Chapter 7
Kayla
Opening my eyes, I stare up at the ceiling for a few moments, remembering everything from last night. I hear a shuffle and turn my head, finding Vero sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the bed, his chin resting on the mattress.
“Shit on a fucking stick,” I bite out. He scared the freaking life out of me.
“Good morning,” he says with a smile.
“What is wrong with you?” I press my hand to my chest.
“That would be a really long list, and I’m not sure I should bore you with the details. After what you have seen, I don’t want to scare you away any more than I already have.”
“How long have you been sitting there like that?”
He shrugs. “Not that long. Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
“I do not.”
He nods. “You said something about a sandwich.”
There is no way I said anything about a sandwich. I sit up and push my hair back from my face. “The truck.” I throw the covers back. “I have to get it back to Marco.”
“Clay and Ares already took it back,” Vero says. “You mentioned it when we were cleaning up the flowers, so they got up early and returned it for you.”
I stop, one leg dangling out of the bed.
“Did you not think we heard you?”
I pull my leg back onto the bed. “It’s not that. I’m just used to doing things for myself.”
“We will always listen to you,” he says, getting up off the floor. I barely have time to shift over before he is on the bed beside me, pulling up the covers. He lays his head on the pillow and turns to look at me. “Can I ask you something?”
“I think you will anyway.”
He grins. “Your tattoos.” He reaches over and touches the inside of my wrist. “What do they mean?”
I have had them for so long that some days I forget they are there. “Different things.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“It’s the best one I have right now.”
He nods as if he understands, but I have come to realize that with Vero it probably only means he understands how he has interpreted the answer.
“That one.” He points to a flower on the inside of my forearm. “What does that mean?”
I remember when I got it, and why flowers mean nothing to me as an apology.
“Someone once gave me flowers, and I thought it meant something, but it didn’t. I got this to remind myself not to read into things.”
“That’s really sad.”
“It was a life lesson.”
“Still sad.” He doesn’t push anymore; instead, he moves to where the colors get brighter around my elbow. “This one?”
“I just liked it.”
“So it has no meaning?”
“Not everything has a story.”
“Everything has a story,” he says with complete seriousness. “Even when people say it doesn’t.”
I look up at the ceiling. He isn’t wrong, and I hate being called out.
“My mom hated it when I started getting them,” I say.
It’s not the full story, but it’s a piece.
“She thought it meant that I was throwing my life away. Every new one was an argument until eventually I stopped telling her and got them anyway.”
“Did that make it better or worse?”
“Easier,” I tell him. “Not better.”
He nods, but doesn’t ask questions about my mom, and I appreciate that. My family is not a subject I am ready to talk about.
“What about this one?” He taps my shoulder.
“That took three sessions and hurt like hell.”
“But why did you get it?”
I turn my head to look at him, finding he is watching me with those big brown eyes that make me want to spill all my trauma.
“Because I wanted something that I couldn’t hide,” I say, which is a half-truth.
The reality is I got it the week I finally left Aaron, and I wanted it somewhere I could always see it.
A reminder that I had done something that scared me and survived.
But that’s way more than I am ready to reveal about myself.
He seems to understand and doesn’t push for more. He lies beside me and traces the lines of my tattoos without saying anything else.
The door opens and Brawley walks into the room. He takes us in, and his eyes move to me and stay there.
“Morning.”
“Good morning,” Brawley replies, still staring at me.
I hold his gaze.
He is quiet for so long that Vero tilts his head to look at him, and Brawley looks his way. Something silent passes between them, and Brawley glances back at me and sighs.
“When it comes to him, I don’t think clearly.
I haven’t been able to since the day we met, and that isn’t going to change.
” I get it; this is not new information.
“I know what you mean to him, and I’ve watched what it does to him when you are around and when you aren’t.
Especially in this last week. And I don’t actually hate having you around. ”
Vero sniffles, and Brawley rolls his eyes.
“There is food downstairs,” he says, ignoring Vero. Then he turns and walks back out the door, and I listen to his footsteps as they disappear down the hall.
“Are you crying?” I ask as Vero buries his head in my shoulder.
“No.”
“Vero.”
“Okay, fine,” he whispers. “Brawley doesn’t accept many people, and you have no idea what it means that he is doing this. He actually likes you.”
I wrap my arm around him and hug him until he is done. “Let’s get some food.”
“Yes please—I’m starving.”
I get up and make my way toward the bathroom.
“The tattoo on your neck,” he blurts. “I would like to know the real reason one day, when you’re ready.”
I nod, not having the words to express how that particular story isn’t one I care to think about.
Everything before Kyle is not a time I like to rehash.
Kyle was simply a Band-Aid to fix my loneliness, and I can admit now that I used him.
It might have bruised my ego a little that he cheated, but I really didn’t care.
Not when I had a place to live. And by comparison, he didn’t treat me that badly. It was better than before.
After I pee and finger-brush my teeth, I head downstairs.
The kitchen smells like coffee, and my mouth waters.
There is nothing better than a good cup of coffee when you first wake up in the morning.
Vero is seated on the counter near where Brawley is plating food, talking a million miles an hour, his hands moving at the same speed as his mouth.
I walk over and pour myself a cup of coffee, then stand at the counter with both hands wrapped around the mug.
Ares is at the other end of the kitchen, watching me. I hate when he does that—I can feel him dissecting me piece by piece, digging beneath the layers I want no one to see. He crosses the kitchen and stops a few feet away from me.
“I owe you an explanation,” he says, and I wait, not knowing how he wants me to reply to that. “What happened between us and the way I handled it afterward, that wasn’t fair to you. I told myself that it was a practical response to our situation, and it was unkind to do so.”
“Statistically likely,” I say. “Those were your words.”
“It sounds terrible when I hear it now.”
“So which is it? Was it a calculated response to the circumstances, or are you actually apologizing for being a dick and not accepting a one-night stand for what it was?”
He is quiet for a moment as he works through what I said. Everything Ares does is deliberate, and I have known that since the beginning, which means this is too. I want to understand why before I decide how to handle him.
“I would like to get to know you better, and I am aware that I have not given you a reason to want that. I wanted you to know that the door is open if you choose to walk through it, on your terms.” He holds my gaze and doesn’t look away.
“I appreciate the apology, and I will think about it.”
He nods once and moves to the table, taking a seat. I follow and sit beside him, then Vero jumps down from the counter and sits across from me, while Brawley places a plate in front of me. My stomach growls at the smell of the food, and I look up at him, but he has already turned away.
“Thank you,” I call out.
“Don’t make this weird,” Brawley responds. “I’m just doing what a good host should do.”
Vero beams at me from across the table and winks.
I’m halfway through my breakfast when Clay strolls in. He doesn’t say anything, just drops into the vacant seat on the other side of me. His leg presses against mine, but neither of us acknowledge it as he leans over and picks up a piece of bacon from my plate and shoves it in his mouth.
I turn and stare at him in disbelief. “Did you just steal my bacon?”
“There is more on the stove,” he says, unbothered by the fact that he stole food off my plate.
“That isn’t the point.”
“There’s a point?” he retorts between chews.
“Yes, there is! That was my breakfast. You have two arms and two legs that work perfectly fine, so you don’t need to be all up in my personal space. Go get your own.”
He reaches over and takes my cup and downs the rest of my coffee in one mouthful, then smirks as he sets it back down. He is enjoying this too much. I breathe and compose myself before changing the subject.
“Thank you for returning the truck.”
“Ares returned your truck. I drove the car.”
“So you did nothing?”
That stupid smirk that makes me want to punch his stupidly handsome face spreads across it.
I never thought it would be possible to want to strangle someone and smell them at the same time.
Clay always smells so fucking nice, and even that pisses me off.
Why couldn’t he smell like the inside of a dirty shoe?
It would make disliking him a lot easier.
“I got up at five and drove across town, all so you could sleep in and not have to worry.”
I open my mouth and snap it closed, trying to gather the right words. The man makes it so hard to be nice to him.
“You’re welcome,” he says as he steals my last piece of bacon and takes a bite.
Vero is vibrating with energy across the table, his leg bouncing as he looks between the two of us.
Brawley is eating his breakfast as if he couldn’t care less about our bickering, while Ares is watching us with those calculating eyes.
I have learned to read him a little better and can see the amusement on his face.
“I want that back.”
Clay snorts. “But it’s gone.”
“Then I want replacement bacon.”
He stands up, taking my coffee cup and going to the stove. He comes back moments later and drops two pieces onto my plate, then sits back down, his leg finding mine again. I eat my bacon and don’t say anything else.
As I look around the kitchen, I know I should run.
Yet for the first time in forever, I am in control of my life, making my own choices and doing what I think is right.
It may bite me in the ass, but I am sick of being scared to make the wrong choice.
If this all goes to shit, then so be it.
But right now, being here doesn’t feel wrong; it feels like a step in the right direction.
Not an action of manipulation. And although Ares is questionable, he is no real threat at this point in time.