Chapter 18 Evie #2
Love?
Loss?
The fact that I never stopped wanting her?
“I just can’t—” I say, voice rough. “I can’t keep being the last to know. I can’t keep finding out the important stuff from someone else, after the fact, like I’m—” I shake my head hard, angry at the sting in my eyes.
Kaia’s breath catches. “Evie…”
“No,” I cut in, sharp. “I’m serious. You can't decide what I can handle and what I can’t. You can't do the ‘I was protecting you’ thing and leave me blind.”
Kaia nods immediately, like she’ll take any punishment I hand her if it keeps me talking. “Okay,” she says, voice steady even though worry shadows her eyes. “You’re right.”
I blink at the lack of defense. It throws me off more than an excuse would.
Kaia continues, softer. “I won’t do that again. I won’t let you be the last to know. Not about anything that impacts you.” Her throat works. “I promise.”
The word promise should make me flinch. It doesn’t. Not this time.
I let out a shaky breath through my nose. “Good.”
Kaia’s hand slides up my arm slowly, asking without words. She pauses. I don’t pull away. So she cups my shoulder gently, thumb rubbing small circles like she’s grounding me.
Her voice is soft. “Thank you.”
I scoff. “Don’t make this weird.”
Kaia’s smile turns more real. “You made it weird by being emotionally responsible.”
“Shut up.”
Kaia laughs—quiet, delighted—and leans in to kiss my jawline. The kiss is slow and warm and makes my skin buzz.
I hate that it works.
“Stop,” I mutter, but there’s no bite in it.
Kaia kisses my jaw again. “No.”
“Kaia—”
She kisses the corner of my mouth. “Evie.”
I try to hold onto my annoyance. I do.
But then she kisses me properly and my brain gives up.
Her mouth is warm. She tastes like toothpaste and sleep and last night. Her hair falls around us like a curtain, shutting out the room.
I kiss her back, harder, and she makes a soft noise that goes straight through me.
Kaia’s laugh breaks against my mouth. “You’re so mean.”
“I’m not mean,” I whisper, breathless.
“You are. Mean and secretly bossy,” she murmurs, and the fondness in her voice makes my chest ache again.
“Stop saying that,” I say, but I’m smiling. I hate that I’m smiling.
Kaia shifts and swings a leg over me, straddling my hips with casual confidence like she belongs here. The sheet tangles around her thighs. Her hair falls forward, dark and soft, framing her face like she’s a painting someone forgot to finish.
She looks down at me, eyes bright, and for a second she looks… happy.
Not billboard happy.
Real happy.
My heart pounds. Kaia leans down and kisses me again, slow and deep, and my hands slide up her back under the sheet, fingers shaking.
We giggle like idiots between kisses, breathless and ridiculous, like the world isn’t a disaster waiting outside the curtains.
Kaia whispers against my mouth, “I—”
Her phone buzzes.
We both freeze like teenagers who just heard a parent’s footsteps in the hallway.
Kaia groans into my shoulder. “Oh my god.”
I lift my head, blinking. “Is that—”
“Blaire,” Kaia says, already half-laughing, but half-panicked.
The phone buzzes again, insistent.
Kaia exhales. “I should get that. Blaire is going to be so mad.”
“Good,” I say. “Tell her I’m mad too.”
Kaia laughs, then kisses me once—quick and desperate, like she’s trying to steal one more second.
Then she rolls off me reluctantly and scrambles for the sheet like she’s suddenly remembered she’s a public figure and not just a girl in my hands.
I sit up, hair a mess, heart pounding, and the cold air hits my skin like reality.
Kaia perches on the edge of the bed, sheet at her waist, phone in hand. Her shoulders tense as she types, thumbs moving fast like she’s putting on armor made of words. It’s crazy how quickly she switches. How easily her body remembers to be careful.
Something in my chest twists. I slide closer behind her without thinking and wrap my arms around her middle, pressing my cheek to her shoulder blade.
Kaia goes still, then melts into me.
She smells like soap and salt and the faint metallic heat of magic that hasn’t fully cooled. Under that, she smells like herself, warm and familiar, the kind of scent my brain files under home even though I’m furious about it.
Her back is solid under my cheek. Real. Alive. I bury my face into her shoulder and inhale like I can anchor myself there.
Kaia’s voice comes out soft. “Evie…”
“Shush,” I mumble into her skin, because if she says anything tender I’m going to combust.
Kaia makes a quiet sound that might be a laugh.
I don’t know why the next words come out of me. They just… do. Like my brain is still living in last night.
“Do you want to stay for pancakes?” I ask, muffled against her shoulder. “If you have time.”
Kaia turns fully, like I just offered her oxygen.
“You’re serious?” she whispers.
I pull back enough to glare at her, because I hate how exposed I feel. “It’s… just pancakes.”
Kaia’s eyes shine. “I want to stay.”
My chest does something stupid.
“But,” Kaia adds quickly, holding up her phone like it’s a weapon pointed at her, “I have to—”
“I know,” I say, and it comes out gentler than I mean. “Do your little manager obedience ritual.”
Kaia laughs, breathless. “Okay.”
She takes a steadying breath and hits call.
I hear the ring. Then Blaire’s voice, sharp even through the tiny speaker. “Kaia.”
Kaia winces. “Hi.”
“Do you have any idea what you just did?” Blaire snaps. No preamble. No soft entry. Pure manager fury. “You disappeared. You don’t vanish on festival day. You don’t go dark without comms. You don’t make me hunt you like you’re a missing teenager.”
Kaia squeezes her eyes shut. “I know.”
“I’m not joking,” Blaire continues, voice tight with controlled panic.
“If something happens and I can’t account for you, I can’t protect you.
I can’t protect the group. I can’t protect the entire—” she cuts herself off, inhales hard, then comes back colder.
“Irresponsible. I expected better from you.”
Kaia’s throat works. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you safe?” Blaire demands, suddenly all business. “Right now. Answer me.”
Kaia’s voice steadies. “Yes. I’m safe.”
A beat. Blaire’s tone shifts, still irritated, but focused. “Where are you?”
Kaia hesitates for a fraction of a second.
Then she says it anyway, like she’s jumping. “At Evie’s.”
Silence on the line. I can practically hear Blaire pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Of course you are,” Blaire says finally, with the exhausted fury of someone who has lost a bet to the universe. “Kaia. We have press in three hours.”
“I know,” Kaia says, voice steady now. “I’ll be there.”
“Then why are you calling me,” Blaire says flatly, “instead of getting your ass back to the hotel?”
Kaia’s cheeks color. She clears her throat. “Because… Evie asked if I wanted pancakes.”
I stare at her, horrified. “Oh my god,” I hiss, because I did not expect her to say it out loud like that.
Kaia keeps going anyway, gaze locked on the wall like she’s bracing for impact. “And I want to stay. For a little bit.”
Blaire makes a sound that is not a word. It’s the sound of a person watching their schedule burst into flames.
Blaire exhales long and slow. “You’re unbelievable.”
Kaia’s voice softens. “Please.”
Another beat.
Then Blaire says, clipped, “You have forty-five minutes.”
Kaia’s face lights up so fast it’s almost funny. “Thank you, Blaire!”
“Forty-five,” Blaire repeats. “And you are not walking anywhere alone. I’m sending a car. It will be waiting outside for you.”
Kaia nods quickly. “Understood. Thank you.”
She hangs up and turns toward me like she can’t believe she got away with it.
I’m still staring, stunned.
“You told her about pancakes,” I say, aghast.
Kaia’s grin widens. “I did.”
I drag a hand down my face. “You’re insane.”
Kaia leans in, kisses my cheek, and murmurs, smug, “You asked.”
My stomach flips in a way that makes me furious.
“Okay,” I say, voice too brisk, because if I let myself get soft I’ll cry. “Then get dressed.”
Kaia laughs. “Okay.”
I throw a pillow at her.
She catches it easily, still smiling, and starts pulling on her clothes with quick, practiced movements. I do the same, yanking on a t-shirt and shorts and shoving my hair into a messy knot, even though bringing Kaia Rhee to breakfast feels like committing a crime.
Like the past didn’t break both of us.
Like pancakes can hold the shape of something new.
***
Gran is awake when I get to her room, which is either good timing or the universe setting me up for maximum emotional damage. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed in her robe, hair still pinned from yesterday, staring at her hands like she’s trying to remember what they’re for.
“Hey,” I say softly. “Morning.”
She looks up. Her eyes clear for a second, enough recognition to make my throat tighten.
“Morning,” she echoes.
“I’m making pancakes,” I tell her, practical on purpose. “Come sit at the table.”
Her face brightens immediately, the way it does when food is involved and the world stops being confusing.
“Pancakes,” she repeats, delighted. Then she frowns. “Do we have syrup?”
“We have syrup,” I say. “We have enough syrup to kill a small animal.”
She laughs—real laughter, thin but genuine. I help her into her slippers and guide her down the hall with a hand at her elbow.
The kitchen smells like coffee and batter and the faint sweetness of the syrup bottle I already set out. Normal smells. Safe smells.
Kaia is in the kitchen already, hoodie on, hair tamed, sitting at the table like she’s trying to take up as little space as possible. She looks up the moment she hears us. Her expression is so open it makes my chest ache, like she’s bracing to be thrown out but hoping she won't be anyway.
Gran sees her and stops dead in the doorway.
For a terrifying second, I think she won’t know. That she’ll look right through Kaia like she’s just another stranger.
Then Gran’s whole face changes.
“Oh!” she says, bright as morning. “There you are!”