Chapter 18
Hayes
We lie naked and spent in each other’s arms, neither of us speaking for what feels like forever.
Kelsie trails her finger over a scar I have on my thigh from the accident.
“The windshield shattered,” I state as I watch her index finger pause over the raised flesh that puckers in an ugly zigzag even after several years.
She looks up at me. “Did it hurt?”
I shake my head. “I don’t really remember. Everything happened so fast and I was in shock.”
She leans her head back against my chest. “I’m sorry that happened to you. And I’m sorry about the loss of your friend.”
I tense a little and instead of pulling away, she presses a kiss to my collarbone. I wrap my arms more tightly around her. I’m not ready to share my guilt yet, but she deserves to know more.
“Holden, my brother, has never completely recovered—physically or mentally,” I admit, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
“He’s lucky to have you,” she says quietly and goes back to drawing circles around my scar.
“I don’t know about that…but I thank God every day we both lived. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost both Holden and Kevin.”
The confession has me fighting back tears that threaten to spill.
Kelsie sighs as she runs her finger up my side and tilts her head slightly up toward mine. “I wish I was still close to my brother.”
My body stills beneath her. This is the first time she’s said anything remotely emotional about her family and I haven’t wanted to pry. Hell, maybe that’s our biggest issue…neither one of us wanted to get too close.
“What happened between you two?” I ask, rubbing her back lightly as she traces each of my abdominal muscles.
“He broke my trust,” she says and I glance down to see her press her lips tightly together. I give her a squeeze and she wraps her arm around me and squeezes back.
“How?”
She sucks in a deep breath and then exhales before she continues.
“It’s a long story…but my dad owns a women’s fashion company, which meant my parents traveled all over the world for months at a time and left us alone a lot as kids. It was just Keaton and me, and usually a nanny. But we always had my Aunt Desiree, my dad’s sister. She’s the black sheep of the family and I adored her.” Kelsie lifts her chin and smiles.
Having met her aunt, I know how much love they have for each other and I nod.
“Before she moved to France, she lived near us in San Francisco until she hit it big with her art and then she moved. I was devastated, but Keaton and I got to spend time with her each summer when she taught us about the art world. I fell in love with it and knew it was what I was meant to do with my life.”
She grows quiet for a moment and I don’t press further, but want to know why she isn’t pursuing it now if it makes her so happy.
“At the time, my parents didn’t care about my interests—until I was a sophomore in high school. That summer, Desiree wanted to send me to an art camp. But Keat fucked it all up for me and went behind my back to tattle on me to our dad. That was the beginning of the end for my relationship with Keaton and the reason I’m here at CFU and not in art school.”
“What happened? Why couldn’t you do what you wanted to do?” I question, pressing a kiss at her temple.
“Keaton ratted me out and my dad forbade me to go to the camp. He said he’d only pay for me to attend business school and not waste money on art. His dream is for us to take over the company someday.”
“And that was that?” I ask, surprised that the Kelsie I know would follow that ultimatum. The Kelsie I know has a stubborn streak and can be willful about rules and boundaries when she wants something. “So you just complied with his demands?”
She laughs ruefully. “No, not exactly. My aunt ended up paying for the art course and signed the release, since I was still seventeen. I was all set to begin. Keaton knew about it, and instead of supporting me, he intentionally went behind my back again and told my parents. Of course, they were furious that she would do that without their permission. So I got shipped home early and had to start school here that fall.”
She finishes the story and her head lies limply against my chest in what seems like defeat.
“I’m so sorry, mon amour,” I murmur against the crown of her head. “But you’re here and you found a way to get to France on your own. I’m proud of you.”
I feel wetness from a tear that drops from her eyes.
“Maybe, but it still hurts. My brother betrayed me. He knew how much art and going to that camp meant to me. He was so fucking blinded by family duty bullshit that he didn’t even consider my dreams. He took away an opportunity to do what I loved. In the process, he killed our relationship by stabbing me in the back and leaving me with nothing.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and that breaks my fucking heart.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. I wish you would have told me all this before,” I offer sympathetically, as I roll her underneath me. I wipe a stray tear from her cheek and try to kiss away the pain she’s clearly still in.
Just like me.
This explains so much about why she didn’t want to get too close. I thought it was just her carefree attitude and she simply wanted to have fun while in Paris, but now it all makes sense.
Her trust was broken by the one person she believed in more than anyone. I swallow hard, understanding better now why it gutted her so deeply when I left her in Paris without an explanation. And it explains why she’s been so fucking guarded since I arrived at CFU. I have half a mind to pummel Keaton if I ever meet him for what he’s done to her.
“I wish we would have told each other everything when we were in Paris. I’m sorry I made that stupid three things only rule,” she says, our mouths inches from each other.
I push up on my palms and smile down at her, arching a brow.
I press a kiss to her mouth before bending my head down to kiss her breast and then moving down her abdomen. “I have a new three things rule,” I say as I place a wet kiss to her clit. “Three things I want to kiss on Kelsie’s body.”
She giggles, but her laughter fades as I slide two fingers inside her.
“I think I like your new three things rule.”
I grin against her wet flesh. “Then you’ll really like this.”
“Why do we have to do three things?” she asks as we walk down the quad with ice cream cones in our hands.
“Because three things games are our thing,” I point out as I lick a drop of ice cream from my waffle cone.
“But we could just tell each other everything we like and don’t like,” she states as she licks her strawberry ice cream.
“Nah…that’s no fun. Also, I can’t believe we are eating ice cream in the winter while walking outside,” I say with a laugh.
“Hey, you wanted a date where we did three things we each like, and you got to pick dinner, which I’m still questioning,” she retorts.
I smirk. When I suggested we have a date day where we each pick three things we like that have to be incorporated into the date, I may have been excited to pick our meal of chili cheese dogs from the local diner. They are my absolute favorite food.
“You picked seeing that super-predictable romance movie,” I groan as we continue walking toward the football house.
“Well, you chose those chocolate mint candies instead of popcorn at the theater, which is total movie blasphemy.”
“Junior Mints are the only kind of candy you should ever get at the theater!” I scoff, pretending to be offended.
“Right,” she replies, drawling out the word.
“At least it’s warm out today, I mean for winter in the mountains,” I add as we cross the street, and I step around Kelsie to be between her and traffic.
“So what’s your third thing?” she asks.
“The guys are having a get-together and they invited us to play some flag football in the back yard,” I say as we walk up to the house. I stuff the remaining bite of waffle cone in my mouth and chew.
“Oh, hell no…I’m not playing football!” she protests as she eats the last of her cone.
“Yes, you are,” I declare. I cock my head to one side. “What’s your third thing?”
She winks at me. “My third thing doesn’t involve clothes.” She giggles and tries to make a run for it up the stairs, but I grab her and toss her over my shoulder, slapping her ass as I walk up the front steps.
“Put me down!” she squeals with a laugh.
“Not a chance, baby. Not a chance.”
I never want to put this woman down. I’m not sure what’s happening between us, but I sure as hell hope it doesn’t stop. I haven’t thought of anything bad in days and it’s all thanks to how Kelsie makes me feel.
Alive.