That Bubbling Feeling: A Feel Good Roommate Romance Novel

Chapter 17

Jonah

I got to the gym around 12:28. No sign of Kai yet.

I thought she’d be hungry after a workout, so I walked into the store just next door and grabbed her something to eat. Some protein shake I found.

It wasn’t until 12:46 that I saw what appeared to be her figure moving behind the window, inching closer to the exit, accompanied by at least two other people. The glass was tinted, so I couldn’t make them out fully. That was probably intentional to prevent creeps from looking in. Just as I was currently doing.

I squinted in the sunlight and kept staring from my spot on the pavement. Two people. That was definitely two people flanking her. Men, if I had to guess. They fell away as she got closer to the door, and she exited alone, her sticky cheeks stretched into a smile.

I handed her the shake, and she gasped eagerly as she took it, twisting it around in her hands to read the label. “Strawberry! I wanted strawberry today.” She usually preferred chocolate, but something about the nice weather told me strawberry. “Thanks, Jojo. I’m so sorry I’m late. You really didn’t have to come.”

“Don’t apologize. I wanted to come.”

She bumped her shoulder to mine as we turned away from the door of the gym to begin our walk home.

After only a few steps, a deep voice reached my ears. “Later, Kai!”

“See you tomorrow!” said another.

Kai turned to wave enthusiastically. Those were probably the two blurs I’d barely seen through the window. I didn’t bother to look. It was entirely unnecessary that I saw how good-looking her new friends likely were.

“Are you tired, or do you want to see the dance studio?” I asked, watching her lean her head back and down the shake surprisingly quickly. “If we see it, we’d have to go straight to the recording studio after. If we don’t, you have time to wash up.”

She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth and smacked her lips. “I have no reason to wash up. Why would you think I should wash up?”

“Because you smell like rubber mats and you have black shit smeared across your front.” I pointed to the grime drawn across her ribs, wondering how dirt could even get on that particular patch of skin.

She stuck a dirty, calloused hand in my face as punishment, and I leaned back to evade her revenge. “I’ll shower when you change your shirt.”

I jutted my fingers in her high-waisted leggings and jerked her backward to make her stumble from her path. “I changed my shirt this morning.”

She immediately charged up behind me and lifted me clean off my feet. For a sweet little thing, she was impressively strong.

She denied seeing the dance studio, insisting we headed home, just as I’d expected. She hadn’t posted a dance video in years. God only knows when the last time she even danced was, but I hoped she’d at least check out the studio eventually. She loved to dance, but she associated it with a time in her life that made her uncomfortable. It wasn’t exactly a mystery to me.

I sighed and rolled my shoulders back, letting the sun warm my skin. The sun had been my enemy for so long, but walking down the street with Kai wasn’t all that bad. In fact, I could’ve gotten used to it.

“Oh, foosballs,” she muttered. I watched as she looked at her water bottle, releasing little PG curses from her mouth. She’d just pulled the pink, metal container from her bag, putting the empty shake bottle in its spot. Around it were wrapped two black straps. “These are Aaron’s.” She turned around to yell. “Aaron!”

I breathed in and out once, my mood shifting immediately. I was going to have to meet these guys.

She scurried away from me, back toward where we came from, her gym bag bouncing as she held her strapped water bottle in the air. In the distance, I could see two men who had been walking in the opposite direction. Both turned around to watch as my beautiful girl approached. I followed, dreading the pending encounter.

I took in the smaller one first. His blonde hair and general stature let me know that he wasn’t really a threat. Not that Kai was shallow. She could love someone blonde and nice-looking. But I’m speaking within my own mind here. I’m allowed to say whatever I want. He was handsome, no doubt, but physically possessed nothing that could capture the beautiful Kai.

Not that I, myself, did either.

That could only mean one thing. If he wasn’t the threat, then… I looked at his massive counterpart and saw my worst fucking nightmare.

It was unfair. Totally unfair. That was the only word I could think of to describe it. I finally get her back and this—this—is who she makes friends with?

The most beautiful, God-like mountain of a man stood in front of me, black designs twisting around every inch of skin that jutted from beneath his far too-fitted T-shirt. His black hair swept perfectly around his giant head. And he couldn’t have taken those fucking rings off for the gym? The hand he extended to Kai to retrieve his belongings was large enough to grab her entire face. A phantom fist punched the air from my chest as my mind and heart began blistering with anxiety. This muscly man would be my demise.

I always knew Kai would move on eventually. I stood idly by as she dated Javi, watched as she learned lessons that knotted my insides with despair, and supported her as best I could. And I hoped, in a very small corner of my mind, I hoped that maybe she would, at the very least, reject the world together with me forever. I’d given up years ago on the hope that she’d ever stoop to my level and love me, but I just… I just thought we had more time.

“You could have given these to me tomorrow,” Aaron said, gripping the straps.

Tomorrow. When they’d see each other again. My stomach deflated and cramped.

“Just in case.” Her shoulders jumped once.

His lips stretched, ticking up in one corner to reveal the smallest sliver of white teeth. “Do you know what these are really for?” His voice was sinister, as if it wanted me to know he was the villain in my narrative, as if it was mocking me.

“I do,” Kai answered lazily, sliding her water bottle into an empty side pocket of her bag. “But something tells me you’ve thought of another use.”

His fierce eyes narrowed. In an instant, he grabbed both of her wrists in one hand, sandwiched them between his pointer and thumb as if they were nothing, and placed one strap around them, pulling it taught. He handcuffed my beautiful Kai with those gym things. My heart stopped.

The small one rolled his eyes and let out a groan as if he were tired of his friend displaying such behaviors. My eyes did not roll. They fixated on Kai’s wrists. So much so that I almost missed her flinch and the little sound that jumped from her throat when he’d pulled to tighten the hold. My gaze then lifted to his face. Aaron, she’d called him. My gaze lifted to Aaron’s face, and he locked eyes with me, and he smiled.

He smiled the same way I smiled at Javi that night in Madrid when I gave Kai fries he didn’t even know she wanted.

He smiled the same way I did when Jake Saunders asked her for a dance at prom and she said no because she was with me.

He smiled the same way I did every time a guy winked at Kai in public and she made a stink face toward me, leaving them rejected in the dust.

I did not smile back at Aaron, because I did not have the upper hand. I’d already lost.

“You should really ask permission before doing that,” Kai teased, though I could hear the unease in her voice.

“And you should learn who you’ve just become friends with.”

“Oh, I’m well aware, Aaron. You’re not exactly hard to read.”

I snickered at the glimmer of hope Kai had offered me that she saw right through this shmendrik, though it didn’t seem wise for me to get snarky in front of this guy. The only thing keeping me from shitting myself here and now was that the small one seemed to share the sentiment. He caught my eye and smirked.

“You promised you wouldn’t be a creep,” Kai said.

“I believe I said, ‘Unless you want me to.’”

“Then perhaps I’m the one who’s hard to read.”

I had to bite down on my own lips to keep myself from laughing at that one. My beautiful Kai was knocking this loser flat on his ass, and for a moment, I forgot how incredibly jealous I was of the playful banter they seemed to possess after only two hours together.

Right before my eyes, I watched as Aaron’s smile turned him into the spitting image of the Cheshire Cat. He loved it. The more she pushed, the more he’d pester, and he seemed like someone who always got what he wanted. My giggles faded, dissipating into a liquid that rained down my throat and into my stomach, reminding me of the reality of the situation. I was about to lose her again.

Aaron didn’t introduce himself to me after he released Kai’s wrists. He only winked in my direction as he turned away. He knew I wasn’t Kai’s boyfriend, and I reminded myself how stupid I was for even thinking he might’ve suspected that. Half of me wanted to stand up straight and stay close to her as if marking territory, and half of me knew how fucking stupid that was for so many reasons. The smaller one offered me a friendly wave and a charming smile. No introduction from him either.

The two finally sauntered away. Aaron wrapped his arm around the smaller one’s shoulder and kissed him on the head. Perhaps it was all a silly act. Perhaps they were together.

A fool’s hope.

The silence coming from my left side suggested that they weren’t. If they were together, Kai would’ve sensed no threat. But she’d yelped faintly when he trapped her hands, and I’d ignored it behind the clouds of envy in my mind. She did not say their names or explain who they were, as I thought she would. Only silence. For a few long seconds, silence and an empty stare. As if she were remembering something—thinking of someone.

“Kai?” Her head snapped to me and, in the same instant, an eerily large smile crawled across her face. It sent a genuine shiver down my spine. “Does that guy bother you?”

“Who, Aaron?” she asked very normally. “Not at all. He’s actually really cool. Doesn’t make my radar go off. But he’s a little touchier than I’m used to.”

“I don’t think it’s cool of him to touch you if you aren’t comfortable with it.”

“Oh, Jojo, don’t be such a dad. I am comfortable around him. I’m just used to keeping some distance.” She wrapped her arms around my elbow, pulling me to her side and hugging me tightly as she spoke.

I don’t like him. “The other one seems nice.” I turned us back on our path, in the direction of the apartment.

She nodded, watching her own feet step one in front of the other before glancing up at me. “They both are. The big one is Aaron. The small one is Briggs.”

I looked at her, at that glint in her eye that seemed so far away, at that smile she wore that was so incredibly beautiful though lacking something terribly. How desperately I wanted her to open up to me about that missing piece.

◆◆◆

Kai’s damp waves swung over her lower back as she walked into the studio in front of me, just behind Oli, June, Noah and Tiff. Her damn shampoo was practically sweeter than she was, and the gusts of it left behind as she moved had me thinking like a total fucking weirdo. I wanted to glue my fucking hand to the gap of tan skin between her baggy jeans and her baby blue crop top.

A hard palm landed on my back with a thump, and I groaned. Justin’s smack was nothing more than a brutal reminder of his presence, a jolting shift of energy that brought my mood down to the negatives.

Things used to be easier when I could just sit in my room at my desk setup, writing and musing without any distractions, collaborating with the guys at the set times we agreed upon, and remaining comfortably in my cave. We did just fine as such, but eventually, we needed something bigger. I often longed for how things were then.

I’d wanted to be a musician for as long as I could remember. To be one of those cool, confident guys who sang in front of crowds and got the girl. And it wasn’t just that, obviously. Music was one of the few things I could get lost in, one of the few things that took away the noise of the outside world. I could put my head down to work on a melody and lift it the next day as if no time had passed. Even things like eating, showering, and interacting were completely missed because my brain was so engulfed. I liked being inside my craft like that, but it really sucked when such a craft was also the cause of so many other stressors.

I still got to work a lot at home, which I appreciated. I could tinker with my sounds and write lyrics anytime and anywhere. But it was mostly stuff for the future, personal projects, and little titbits that would eventually end up in this studio, overseen by fucking Justin. I could do it for the sake of the music, but I can’t lie…I wondered how I’d fare in certain situations. I was pretty certain that if we ever got really huge, I was going to have a very hard time.

Luckily for me, my bandmates were my two best friends, and I was fairly confident that wouldn’t change. Especially Oli. He’d pulled me out of so many holes before, and I trusted he’d do it again if he had to. If we were ever overrun by fans, or exhausted from a never-ending tour, or portrayed poorly in the media, I knew he’d stick me up on his shoulders and carry me there until I was ready to come down again. I hoped that one day I’d be strong enough to do the same for him.

We’d been recording this album for weeks, and we still had a few more to go. I told myself I could relax then, but I knew it was a lie. Promotion, touring, radio shows and interviews. That’s what Justin’s back smack reminded me of, and it made me feel as if I were being crushed by a vise.

The only thing that made coming into the studio better was that Kai refused to miss a day. She said if I were into sports, she’d come to my games. If I were into acting, she’d come to my plays. But since I was a “depressed musician,” she came to listen to me “whine behind a piece of glass.”

And thank god for that.

Despite my complaints, I was the luckiest fucking guy on the planet. I had the career I always wanted, the few friends I needed, and she—god, that incredible fucking girl—was home. It was honestly a mystery to me why I still felt the need to mope. My kid self would’ve been disappointed to see that nothing had changed.

Sometimes I longed for those years I spent holed up in my room, leaving only to use the bathroom. Though, I knew full well that I was even sadder back then. So why did I want to go back? Why did I just want to shut the door to our bedroom and never come out? Why was the protective shield of time around my depressive past so comforting to me?

Kai turned around to look at me from where she stood between our friends, Oli and June to her right, and Tiff and Noah to her left. Light beamed around her the same way it did when the sun rose behind my childhood home, emitting the same warmth that illuminated downtown when we sat under the awning at the train tracks, just like when my phone lit up with her calls and irradiated my dark bedroom during those years I had no will to leave it.

Justin spun off, and Kai approached me, smiling. She stood just in front of me with her hands on her hips, and I stared down into those brown eyes, letting my gaze trail over her cheeks and memorize every inch of her this way. She’d been gone for so long, and now here she was, somehow both an entirely new person yet exactly the same. I wanted to roll up the image of her on a filmstrip and shelve it in my ear.

“What are you thinking so intensely about, little rain cloud?” she asked.

“Little? I’m bigger than you, you tiny coffee bean.” Only by mere inches, really.

She looked at me through her lashes. “Is that a jab at my background or a compliment on my delicious taste?”

Actually, it was a jab at her size. “I’m afraid choosing either of those answers wouldn’t paint me in a very good light, now, would it?”

A sinful grin, the one that took her face. Of course, it wouldn’t. That’s exactly why she’d phrased it as such. Evil thing.

She looped her arm through mine and began walking me toward the rest of our friends who had congregated in the corner, but business quickly pulled us apart. Oli, Noah and I were instructed to get set up in the live room at once under the ruse that we were behind schedule with recording.

Arbitrary, scheduling, isn’t it?

I was very bothered to see Justin take Kai to the couch at the back of the control room to speak with her. He’d mentioned having a proposition for her a couple of times in the last week but hadn’t actually sat down with her to talk about it. He was like that. Always talking and making promises and plans. None of his words ever came true until, suddenly, they did. That was the only reason we kept him around, but he gave me a queasy feeling.

I decided I’d ask Kai about their conversation immediately. As soon as I was out of here.