6. Kade
6
Kade
I skip breakfast in the morning because I did enough peopling the night before between meeting all the other guests and chatting with Andrew late into the night, trading stories back and forth until I ran out of stories to give. Andrew’s a year older than I was when I had my accident. He’s going to have so many more missions, make so many more memories, and do so much more good work out there.
On good days, I’m thankful I’m alive. On bad days, I’m so mad at the universe because of all that got taken from me.
It’s not that I don’t like my life being Gia’s bodyguard. But I didn’t have to nurse an attraction to anyone day in and day out when I was in the military. I wasn’t distracted all the time by the way just one look from her or how one instance of her laugh could throw all my thoughts and emotions into chaos.
Anyway, this morning, I woke up early, did a workout routine in the living room of my cabin, and then made myself a pot of coffee .
I texted Gia first thing when I woke up to get her plan for the day so I can do the job I’ve been hired to do, whether she likes it or not. However, I got no response. She’s not an early riser like I am, so I think nothing of it.
Until I head over to the main house, and Gia isn’t there.
I find out when I walk into the common room and find Bryn playing chess with Ahmad, the backpacker. “Gia not up yet?” I ask and plop down into an armchair across from the two.
“Shush,” my sister says. “I’m thinking.”
I watch her as she plans her next move and finally moves the rook.
Ahmad laughs, clapping his hands together. “Ah, good move.”
Bryn grins. “Thank you. I did it myself.” Then, she looks at me. “What did you say?”
“Gia? Still asleep?”
“Oh, no. She went into town.”
My heart punches through my rib cage, propelling me to leap out of my chair. “What?!”
“Yeah, she went shopping,” Bryn says, totally nonplussed.
“With Antonia?” I ask, clinging to a last bit of hope.
“Nope. Alone.”
I claw my fingers through my hair. “Wh-Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“She said she wanted to go alone.”
“But I’m her bodyguard! I’m supposed to be where her body is to guard it! It’s in the name!”
Bryn holds up her hand. “Look, Gia’s her own person. She can do what she wants.”
I grumble. Not sure I even say words. I’m furious. I grab my jacket off the coat tree and march out of the room.
“Where are you going?!” Bryn calls out.
“To find her!” I yell back as I enter the front hall.
“He seems very angry,” I hear Ahmad say.
You bet I’m angry.
Antonia looks up from her place behind the check-in desk, putting down the beat-up mystery novel she’s been reading. “Kade, we missed you at breakfast!”
“Can I borrow your car?”
Her inky brows tighten together. “Why?”
“To find your daughter.”
Antonia’s confusion settles into a calm smile. “Gia is willful and determined. If she wants to be alone, she will be. But…” She pulls a set of keys out from the desk drawer. “Best of luck.”
I don’t know why no one is concerned except for me, but there is no time to linger on that right now. I take the keys, thank Antonia as I go, and set out on my latest mission.
Operation Missing Pop Star.
Finding Gia is more difficult than I’d like. She at least had the sense to bundle her long, rolling waves into a messy bun on top of her head and hide her eyes behind sunglasses. But Gia is a world-renowned pop star. If people are looking, they’ll see her.
And man, oh man, am I looking.
I spot her through the window of Cornelius Family General Store, which has gone from a general store to more of a free-for-all of touristy gifts over the years I’ve been away from Blue Flag. No matter. I’m not going to look too hard and remember what life was once like. I’m here for Gia, because of Gia, and that’s the beginning and end of it.
I stalk into the busy store and walk up behind her as she’s perusing a rack of mugs with personalized names. She scans the ‘G’ section with her brow bent down behind her sunglasses. If I stand here too long and watch, I’ll go back in time too far. Because seeing her standing in the General Store takes me back all those years to when life was normal, and Gia was just… Gia.
Then again, she’s never been “just” anything. Even back in the day, she was a special firecracker of a person.
I do wonder what life would have been like if she stayed here. Like this. What kind of life she would have. Who would be a part of it?
Would I still be a part of it?
I clear my throat to get her attention. “Gia.”
“Ah!” She leaps into the air at the sound of my voice and flips around. “You scared me.”
“ You scared me. Running off without telling me.”
Gia pushes her sunglasses onto the top of her head. I have to hold my breath at the reveal of her warm brown eyes. It’s like a knife to the heart every time. “I didn’t need you to come with me.”
I grit my teeth. “Gia, I’m your bodyguard. It’s my job to be with you.” I wish it wasn’t just my job. I wish it was her desire. In a deeper way. I’ll take what I can get, I suppose. But when she walks away from me, she’s taking that little bit I get away from me.
She narrows her eyes, but instead of coming up with a clever retort, she turns back to the mugs. “Can you believe they don’t have my name? After everything I’ve done for this town.”
That makes me laugh. “You should file a complaint. ”
Gia looks back at me, her lips curled to the side. “No, that would just make me a diva , wouldn’t it, Kade?”
My mouth falls open to respond, but I’m mute.
“Mhm. Thought so.” She pushes past me and heads out of the store.
While my words might be stilted, my body isn’t, which is why I’m suited to this work. I follow quickly at her heels. “Look, I was a jerk. I know that.”
“It’s fine. I get it. You can be mad at me. I’ll deal.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Gia—” I cut in front of her to stop her in her tracks. “I’m not mad at you.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Really? Could have fooled me.”
“I’m… annoyed. That’s all.”
“That’s like the same thing to me, Kade.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve never had a sibling, so that makes sense,” I say.
Gia smacks me in the arm.
“Hey!”
“I have rejection sensitivity, Kade . It’s an ADHD thing.”
I scoff, “But you’re an artist. You get rejected all the time.”
“Yeah, but I know I’m good at it, so I really don’t care what people say about me when it comes to that.”
That’s… hotter than it has any right to be.
“Well, look who it is!” someone cries out in our direction.
I reflexively grab Gia and push her behind me, thinking some autograph hounds have spotted us. But when I turn around, I’m face to face with?—
“Mrs. Greenly?!” I gape.
Mrs. Greenly was old when she taught math at Blue Flag High, but somehow, her wrinkles have wrinkles now. She grins up at me. “I’m glad you still recognize me even though I’m not in the papers like you and Gia.”
Gia pops out from behind me. “Hi, Mrs. Greenly.”
“There’s my most improved student!” The math teacher smiles.
Gia embraces Mrs. Greenly and gives her a kiss on the cheek. “Are you still teaching?”
“Me? Are you kidding? Of course!”
She’s gotta be well past retirement age. But more power to her, I guess.
“And you’re doing all your singing. I like your stuff.” Mrs. Greenly looks at me again and then at Gia. “Are you two…? Because if so, that’s very cute.”
I laugh harder than I probably should. It’s disbelief, not disgust. “No, no, definitely not.”
“Don’t sound so insulted,” Gia murmurs.
The last thing I feel is insulted. Why do I always say the wrong thing? This is why I keep quiet if I can.
“Well, it would be cute, that’s all I’ll say.”
Don’t say that, Mrs. Greenly. I don’t need that thought in my head…
“Where’s Bryn? She with you?”
I swallow. “She’s up at the Lamplight. We’re staying with Gia’s family for the holiday.”
Mrs. Greenly folds her gloved hands together. “You’re not staying with your father?”
My body goes rigid. This is exactly what I was afraid of.
Gia puts a hand on my arm. Her touch puts me a bit at ease. “Fine, you caught us. We’re trying to keep it a secret, but…” She gives me a look. I know she’s pretending, but that’s a look of love. I’ve seen it before. Not that she was looking at me. No, that was a look reserved for Mars. Gu ess she’s gotten good practice. “We’re staying together because we’re a couple. Right, Kade?”
I blink at her. “Right.”
“Oh! I knew it, I knew it. Every time I see you two in the news, I just think you’d make the most beautiful babies; I—” Mrs. Greenly starts to ramble.
My face must be the same color as a hot coal at this point.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mrs. Greenly!” Gia stops her before things get too out of hand. “You have to keep quiet about it. We don’t want the press finding out.”
Out of the corner of my eye, something flashes. I turn suddenly to find a gaggle of teen girls crowded around a phone pointed in our direction. I knew this was a bad idea. “We have to go,” I say to Gia and wrap my arm around her back. “Bye, Mrs. Greenly.”
Gia balks but follows my push as I guide her into the antique store across the street. “We weren’t done talking !” she chirps as I shove her into the store. She stumbles back into a midcentury-looking lamp that nearly falls down and knocks over a table of China. I’m able to reach out and grab it before it creates a total scene.
“You break it, you buy it, kids,” Mr. Horton says from the register somewhere amongst the clutter.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” I say quietly and right the lamp.
“What was that about?” Gia asks me, putting her hands on her hips.
“It’s…” I look down and realize we are in quite close quarters, nestled into a corner of the shop where one wrong move will create a “buy it” situation.
“Look, I know you hate talking about your dad, but you’re the one who insisted on finding me and?—”
“It’s not about that, Gia. There were people. Taking pictures of you. ”
Gia’s expression of annoyance melts into a humored smile. “You sure they weren’t taking pictures of you , Kade?”
“Why would they be taking?—”
“Because I’m in disguise!”
“Mildly at best.”
“And you’re famous! ‘Babe bodyguard saves Gia DeLuca from?—’”
I wince. “That’s just a silly headline.”
Gia leans forward, grabbing onto the front of my coat to get a better look out the front window of the shop that is obscured by a vintage rocking horse and tinsel tree. Does she have to grab me like that? “Oh, Kade… those are teen girls. Giggling teen girls.” She looks up at me, still holding onto my jacket, clutching me close. She pokes me in the chest. “They are definitely looking at you.”
I swallow thickly. I think I’m sweating. I wish I could take this jacket off.
“And while I have you?—”
Oh, she has me, all right.
“Since you pulling me away from the conversation wasn’t about your dad, maybe you’d be willing to tell me why you can’t even stand being in the same town as him, hm?” she asks, tipping her head to the side and humming, her lips looking pink and pretty and plump and why does she have to do this to me?
I take a deep breath. I don’t talk about it because I don’t know where to begin. I’d love to talk about it, but I’ve never been good at knowing where to start. I’ve never known how to tell people that a part of our father died with our mother, and my idea of home went with it. I’ve been avoiding Blue Flag as much as I’ve been avoiding my dad because I don’t belong anymore. Something shifted in the ground the day Mom died, tectonic plates or something mammoth because every step I take feels unwelcome and strange.
But I still remember the thirteen good years I had here. I wish I could have them back.
“Come on,” I say, ignoring her question. “Let’s do your shopping, huh?”
Gia’s smile falls, but she doesn’t press. “Fine with me.” She lets go of me and wiggles down the tight aisle of the antique shop.
I run my hands down the front of my jacket where the ghosts of her hands remain. All I want to do is pull her closer, and all I’ve ever done is push her away.
If I keep doing that, one day, I’ll lose her completely.