Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
kane
NOW
Caffeine – Max Drazen
Ipush my way through the door separating the back of the house from the bar, coming from the office where I’ve been helping with the payroll for the last couple of hours.
The sounds that were muffled come at me in full force, a rowdy table of football-watching guys along the bar and ‘90s underground music playing softly over the game.
I nod to Seth, the bar’s owner, stationed at his usual spot behind the packed bar.
I start a mental tally of what might be needed in back stock, then turn toward the table that’s been occupying all my thoughts—only to see Morgan quickly eating up the distance between us with a grim expression on her face.
She ignores the lingering stares pinned to her ass in the cutoff denim shorts that I know are Avery’s by the little sunflower detail on the front pocket.
A small grin fills my face remembering how many times she pricked her finger trying to sew that thing on one night.
“Kane, I need your help,” she rushes out when she gets close enough.
Alarms shoot through me, worried that something happened to Avery. I storm out from behind the counter without a second of hesitation, letting the bar top slam back down, causing the couple behind me to flinch.
I’m in too much of a panic to apologize, instead forcing my legs to take quicker steps as I ask, “What’s wrong?”
Morgan matches my stride. “Okay, so, Avery is drunk. I mean, really drunk. I don’t think I’ve seen her drink this much since spring break freshman year, when we got that all-inclusive drink package down in Mexico, and you had to hold her hair back for the next twelve hours.”
The alarm bells in my head ring louder at that. Avery has always been one to know her limits most of the time, preferring to sip one drink throughout the night. One benefit of my height and don’t fuck with me look is that people get out of my way quickly.
“Why did she drink so much?” I probe as I finally see her.
Some boy leans into her while she laughs at something he says, almost falling off the chair.
He reaches for her as she slides sideways, and I see red as thoughts of what I’m going to do to his hand if he actually touches her race through my mind.
I make it just in time to stop her from falling, knocking the guy’s hands out of the way. I angle my body between them, glaring at the offender who tried to touch my girl.
“Okay, pretty girl, I think you’ve had enough,” I whisper in her ear, pulling her off the chair and into my arms. She comes easily, as if she’s been waiting to be in my arms all night.
Like she fucking belongs there.
I carry her bridal-style, her arm instantly wrapping around my neck, her fingers playing with the short curls at my nape.
Having her in my arms again after fifty-seven days really cements how much my heart aches for her. It feels as if I’m finally taking a breath of clean air after months of smoke filling my lungs.
I grab her bag and phone from the tabletop and I turn my body to move toward the exit. Her legs dangle over my arm, kicking slightly as she tangles her fingers further into my hair—nearly eliciting a soft moan from me.
“Kane!” she almost yells, and I stop immediately as she looks toward the other guy. “I was just telling…uhh…” she trails off, appearing to have forgotten his name.
“Brad,” the guy finishes for her. I examine his too-gelled brown hair, almost a perfect mold on his head, not a single hair out of place. It reminds me of my unruly waves, the complete opposite of him.
Is this the type of guy she wants now?
He pushes up the sleeves of his sky-blue button-down shirt, showing off the silver Rolex. I scoff at the very unsubtle flex.
Who the fuck wears a button-down to a bar? I want to punch him in the face just for that.
“Yes, Chad,” she slurs. My girl is drunk. I chuckle softly when I see the expression on his face dripping in anger. “We were just talking about you. Right, Chad?”
“Brad,” he corrects, clearly annoyed that she’s in my arms and that she keeps forgetting his name. It’s funny that he thought he had a real chance at taking her home to begin with.
He crosses his arms, looking like someone just side-swiped the BMW his daddy bought him, as he glares at me like I’m beneath him—little does he know.
I let a lazy smirk tug at my mouth and subtly flex my arms as I hold onto Avery, just to remind him what a real man looks like.
“Yeah, that’s what I said.” She has a look of utter confusion on her face, a cute wrinkle resting between her brows.
“Well, he was saying he wanted a tattoo and I was telling him all about yours and… Hey Morgan! When did you get back?” she rambles, swinging her head around to look at her best friend.
I glance around, just now realizing the whole bar is looking over at us.
Avery kicks her legs in my arms some more, making me grip her thighs tighter to keep her from kicking some poor person squeezing by us on their way to the bar.
“Okay, that’s enough. It’s time to get you home.” I stride away from the group without another look as Avery reaches around me waving and yelling bye with a huge smile on her face. I chuckle seeing her like this.
She rarely gets this drunk, but when she does, she’s like the energizer bunny on an caffeine-fueled diet. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to physically remove her before she insists on becoming friends with every single person at the bar.
I love seeing her being so open to people, something she’s always been too self-conscious to do sober.
I know she could easily take over the world, make everyone else putty in her hands if she chose to, but she never will.
I used to stand guard behind her the whole night until she had her fill of whatever place we were at, just to be the one who got to take her home and make sure she got there safely.
I never cared how late we stayed out, even if there was a reason to be up the next day. I always just felt honored she felt safe enough to let go like that around me, knowing I would be there to take care of her.
I stride past the bar, dodging people left and right, not giving a fuck who stares at us as I make my way over to Seth to tell him I’m heading out early.
When I reach him, he takes one look at Avery almost asleep in my arms and nods his head in understanding.
I take off toward the parking lot, pushing people out of my path as I head to the door.
Fortunately, I arrived a little early tonight, which means I got a closer parking spot than usual. Avery isn’t heavy, but I’m hoping to get her home sooner rather than later, given that I have no idea how close she is to puking all that alcohol back up.
When I finally make it to my black pickup, I open the heavy passenger door and place Avery onto the seat, helping her buckle.
She mumbles something that sounds awfully like “you overbearing brood” while swatting my hands away.
I finish up the buckle and swipe some of her fallen hair back behind her ear, chuckling to myself at how cute she sounds when she’s angry.
Her piercing blue eyes meet mine momentarily before I take a breath and step back.
I shut the door, making sure nothing gets caught in the frame before rounding the back and hopping in.
I turn the heat up higher since the cold returns when the sun sets and Avery is wearing an outfit designed to torture me—a cropped black corset top that she always told me she hated, her breasts almost spilling out the top, with ripped jeans and boots I don’t remember her owning.
Are we finally in the place where I stop recognizing everything she has?
I force my gaze from her and shove the truck into reverse, throwing my hand on the passenger headrest. The warmth from her head is dangerously close to my hand as I back the truck out of the parking spot.
A sigh escapes her when my hands drop back to the center console, and I think about turning on the radio to break this crushing silence until I remember that it’s still stuck on that god-awful channel.
My hands dance on the steering wheel, counting the seconds we’ve been silent. It feels like torture.
It never used to be like this. Even in the silence, I found comfort.
It used to feel safe, and now I find myself racking my brain for something I could possibly say to get her to talk to me.
The neighborhoods and streetlights blur past us out the windows as the quiet seems to get louder the farther we drive.
“Why are you driving like an old man?” Avery finally breaks the silence to say, and a sigh of relief rushes out of me.
She turns toward me, angling her body so she’s facing me and not the windshield.
Her arms are crossed over her legs as she sits with her feet up on the chair.
The new Doc Martens gleam in the passing streetlights.
I shift my posture up, loosening my hands from the steering wheel.
I drop my right forearm to the console again, not realizing just how hard I’ve been clutching the steering wheel.
“What do you mean? There’s a speed limit, Avery.
A law to abide by,” I answer sarcastically.
She doesn’t need to know that I’m going the speed limit now hoping to prolong the time we spend together.
She giggles, knowing full well that I’ve never followed the speed limit before, always the one to remind me to slow down and be careful. It warmed my heart, those words a reminder that someone out there actually cared about me and wanted me home at the end of the day.
I glance over at her, noticing the way her eyes drop to where my arm is resting between us.
She swallows, my rings glinting in the passing lights as her gaze tracks over the snake tattoo running up my middle finger that Marcus talked me into.
Her fingers twitch as if she wants to trace the lines like she used to when we’d drive.
A way to calm her anxieties, she’d always say.
“Please, you have never seen a speed limit that you didn’t take as a suggestion,” she scoffs.
“And why did you go all Tarzan and Jane and sweep me out of there? I was perfectly fine.” She slurs a little on the word fine, but I don’t call her out because I love seeing the twinkle in her eye and soft smirk on her lips when she’s giving me shit.
I split my attention between her and the road, thankful for the lack of traffic this late at night so I can really take in her features as we pass the streetlights, lighting her up like the star she is.
Before I can stop her, she reaches over and turns the volume dial up where Alpha Adam seems to be dishing out advice about how a woman saying she doesn’t want to go out with you is just incentive to try harder. Avery bursts out laughing and turns to me again.
“Oh my god, Kane. What are you listening to?” She’s barely able to get the question out over her laughter, tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.
“Wait, no,” I start, laughing at myself along with her. “The freaking radio is stuck!” I explain, trying to defend myself. I turn the dial back down, cursing myself for not making time to fix it before now.
She looks at me. “Oh sure, ‘the radio is stuck,’” she replies with air quotes.
Still laughing to herself, she reaches over and turns the dial up again.
The irritating sound of Adam’s theme song that he sings live every night fills the cabin.
Another round of giggles hits Avery, making my smile grow too.
“No, I’m serious. Please, try to change it.
I have been trying for days, and eventually just gave up and started driving in silence.
Anything would be better than this,” I reply, waiting for her to try to change the station.
I look over at her while we approach the stop sign outside her neighborhood.
Only two streets from the townhouse Marcus and I rent, Avery and Morgan’s little cottage comes into view, its white siding shining in the moonlight and greenery spilling along the front.
Between Morgan’s plants from a few years ago blossoming in the yard and the brown porch swing and decorative porch goose—the one Avery begged me for last Christmas, that she and Morgan now dress up for the holiday—it feels as though it’s straight out of a storybook.
“Okay you’re right, it’s stuck,” Avery says, twisting the dial slightly only for it to get stuck again.
“I know. I’ve been meaning to open it up and try to fix it, but I’ve been so swamped lately. I think right now is the first time I haven’t been rushing off to get things done this week.” I slow the truck and park in their driveway, right behind Avery’s old Toyota Corolla.
Worry flows through me thinking of her driving that car.
When was the last time she got an oil change? I should really come by one night and check her tire pressure now that it’s warming up again. She’ll never remember to do it herself.
I shift the truck into park as Avery muses, “Well it won’t take more than ten minutes.”
“What?” I ask as a wrinkle forms on my brow, turning to stare at her more directly now that the truck isn’t moving.
She startles a bit and looks over at me as she grasps the door handle. “I just mean it won’t take you more than ten minutes. You were always very…handy,” she replies, glancing down at my hands, and sending signals straight to my cock.
She looks back up at me with her doe eyes, not realizing how her little comment will spur tonight’s fantasies further when I get home later.
I turn and jump out of the truck before she can see my reaction to her, hoping the cool air gives me a minute to calm down—a half hard-on is the last thing I need when we’re having our first good conversation since the breakup.
I round the cab just in time to see Avery jumping down from my lifted truck, wobbling a bit before grabbing my shirt to steady herself.
“I was coming to help,” I grumble, miffed that she didn’t wait for me.
I never let her open her own door while we were together, why would I suddenly start now?
I pick her up again, legs thrown over my left arm.
I reach back for her things and shove the door closed with my right before heading up the three steps leading to her front door.
“I just…wasn’t sure…” she says, burrowing into me like she’s seeking my warmth, finally content after a restless night.
I give her a gentle jostle her awake. “Hey pretty girl, no sleeping yet. I need your keys,” I whisper, uncertainty laced in my tone. I still have my key to her place, but I’m not sure I have the right to use it now.
Her only response is soft breathing, so I dig my set out of my pocket, taking a bit longer than necessary so I can keep her tucked up against me for as long as possible.