playing his upright bass in the middle of the night came to me. It kept lulling me back to sleep because I always found his music hypnotic and soothing. Had he stayed up until all hours feeling guilty over what happened between us?

I immediately sat up and considered that I may have ruined our friendship. Ruined one of the most constant things in my life with one of the most important people I’d ever had the honor of befriending.

What the fuck had I done?

It was bound to be awkward between us now.

Why did I seem determined to destroy relationships with all the guys in my life?

I needed to drag my ass out of bed, find him, and tell him I was sorry. Ask him to forgive me. I flung my legs over the bed and then held on to my roiling stomach.

I ran for the bathroom and threw up the contents of my alcohol feast from last night. I’d done those shots at the bar in the kitchen and that’s when everything with Kai had gone downhill fast. But he had smelled so good and felt so right.

I brushed my teeth, slid into a pair of jeans, and listened for noises in the house. It didn’t sound like Dakota was home. Had she crashed at Shane’s house? She could have walked in on Kai and me last night. And in the throes of passion, I wouldn’t have given a fuck. But now I certainly did.

I didn’t hear Kai rummaging around in the house either. Maybe I missed him. Maybe he took off early to get away from me. All because I couldn’t get a grip on seeing Miles. I was such a fucking mess. I’d been home all of two weeks and already couldn’t handle being back.

I opened the door and padded to the living room. My heart lurched when I saw Kai out on the balcony. He was sitting in one of the wicker chairs, his fingers gripping a cup of coffee and his feet resting on the ledge.

I fought the image that swelled inside me. The image of me climbing into his lap, into the warmth of his strong arms, and our watching the sunrise together.

Instead I reached for a mug from the cupboard and poured myself a huge cup of coffee. The first sip was heavenly. Determined to make things right, I strode to the screen door.

I heard Kai’s muffled words. “Understood, Dad.”

I realized now that he had placed his cell phone on the table, set to speaker. I recognized Mr. Nakos’s strong, deep voice. He sounded frustrated. The only words I could make out were smoking dope, company policy, and then, show some respect. I’d heard many such arguments between them over the years, but Kai was always good at shrugging them off.

He didn’t even seem that bothered right now. His voice was calm and steady. “Okay, Dad. See you in a bit.”

Sliding open the door as gently as possible, Kai’s shoulders instantly became rigid. My stomach tightened into a fist and the only thought I could muster was that I’d take it all back—everything we’d done, how he’d made me feel—just to hang on to our friendship.

My voice broke. “K . . . Kai.” He didn’t turn to look at me, just raised his cup to his mouth to take another sip. The only telltale sign of his emotions was the mild tremor of his fingers as they grasped the handle. I rounded his chair to stand in front of him.

I sucked in a breath at Kai’s effortless beauty. Did he even understand the effect he had on the female population? Today he wore an army-green T-shirt that made his bronze skin glint in the sunlight. The name Charles Mingus was splashed across the front in bold white letters. His jeans were a dark wash and his tan feet were bare.

I fidgeted, placing one of my feet on top of the other, while he stared up at me, his gaze as strong as steel. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at his full lips and imagining how rough and then soft they’d been against me last night. His words were also brazen and then smooth, and I recalled how the juxtaposition had turned me on full throttle.

I couldn’t see the outline of his nipple piercings through the thick material of his shirt, but I knew they were there and I remembered how they’d felt against my back. Before my nipples could respond in kind, I turned away to gaze at the skyline over the balcony.

“Morning, Rach.” Kai’s voice was low and gruff, and I was grateful just to hear the sound of it. “How are you feeling?”

I shook my head and turned to look at him. I needed to talk about what I’d done. I didn’t give a damn about how I was feeling. I deserved to puke my guts out for days on end. “Kai, I—”

“Don’t say it, Rachel.” His hand shot out, and he winced. “It’s cool, okay?”

“Is it?” I sank into the chair across from him.

“Of course it is, Turtle,” he said matter-of-fact, like maybe he’d had just this kind of conversation with countless women. Maybe girls who wanted more from him the following morning. I imagined him letting them down easy. Saying everything was cool. And the thought of that made my stomach twist. I swallowed the bile rising at the back of my throat.

“It doesn’t feel like it, though,” I said. And now I probably just sounded whiny. “I mean, we’ve been friends forever.”

“Yes, we have. And we know each other pretty well,” he said, adjusting himself in his seat. “For example, had I not been with you last night, you would have stopped at Lucy’s Bar and went inside. Am I right?”

God, how had he known?

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “Is that why you . . . did what you did?”

Now I probably did sound like one of those girls he let down easy.

“No!” he protested. “At least, not exactly. I mean, fuck, Rachel, you were kind of hard to resist. Do you not realize how sexy you can be?”

I felt my whole body heating up at his comment. He pushed a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated.

“That doesn’t change the fact that I started it . . . the thing that happened between us last night.” I yanked my knees up to my body. “I’ll always regret that.”

A dark cloud passed through his eyes before he recovered. I’d hurt his feelings. Or maybe his pride. I was fucking this up big-time. “That’s not what I meant, Kai. All I was trying to say was . . .”

“We’re not that different, Rachel. We both like sex,” he huffed out. “It helps take the edge off. Though I suspect you might use it for different reasons.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I said, sitting up. Now I was the annoyed one.

“You use it to get lost,” he said, as if it were that simple. “To help you forget.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “The same way you use pot?”

I expected him to get angry, call me a nag. Accuse me of eavesdropping on his phone conversation with his father. His head sloped to the side, a ruddiness growing on his cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Well, I don’t like it when you do that,” I said, standing up and pacing the length of the balcony. “But I know you get enough flack. I’m not the boss of you.”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he bit his tongue. Instead he just shook his head, the beginnings of a smirk lining the corners of his mouth.

“Look, no one has to find out what happened between us.” He moved his legs when I passed by him to pace in the opposite direction.

“You know Dakota would flip.” I turned, fisting the ends of my tank top.

His gaze followed my hands, as if remembering just where his fingers had been. I promptly dropped my arms to my sides.

“So just between us, then?” he asked.

I finally stopped my forward motion and slid back into my seat. “It’s a deal.”

He reached out his hand. “Shake on it?”

I shook my head. “Pinky swear.”

The pinky swear used to drive Kai nuts when Dakota and I were kids, because we’d use it for every single damn thing. And he always said it made no sense. So sometimes we did it just to bug the crap out of him.

“If you insist.” He held out his pinky with a lopsided grin that brightened all the gloomy corners of my heart. We hooked fingers, and I felt the tingle of his warm skin all the way down to my toes.

I breathed a sigh of relief that Kai was cool and mature enough to smooth things over between us. If only I could ignore that little fluttering in my belly every time I thought about where his lips had been.

I’d admit to being a little hurt that he didn’t seem fazed by being in my presence this morning—but having his friendship back was all that mattered in the end.

“So what are you going to do about Miles?” Kai’s jaw ticked. “I’m assuming he wanted to talk and you refused.”

I turned toward him. “How in the hell do you do that, you asshat?”

His eyebrows slammed together. “Do what?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, a dull headache throbbing in the back of my skull. “Know me so well.”

“We have history, Turtle,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

“This is true.” But we’d never known that other part of each other. The one we discovered last night. Sure, I’d fantasized about it briefly through the years. But it was just a passing curiosity.

Besides, I had never taken him seriously. He’d been with so many girls. But he’d never been a dick to them. They just seemed to know the score.

Still, it turned me off. Or at least I told myself it did, even as I imagined him kissing me in the exact same way I’d caught him kissing any number of girls over the years. The only time he seemed to cool it was during my hospital stay. Not that I had the wherewithal to pay attention to that aspect of his life during that time.

Kai leaned forward and tapped my knee with his hand. “So maybe you need closure with that asshole.” I looked down at his strong and callused fingers. Would I ever be able to get over the fact that those hands had been all over me?

I groaned and slumped farther down in my seat. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“You’re a different person now.” He bowed his head to meet my eyes. “Maybe seeing him for who he is will help you leave the past behind.”

I bit my lip, considering the truth of his words. “Since when did you get so smart?”

“Since always.” A cocky grin lifted his cheeks and made my chest ache. When it came down to it, I loved Kai for his friendship, for his honesty, for his loyalty. I don’t want that to ever go away.

I placed my head in my hands. “Gah, I was so afraid I’d ruined our friendship.”

I felt a warm hand on my back and raised my head to look at him. “Kai, you’re . . . very important to me. You know that, right?”

His eyes connected to mine so firmly it was as if we’d been woven into the same patchwork quilt. Each essential to the fiber of the material. And to each other.

“You’re important to me, too,” he said, almost breathless. “No matter what.”

My chest threatened to burst open, so I needed to lighten the mood before I asked him to pull me into his lap. Kiss me. Fuel me. Make me come alive again.

“So, you just go back to being a jackass and I’ll . . .”

“And you’ll go back to being your annoying and obnoxious self?” He reached out and messed with my hair. “And slow as shit. Shelly.”

I grinned. “Works for me.”

Yet something still didn’t sit well. I felt like something was off between us. Or just lost.

He balanced his empty coffee cup on his lap. “But I won’t stop worrying or caring about you, got it?”

I felt my cheeks redden with some residual anger. He’d walked away and yet he now claimed he worried about me? I knew I had no right to feel that way. He had been so supportive, so caring and accommodating.

But he’d also been a screw-up, getting himself in trouble with his band mate and being told in no uncertain terms by his father to leave town. It was irrational to think that he should have held it together for me.

How ridiculous did that sound—we weren’t even dating.

He was just living his life as he always had. I should’ve just been grateful that he had taken the time to visit me every day in the rehab center. I’d felt so close to him back then and maybe that was part of the problem. I felt as if I knew him. Really knew him. I had shared so many pieces of myself with him.

But at times he seemed to hold himself back. I didn’t always know what was going on beneath the pain in his eyes. He would go out and party and get himself in trouble yet again. But friends were supposed to accept each other, faults and all, right? I needed to get over myself.

“We haven’t been around each other in years,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness in my voice at bay. “I’ve taken care of myself just fine.”

“So I’ve heard.”

My head snapped up. There was no denying the sullenness present in his voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” He leaned all the way back in his chair, propping his feet up again. “Forget I said that.”

“No.” I pushed at his legs to get his full attention. “Talk, right now. Say what you want to say. No secrets.”

He hesitated as if formulating the right words. “I’ve been checking up on you.”

“What? How?” I moved my lips to say something else but no words would come out. I couldn’t imagine what he was about to tell me. Had he known someone I’d fucked around with? A sickening dread climbed its way up my throat and I balled my fists as I waited for his reply.

That’s when I saw the regret that filled his eyes. “My cousin Nate.”

“Nate,” I parroted back. I tried to jog my memory as to who Nate could’ve been. I may not have remembered all the guys I’d made out with, but I certainly remembered the guys I’d slept with. Usually they were guys I already knew. And they were almost always jocks. I had a thing for athletes. I liked their dedication to the game and—who was I kidding—their huge muscles and tight asses in those uniforms.

“He knows you from TSU,” Kai said. “Some parties. A couple of classes.”

Realization washed over me. That Nate. Bennett’s friend. Suddenly I was so damn grateful I’d never hooked up with him. He wasn’t my type and wasn’t anyone I wanted to have angry or hard-up sex with. Thank God.

“Nate is your cousin? But you don’t look anything alike. . . .” My words trailed off and he waited to see if I’d put two and two together. Nate had blond hair and looked like the boy next door. Definitely all-American. But not Native American. “Is he a cousin on your mother’s side?”

Kai nodded.

“So . . . what about it?” I said. “Out with it.”

“He told me stuff . . . about you.” He watched me vigilantly, like maybe I’d slug him any minute or something.

I folded my knees to my chest, maybe in an effort to protect myself. “Like what?”

“That you liked your . . . athletes.”

“Fuck.” I pushed my fingers through my hair in a flustered rush. I thought of the parties Nate and I had both been to where I’d flirt with the jocks and then either make out with someone or go home with them.

I never stayed after sex. I never wanted to. At the beginning, it felt like I was taking a stab at Miles. I felt strong and confident, determined to shit all over his memory. But then it changed to need fulfillment. It became a way for me to live out my ridiculous fantasies of him still wanting me.

“But it makes sense,” Kai said. “That’s why you chose to go away to college. To make a fresh start.”

I nodded, my lips too numb to make a sound. I rocked back and forth in my chair.

“You were working out everything that happened to you. Maybe you didn’t want to be that same girl anymore.”

Finally my lips became unstuck. “I didn’t. I don’t want to be her ever again.”

“Believe it or not, I liked that other girl,” he said. “The girl you were before you were with Miles. That girl was cool and funny as hell. She was confident and amazing. Confident in a different way. More self-assured.”

I shook my head. I sure as hell wasn’t confident back then. At least not with guys.

“And now?” I whispered. I felt like I was on display. Like he was chipping away at my exterior, trying to see deep inside.

“You’re that same girl . . . but on speed.” He grinned. “And maybe seeing Miles brought it all to the surface. Your way of working through it might not accomplish anything anymore. At least not at home. Not where people will talk.”

All I could do was study him. He always knew the right things to say. He’d been better at fixing me than he’d been at fixing himself.

“So if you feel like you’ve got something to work out, come find me again. Our secret, remember?” His eyes flared briefly with passion. He had been remembering our night. Maybe he’d enjoyed kissing me, too. It certainly appeared as if he had. A shiver raced down my spine.

He seemed adamant that it wouldn’t ruin our friendship. But just in case, I didn’t plan on asking him to take care of my needs ever again.

“Only if you come find me when you’re tempted to smoke an entire bowl of weed,” I hissed. His eyebrows rose in midair. “Use me, too. We’re not that different, remember?’

He sighed. “I remember.”