Chapter 16 #2
Kai shakes his head before taking another sip of wine. The silence that settles afterward is comfortable. Not empty. Just easy.
The candles he'd lit cast a warm glow across the apartment while rain taps softly against the windows. Somewhere down on the street, a car horn echoes briefly before disappearing again.
For the first time in a long time, dinner doesn't feel rushed.
Nobody is checking a phone.
Nobody is thinking about tomorrow.
We're simply here.
Kai reaches for the breadbasket. “So. You told everyone we're dating.”
I grin. “I did.”
He tears off a piece of bread. “Were you joking?”
I blink. “Why would I joke about that, baby?”
He looks genuinely thoughtful. “I don't know. I was just shocked.” He points between us. “I wasn't sure what this was called.”
“What did you think it was called?”
He takes another drink of wine. “I figured…” He shrugs casually. “Fuck buddies seemed more accurate.”
I choke. My wine goes down the wrong pipe.
Kai immediately starts laughing.
“Oh my God.” I cough into my fist. “Never.” Another cough. “Never say that again.”
He grins.
“I hated every single word that just came out of your mouth.”
Kai blushes. “I was being honest.”
“Well, I want to date you. I want you in my life.”
His smile grows wider. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” I grin. “I also want nasty, whiny sex, but that's not the highlight. Just a plus.”
I point my fork at him again. “But if you ever introduce me as your fuck buddy…”
He starts laughing before I even finish. “I won't, I won't.”
A drunken haze seems to waft over Kai as he asks the next question. “When did we start dating?”
I think about it. “I don't know.”
“No idea?”
“I think somewhere between buying you books and cleaning your apartment.”
His ears turn pink. “I don't remember agreeing.”
I smirk. “You let me kiss you. You sleep in my bed most nights. You put up with my horror movies. I figured you were basically mine.”
He tilts his head. “Don't forget the letting you tie me up.”
I laugh, surprised. “You really enjoy making me blush.”
“I do.” He smiles into his wine glass.
I stare at him for a second, then reach my legs under the table to tangle with his.
“I think…” I shake my head. “I think I started falling for you before I even realized it.”
His smile slowly fades. The joking atmosphere softens into something quieter.
“What made you…” He searches for the words. “Me?”
The answer comes easier than I expected.
“Your kindness.” I set my fork down. “You have no idea how gentle you are.”
He immediately starts shaking his head. “I don't think that's true.”
“I didn't ask what you thought, Hayes.”
A small smile spreads on his mouth.
“You make me feel safe,” I admit
His head lifts immediately. “Safe?”
I nod. “My grandfather was the only person who was ever really gentle with me. Your kindness… it reminds me of that.”
He stares down into his wine glass for a long moment, his ears turning pink.
The room has gone quiet again, light jazz filling the silence as I wish to bring him closer.
Kai is watching me with those impossibly gentle gray eyes. He doesn't rush to fill the silence. He lets it exist.
Eventually, he speaks. “Can I ask you something?”
I nod. “You can ask me anything.”
His fingers turn the stem of his wine glass slowly. “You don't have to answer if you don't want to.”
“I know.”
“You mentioned your dad to me once.” My shoulders stiffen before I can stop them.
Kai notices immediately. “We don't have to talk about it.”
“No.” I shake my head. “It's okay.”
He waits.
God.
He's good at waiting.
Most people get uncomfortable with silence. Kai somehow makes silence feel comfortable. Safe.
“What do you want to know?”
He hesitates, clearly trying to choose his words carefully. “What happened?”
The question isn't curious. It isn't intrusive. There's no morbid fascination behind it. It's like he genuinely wants to understand me.
Nobody has asked me that before. Not really.
Most people ask if everything is okay. And by most people, I mean Dante.
Dante, as annoying as he is, has a kind heart.
His family became mine once my grandfather passed.
Which was something I desperately needed.
But even Dante felt the pain that I was hiding and didn't want to pressure me to tell him.
Little did I know that I wanted to be asked.
I stare down at my hands. “My dad blamed me for my mom's death.”
Kai knits his eyebrows together. “Why would he do that?”
Kai knows my mother had died when I was young. I told him that one night when we were tangled in my sheets sharing secrets. But I never told him why.
“My mother died in childbirth.”
Kai's face melts. “Ash…”
“He—” The words catch unexpectedly. I clear my throat. “My father wasn't exactly…gentle after that.”
Kai's face softens. I don't elaborate. I don't need to. The understanding in his expression tells me he already knows what I mean.
“He had a bad day…” I shrug weakly. “I had a bad day. It didn't really matter. Eventually, I stopped trying to tell the difference.”
The apartment is silent except for the rain outside.
“I learned pretty young that home wasn't somewhere you relaxed. It was somewhere you paid attention.”
“I needed to know what mood he was in so I could survive.” I stop there.
I could tell him more.
About the shouting.
About the broken furniture.
About learning exactly how much noise a floorboard made outside my bedroom.
About becoming six-foot-five and realizing one day that I wasn't scared anymore.
But I don't. I don't have to. Kai already understands.
I can see it. Not because he's lived my life. Because he's looking at me with that heartbreaking mixture of sadness and recognition.
“My grandfather got me out. My mom's dad.” I smile despite myself. “He never asked me to explain anything.”
“He just…” I laugh quietly. “…showed up.”
The memory still feels warm after all these years.
“He picked me up. Told me to grab my things. And when I got in his truck, he looked at me and said, Let's go home.”
I hadn't realized until years later why that sentence mattered so much.
Not…
“Let's go to my house.”
Not…
“You can stay with me.”
Home. Like I belonged there already. Like it wasn't something I had to earn.
I blink hard.
Apparently talking about him still does that to me. Kai quietly sets his wine glass on the table. Then he reaches across and takes my hand. Neither of us says anything for several seconds.
Finally, he squeezes my fingers. “I'm really glad he came for you.”
The sentence is so simple. So genuine. That it almost undoes me.
“So am I.”
Kai studies me for another moment. “Can I tell you something?”
“Always.”
“I think…” He smiles softly. “He'd be really proud of who you became.”
I laugh under my breath. “You've never met me angry.”
“I've met you protective.”
“That's different.”
“I don't think it is,” I argue as I shake my head.
His thumb brushes lightly over my knuckles. “You protect people. You take care of people. You make them feel safe.” His smile grows a little. “I think he taught you better than you realize.”
I can't remember the last time somebody said something that made me feel so completely seen.
Kai quietly stands and walks around the table. Before I can ask what he's doing, he gently takes my wine glass from my hand and sets it aside.
Then he climbs into my lap. Like it is the most natural thing in the world. One arm slips around my shoulders. The other settles lightly against the side of my neck. I instinctively wrap both arms around his waist.
He studies my face for a long second. “Thank you for telling me.”
I nod once, rubbing my face into his neck.
He smiles sadly.
“You know…” His thumb brushes softly along my jaw. “…you're pretty easy to keep around too.”
A laugh escapes me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He leans down and kisses me.
Slowly.
Sweetly.
Not hungry.
Not desperate.
Just…Affection.
The kind of kiss that asks for nothing except closeness.
Neither of us is trying to prove anything. There's no teasing. No commands. No carefully negotiated dynamic. It's just the two of us siting at the table after too much wine and too many honest conversations.
Kai smiles against my mouth.
I slide one arm around his waist, while the other hooks under his knee and lift him without much effort.
I kick the chair back as I walk us towards the bedroom.