Chapter 11 #2
I was so happy.
Kai though…Kai wasn’t.
I’d never really watched videos of us before, not this closely. If I had…maybe I would’ve seen the signs.
Whenever I approached Kai, his smile would fall flat. He grimaced when I touched him. Several times, I caught him exchanging unsettled looks with Luca or Ollie.
Not once did my on-screen self spot any of this. Watching it back, it was as clear as fucking day.
Kai hadn’t enjoyed what we did up there. How the fuck had I never noticed? And why hadn’t he said anything?
Unable to torture myself more, I slammed my laptop screen shut. Moving to the bed, I pulled up my text thread with Kai. Endless reams of blue bubbles greeted me, a tiny Read written beneath each.
I added another without thinking.
Why didn’t you tell me you hated dancing with me on stage?
The message was read almost instantly. I bolted upright as three little bobbing dots appeared.
Holy shit. Was he actually going to respond?
The dots disappeared. Reappeared. Disappeared.
My hands were shaking as I typed another message.
I can see you typing, Kai. If I call, will you answer?
The dots disappeared once more.
They didn’t come back.
I swallowed around the thickness in my throat. This was so fucking hard. Kai was my go-to person for advice. The one I talked to about everything.
This silence was killing me.
Unable to stop myself, I hit his name. It rang twice before going to voicemail.
I tried again.
One ring. Voicemail.
The third time, there was no ringing, just the message I’d come to hate.
Hi. You’ve reached Kai. Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.
No. He wouldn’t.
I threw my phone at the wall, wincing when I heard an ominous crack. Despite having more money than I could possibly spend, I didn’t like to waste it. I never took it for granted.
But thanks to my childish outburst, I would have to get a new phone. Teenager-Silas would slap me upside the head and call me a fucking moron.
And he’d be right. For several reasons, it seemed.
Well, it could stay there for tonight. It wasn’t like Kai would miraculously decide he was ready to talk to me.
I hugged a pillow to me, pretending it was Kai’s chest. It was no good. It was too soft, not the hard planes I was used to. Didn’t smell like him either.
It was the best I had for now.
I just had to hope and pray that when Kai returned, things would go back to normal.
Sleep came faster than I expected. But even in my dreams, I couldn’t escape Kai.
We were in his kitchen. Me leaning against one counter, him leaning against the sink.
The coffee machine was beeping. A pan was sizzling on the hob. It was just like any other morning when I gatecrashed Kai’s house for breakfast.
But something felt different. There was an electricity humming that wasn’t usually there.
Or maybe it had been. Maybe I’d just never noticed it.
Kai’s gaze was hooded as his eyes swept over me. “You been thinking about me, Si?”
“Yes.”
I blinked, and he was in front of me. It’d been a long time since I’d thought about our size difference, but now he was towering over me, and I was finding it hard to breathe.
“Whatcha been thinking about?” he murmured, trailing a finger down my chest. “Been thinking about me touching you?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t in control of what I was saying, the responses flowing like water. “Touch me, Kai.”
He gave me a smile I’d seen a thousand times before. “Never going to say no to that.”
His hand palmed my cock. I was already hard, but his touch was like someone had doused me with petrol and set me alight. “This what you wanted?”
“Yes.” Something niggled at the back of my mind. Something I was forgetting. Something important.
His hand circled my shaft. Somehow, my clothes had vanished, and there was nothing but his warm skin on mine. “Do you like me touching you?”
His question had my neurons firing, the thing I forgot suddenly bursting from me. He didn’t like us dancing together. Didn’t like the way we were on stage. “Do you like touching me?”
Kai smiled sadly as he let me go. “That’s not the right question, Si.”
“But it is!” He was getting further away. “Why won’t you talk to me? Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“It’s not the right question,” he repeated. His voice echoed as he drifted out of sight. “The right one is—do you like me touching you?”
I bolted upright in bed, my heart racing.
I clutched at the sheets, staring down at my cock in disbelief. It looked angry, curved towards my stomach, begging for relief.
Do I like him touching me?
Pretty sure I knew the answer to that…even if I wasn’t ready to admit it.
The third month
I went to the gym.
Played Skyrim until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Attended yet another charity gala with a big smile on my face.
Nothing stopped me from thinking about what Ruby had said.
I can’t keep watching you hurt him.
How had I been hurting him? Was it the way I behaved with him on stage?
All evidence pointed to the fact I had hurt Kai. Ruby wouldn’t lie about something like that. And the fact several weeks had passed without a word from Kai further proved it.
But what had I done? What was I missing?
Honestly, I’d been wracking my brain but had come up with nothing. Even if it was somehow connected to our onstage dancing, we’d done that for years. What was it about this tour that was different?
Except for the kiss. Obviously.
But Kai had had his plans in place before that…so I had to have fucked up in some other way.
A basketball whacked my face, jolting me from my musings.
“Ow,” I scowled at Arlo, rubbing my cheek. “Give me a heads-up next time, will ya?”
“I did,” Arlo said, grabbing the ball and dribbling with it. “You were off in la-la land.”
Shaking my head at Arlo, I tore down the court after him. When my phone had gone off this morning, I’d practically fallen out of bed with the speed I’d moved. But like always, it hadn’t been Kai’s name filling my screen.
Arlo was a good runner-up, though, especially since he’d suggested hitting up the court for a one-on-one game.
This was just what I needed. Some space to burn off energy and a bit of alone time with Arlo.
Well…as alone as we ever got. My gaze caught on Simon and Rhys, our protection details. Even though it’d been years since Luca and Arlo had switched guards, it was still odd to look over and not see Jack chatting with Rhys.
“How’s the downtime going?” Arlo asked as I tried to steal the ball from him.
I grunted in response, frustrated that the little shit was faster than me.
“That good, huh?” He dipped around me, dribbling up to the basket and scoring with ease.
I gestured to the bench where our bags were. Arlo followed me over, taking the bottle of water I held out. “Have you heard from Kai?”
“Yeah, of course. His filming schedule sounds insane. Wouldn’t catch me doing that…” Arlo’s voice faded as the realisation hit him. “Why? Have you not heard from him?”
I slumped onto the bench, my head falling between my shoulders. “Nope. Not since he walked off stage. Apparently, he’s got time to keep in touch with everyone…except me.”
Arlo dropped onto the bench beside me. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“I just don’t get it…what did I do?”
Arlo sighed. “Maybe…maybe it’s just that your friendship has changed. Maybe you’re just…growing apart.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense!” I exploded in frustration. Across the gym, I saw Simon raise an eyebrow in question.
Arlo waved him off. “Why doesn’t it?”
“Because nothing has changed,” I said, lowering my voice. “Everything has been like it always has. I must’ve done something.”
“I mean…you did kiss him.”
“I know.” I leaned my head against my hand. “But it can’t have been that. He’d already arranged to leave.”
Arlo was quiet. “Kai is gay.”
I looked up at Arlo in confusion. “Yeah…and?”
Arlo bit his lip like he was trying to figure out how to phrase it. “He’s gay, Silas. He’s attracted to men. How do you think he feels with you grinding up against him every night?”
I bit my lip, not wanting to admit that I’d been wondering the same thing after watching videos of us back. But that was because he was uncomfortable, not because he was attracted to me. “It’s different with me. Kai doesn’t see me like that.”
Arlo sighed, and the look he shot me was so reminiscent of the one Ruby had given me that I flinched. “What if he did?”
Four little words. That was all they were.
But they changed everything.
First, Ruby had hinted at it, and now Arlo.
If Kai had feelings for me…fuck. How long had he felt this way? Was this a new thing?
Suddenly, I saw everything through a different lens. The fact it was always me who initiated our contact on stage. How Kai would always shut down whenever I got chatting to a girl. The fact he refused to room on the same floor as me…
No. It wasn’t possible.
Because if it was…
If it was…
Fuck. I had to have been crushing him over and over again.
“Huh, I can almost see your head exploding,” Arlo said, patting my knee.
“Why the fuck didn’t any of you say anything?”
“Wasn’t our place,” Arlo said, spinning the ball. “I probably wouldn’t have said anything at all if I hadn’t seen the way you kissed him back on stage.”
My voice came out as a whisper. “What do you mean?”
“That wasn’t an act. You kissed him like he mattered.”
Okay, I officially had a headache. “Fuck, I don’t know what to think. Am I even into men?”
Arlo snorted. “Oh my god, there was me thinking I wouldn’t have any advice for you, but it turns out I do.”
I looked at him helplessly. “Yeah? What?”
“Go home and watch some gay porn.”
I goggled at him. “How’s that supposed to help?”
Arlo smirked. “Well, either you’ll get hard…or you won’t. At least you’ll have your answer.”
I didn’t respond. Of all the things Arlo could’ve suggested, this one actually seemed sensible. “And if I don’t?”
“Then maybe this break is the best thing for you both,” Arlo said softly. “If you can’t be what Kai needs, you need to step back and let him live his life.”