Chapter Seventeen
Karina
Eventually, we rejoined the boys in the living room. Kael was more relaxed, pulling me onto his lap on the couch. I sank into the warmth of his body; the couch felt like a cloud.
“You guys are coming over for Halloween this year, right?” Mendoza asked Kael and me.
He had finally switched from tequila to water and Gatorade mixed. Gloria explained that Gatorade as a chaser was their secret to never having a hangover.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Kael told him in a way that only Kael could without sounding rude.
“Come on! It’ll be a good time. No drama,” Mendoza promised.
I turned my head slightly to look at Kael’s face against my neck.
“We can’t guarantee that,” Gloria corrected, moving to sit on her husband’s lap. “But Phillips is not invited, so we can promise no one will get shot,” she said, and smiled as Kael gave her a harsh look. I knew he’d done it for my sake only. This was their usual.
“I want to come,” I volunteered. Of course, I’d love if Kael came, but the invite sounded open to both of us, not only him.
He squeezed his arms around my waist a little more tightly. I leaned into him. “Of course you do,” he said.
“Sure do. Is it a costume thing? Or a regular party?” I asked, realizing I had never been to a Halloween party in my life.
My mom loved Halloween and, until she left, I had spent it with her at home passing out candy to kids as she scared them. I vaguely remembered trick-or-treating a few times, but I’d had more fun with her, so while Austin ran the streets with his friends, filling his pillowcase full of candy, I spent time with my mother on her favorite day.
“Costumes are optional but encouraged,” Gloria replied.
What on earth would I dress up as? I hadn’t worn a costume in years. Most women my age dressed as a sexy version of something, a sexy nurse, a sexy witch—even sexy bumblebees were a thing.
“What are you going to dress up as?” I asked them.
“We’re going as the Addams family. All of us,” she said as the front door opened and noisy children burst through. They climbed onto the couch and life filled the room. Laughter and random noises ensued as they climbed all over us like ants on a tree. “And our adult time is up.” Gloria smiled, kissing her husband on the cheek, and embraced her children.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I copied Kael and awkwardly tried to tickle and poke them back. It felt weird at first, but once Julien started laughing and climbed onto my lap, the thought process behind how to play with a child left my brain and some instinct kicked in.
“I want candy now!” Vi told her parents.
“Not yet. You have to save it for Halloween.”
“What are you going to be for Halloween?” Julien, the youngest one, asked me.
I don’t know where the answer came from, but I responded, “A demon?”
“A demon?” Kael laughed, eyeing me. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yep. I love demons.” I squared my shoulders.
“You love demons?” Kael was grinning from ear to ear, noticing how not good at this whole family thing I was.
I nodded again, more confidently this time. “Always have.”
“Cooool. I wish I could be a demon, but my mom is making us dress up as a family,” Manny complained.
“I’m not making you. You said you love the idea.” Gloria pouted and her son rolled his eyes.
“Only because I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” he told her. She reached for him and squeezed his cheeks gently, as if he was a baby and not nearly her size.
“My sweet boy. You can be a demon if you want. Maybe Karina can do your makeup and help you?” she offered.
I hoped he would say no, that he would continue to go along with his mom’s plan, but to my literal horror, he grinned at me and nodded profusely. “Can you?” he asked, his hands going to his chest to beg.
Damn it. Damn these cute kids and my tendency to people-please.
“Sure?” I managed.
I could barely manage to do a basic everyday makeup look, let alone a costume, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them all that. YouTube was about to become my new best friend.
When we left their house, Mendoza was asleep on the couch and Gloria hugged me and said she would text me later. We went back to my place to find neither Elodie nor Austin there. I texted them in a group chat, to be sure they were okay, and Elodie responded that they were at the park. The weather was nice, breezy and sunny but not too warm. Fall in Georgia meant unexpected rain, cold fronts, and warmth—sometimes four seasons in one day.
“So, what are you going to dress as for the Halloween party I volunteered us for?” I asked Kael as I plopped onto the couch.
“Us?” He raised a brow and sat on the other side of the small couch.
“Absolutely, us .”
His head dropped back and he groaned. “I never go to that shit. Ever.”
I climbed toward him, straddling his waist with my thighs. Placing my hands on either side of his face, I met his eyes with mine. His beauty always stunned me. It showed itself constantly to anyone and everyone who laid their eyes on him, but in such a quiet, comforting way. Like a perfectly roasted warm coffee, like a fuzzy blanket on my couch in the fall, like Kael Martin.
He looked away from me and I felt that awkward, subtly uncomfortable feeling creep in again.
“What’s wrong?” I had to ask.
He sighed and moved his focus back to my eyes. “Nothing, I’m just distracted.”
“By Phillips? Or discharge?” I asked, concern growing inside of me.
Not because he was distracted by something that didn’t revolve around me, but because I hated the idea of worry so much as even touching him, no matter what the situation was.
“A little of both.” He looked down at my chin, avoiding my eyes.
“It’s not something with me, right?”
Kael’s already dark eyes turned darker. His expression told me that he was deciding whether to lie to me or not. I knew it could be my own paranoia, but I knew him so well, and my gut was screaming at me.
“Honestly, I—” he began. Here we go , I thought to myself. He was going to either tell me he’d been hiding something about Phillips, or that he was leaving tomorrow for Atlanta, or that he couldn’t stand me anymore. My brain was in overdrive, my heart suddenly pounding. I hated the way my thoughts controlled my physical being.
“I really didn’t like that you drank so much earlier. I don’t care how stressed or anxious or worried you are, downing tequila isn’t going to help you, and it pissed me off that you seemed to do it to deal with your emotions, and to piss me off. Both reasons did just that . . . pissed me off.”
I pulled back from him and dropped my hands. “That’s a lot of pissing you off. Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. It’s a slippery fucking slope when you start drinking when something goes wrong. I don’t want that for you. I’ve seen it happen again and again. Look at Mendoza, do you want to be like him?”
I shook my head, a little stunned at the shame washing over my body. “Don’t judge me. It was one time, Kael.”
“One time leads to two, then three, and suddenly you have no control over it.”
I felt offended and embarrassed and honestly, it made me want to lash out at him, despite knowing that he was not only right but had my best interest in mind.
“I’m smarter than that. I’m not my mother.”
“Becoming an addict has nothing to do with intelligence, Karina.” His tone was serious as his hands moved to rest on my hips.
I kept quiet, processing what he’d said. He was right, and it was ignorant of me to assume that addiction had any tie to someone’s intelligence. I still felt like it could never happen to me, that I wouldn’t allow it to, that I could somehow control it, but I was also aware that that was an arrogant and untrue thought to have, so for once, I kept it inside. Blood ran thicker than water, and her blood ran through my veins. My mom had tried to quiet her ghosts by numbing them, and that certainly hadn’t worked. The wreckage she’d left behind should be lesson enough for me.
“You’re right,” I told him, pressing my chest closer to his. I tucked my chin in and rested my forehead in the space between his jawline and collarbone. His skin was so warm, so full of comfort.
“Don’t do it again, okay?” Kael’s hands moved to my back and he ran his palms up and down, pushing under the sweatshirt I was wearing and touching my bare skin. I sighed, instantly relaxing, and my brain slowed down with every breath I took.
“Okay,” I agreed, hoping that I meant it.