36. Wentworth
THIRTY-SIX
Wentworth
I wake up to a text from Conner:
Con: Brian Maxwell’s taken a turn for the worse. He’s in surgery right now. I’ll keep you posted.
Shit.
Me: Should I come back to LA?
It’s the last thing I want to do. Leaving here without having a chance to at least say goodbye to Kait will kill me but this is important. Even though I’m not the one who hit him, I feel responsible for what happened to Brian Maxwell. Maybe if I’d been there, maybe if I’d been the one driving instead of Lexi, none of this would’ve happened. Brian Maxwell wouldn’t be fighting for his life after falling asleep on a public bus bench.
No sooner do I hit send does my phone start to vibrate, Lexi’s cell number flashing across the screen. Sending her directly to voicemail, I read Conner’s reply.
Con: No. just stay where you are. I’ve got everything under control.
Anyone else I’d doubt, but not Con. If he says it’s under control, then it is.
Me: Okay—Lexi’s calling me.
Con: Good. Let it go to voicemail. Maybe she’ll fuck up and say something incriminating.
Con: Just sit tight. Another week and this whole thing will be over.
Me: thanks.
I forward Lexi’s voicemail to Con without listening to it before turning off my phone and throwing it in the drawer of my nightstand where it’ll wait for me until tomorrow morning to complete task #1 on my see, I’m not obsessed with Kaitlyn Barrett checklist.
Completing task #2, I get dressed, pulling on a pair of gray sweatpants and a plain white muscle shirt. Grabbing my Sox cap and my runners, I make my way downstairs to get task #3 out of the way because the sooner I get through the list, the sooner I can spend the rest of my day with Kait. Bringing her to life—at least my version of her—and trapping her on paper.
It's nowhere near good enough but in a way its better because at least I can make this version of her stay. I can take this version of her with me when I leave.
Don’t think about it.
You’ve still got time.
Time for what I have no idea, but—
I’m halfway down the stairs when the smell hits me.
Coffee—but beneath the rich, heavy aroma of it, I catch the scent of something else. Something that launches my heart into my throat. Ties my feet together and nearly pitches me headfirst down the stairs.
Kait.
Finding my feet, I manage to make it to the bottom of them without breaking my neck. And then I just stand there, pulse thundering in my ears, and look at her.
Breathe her in.
She’s sitting at the kitchen island, exactly where I found her that first time a few weeks ago, the laptop I bought her open in front of her, her gaze settled and intent on its screen. The knot Morris planted on her forehead is hardly noticeable and the black eye is little more than a shadow. Coffee mug next to a plate holding a half-eaten cinnamon roll, notebooks and textbooks stacked on the counter within easy reach. Earbuds jammed into her ears in an effort to avoid distraction.
There’s time.
I’ve still got time.
Crossing the kitchen, I pour myself a cup of coffee and take more time than necessary choosing a cinnamon roll from the pile plated next to the coffee machine. After adding a splash of half and half, I turn back around, half expecting her to be gone but she isn’t.
Kaitlyn’s still here.
Hips leaned against the counter, I eat my cinnamon rolls slowly, measuring out sips of coffee between bites while I study her. Commit the picture of her to memory so I can draw her later. Because we both know she shouldn’t be here and I’m afraid that any moment now, she’s going to remember that and leave again.
Taking another careful bite of my pastry, I watch while she begins to squirm in her seat, bottom lip caught between her teeth. Gaze still aimed at her laptop screen, she sighs.
“I thought we agreed that if I came back, there’d be no more staring,” She says while she lifts the pen in her hand and writes something in the notebook next to the laptop. Not the blue one. I still have the blue one. I kept it. She left it here when Damien and her sister came for her on Saturday morning. Rather than give it to her, I kept it. It’s in my portfolio, hidden under my sketch book.
She’s right.
We did agree that I’d stop staring at her.
Shoving the last of my cinnamon roll in my mouth, I finish it quickly. Wiping my hands clean on a kitchen towel, I grab my hat before crossing the space between us. Rounding the island, I stop in front of her stool and turn her, swiveling the seat so that she’s facing me. Tossing my cap on top of her keyboard, I reach up to pull her earbuds free.
Angling her gaze up to meet mine, that perfect mouth of hers open on a protest, it dies in her throat when I slide my hand around the back of her neck, holding her captive while I stare down at her, still trying to convince myself that she’s real. Letting my gaze fall to the hands she has folded in her lap, I look at them, just to be sure.
There’s no ring.
Wherever it is, she’s not wearing it.
I’m more relieved by that than I have a right to be.
Not wearing the ring that asshole put on her finger doesn’t make her any less engaged, moron, and you know it—you just don’t care.
What does that make you ?
Who does that make you?
Yeah, she’s engaged… but not by choice.
Marrying that Morris fuck isn’t what she wants. If it were, she wouldn’t be here. I tell myself that’s all that matters—that I’m not breaking anything because there’s nothing to break. Even though she said yes, Kait doesn’t want to marry him. She never wanted to marry him.
Doesn’t matter.
You should send her away.
Damien is right. You’re going to leave her behind and broken or not—real or not—she’s going to be left to pick up the pieces.
It’s the right thing to do.
What I promised my brother I would do.
And I’m the worst kind of asshole because yeah—I really don’t care. All I care about is that she’s here.
She came back.
Why doesn’t even matter.
“We also agreed that you’d stop cleaning up after me,” I remind her quietly while I stroke my thumb against the underside of her chin. “If I have to put up with you scrubbing my toilet and making my coffee then you’re just going to have to get used to being stared at, Sunshine.”
“If I don’t do those things then there’s no reason for me to be here,” she admits, those wide blue eyes of hers searching mine. “No reason for me to stay.”
“Yes, there is.” To prove it, I lower myself over her to brush my mouth against hers and I have to force myself back when I feel her breath catch in her throat. Pulling away, I look down at her. “You’ll still be here when I get back,” I say quietly. “You won’t leave while I’m gone.”
It’s not a question but she nods anyway, the line of her throat bobbing nervously against the press of my thumb. Skimming the soft line of it, I tighten my grip on her neck just enough to part her lips so I can watch the tip of her tongue brush along the loose seam of them. “Yes,” she whispers, her bright blue gaze hooked into mine. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”
“Promise.”
She nods again.
“Promise.”
Somehow I force myself to let her go. Retrieving my ball cap, I pull it on, angling the brim low across my brow. Backing away from her, I turn, pushing myself across the kitchen. Toward the front door and out onto the porch. Pulling the door closed, I head down the steps and across the drive at a slow jog, picking up speed as I go until I’m flying down the hard dirt road that will take me around the lake because the sooner I can complete the tasks on my see, I’m not obsessed with Kaitlyn Barrett checklist, the sooner I can come back to her.