Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
We sat in that restaurant for hours.
I’d already determined that Kain didn’t like to talk about himself.
Not unless he was pointedly asked, and even then, he was vague.
Getting details out of him was like mining for gold with your bare hands.
Nevertheless, I was able to pull together a few facts about him, and the rest, I filled in the blanks by observing his tones and energy.
Kain never knew his mother. He’d just kind of presented the fact that he didn’t even know what she looked like as if it was the most normal thing. To hear him say it, you’d think it didn’t bother him at all.
Out of all his four sisters—all of which having different mothers—he was the only sibling who didn't know his mother.
There was no way that as a living and breathing human that this had no effect on him emotionally.
My inner wannabe-psychiatrist was desperate to explore it, but I kept my urges under control.
I suppose the lack of a mother figure in his life was reconciled with the fact that he was obviously his father's favorite.
Kain didn't explicitly tell me that he was his father's favorite, but it wasn't hard to guess.
Being his father's only son, as well as the youngest…
That had to stand for something. And while all of his sisters lived with their respective mothers, Kain was the only one of his siblings that grew up in Silas Montgomery's house.
No doubt that created a more significant bond.
Growing up, he'd see his siblings during school breaks, sometimes weekends.
His sisters' mothers didn't want them around that house as much. They felt it was a dangerous place for young girls to be. It made me wonder about what kind of things Kain had seen growing up, what kind of people he must’ve come across.
Kain said very little about his father, but it was obvious he had a lot of loyalty towards him. I was unsure of whether or not I could overlook that. After all, even the worst people have kids who love them. Could I blame Kain for not hating the only parent he had?
That was about as far as I could get. Kain held water like a reluctant witness on the stand.
This naturally lead me into spending the entire day talking about myself.
I might’ve thought he was getting tired of it if he wasn’t listening as intently as he was.
Every once in a while, he’d stop me midsentence to ask for a clarification that would lead me onto a completely new tangent about myself.
He was curious. Interested, even.
And I was all too excited to have his attention.
I was talking entirely way too much. I knew this.
He probably knew this. Hell, anyone within earshot more or less knew this.
After hours of my rambling, it was Kain that suggested that we finally leave.
However, to my surprise, leaving the restaurant didn’t mean our time together was over.
The conversation continued as we walked along the storefronts of the touristy beachside shops.
We might’ve walked at least a mile away from my car before the sun began to dip lower into the sky.
Kain listened to me as I went on and on about my friends, about how excited I was for the summer, and told him little stories from my past that would give him a better idea of who I was.
Even though Kain was a mystery on a lot of fronts, I couldn't help but be an open book.
Soon, sunlight was replaced by moonlight and roadside lamps, and I felt like I’d told him almost everything there was to know about me.
“And that’s why I can’t ride roller coasters. Ever,” I finished up my last story, sticking a finger down my throat for dramatic affect. I’d just told him about the time a complete stranger projectile vomited in my hair from behind.
I couldn’t even remember how we’d even gotten to this topic, but when it was all said and done, it didn’t matter because I’d managed to make him smile. Still, I was beginning to wonder if my nonstop talking was keeping Kain from leaving. If he was bored, would he have said something by now?
Despite his tendency to seem brash, it had become quite clear to me that Kain had class. It could have been a side effect of growing up with money. It could have even been a tactic to get me to trust him. But honestly? I just got the sense that this was who he was to his core.
“You haven't said anything for over half an hour,” I commented as we kept pace with one another.
He had longer legs than me, one of his strides possibly amounting to two of mine. I knew he was slowing himself down to keep from walking ahead. Kain looked down at me as we walked, and I met his eyes, looking up a little.
“I know,” Kain said, “I was just tryna listen. You have a lot to say.”
I smiled sheepishly. “Yeah... I do talk too much,” I agreed.
With a shake of his head, he added, “That's not what I said.”
I broke eye contact, smiling a little as I looked away. It made me nervous to show how glad I was to hear him say that. Sometimes people say things they don't even realize are heartwarming.
“I don't want to talk about me anymore,” I told him, facing ahead as we crossed the street toward the ocean. “Can we talk about you?”
I expected him to say no, so I was caught off guard when he nodded.
“What do you wanna know?” he asked as we made it to the other side of the road. I looked out onto the vast bed of beach sand before us and asked the first question that came to mind.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
I walked into the sand three steps before I realized Kain had stopped walking. I turned to look at him, a new question in my eyes only to realize he was looking at me like he thought I was crazy.
“Wow,” he said to no one in particular.
My eyes widened, embarrassment washing over me as I decided I probably should have started with something normal—like what his favorite TV show was. This was it, this was the sign he was waiting for. I bet he’s putting that move on the top of his list.
“No,” he said finally, shaking his head at my audacity. I let out a sigh of relief when he began walking alongside me again. “You know,” he started, “you could fuck around and ask the wrong person that shit someday.”
“I don't really go around asking people that,” I promised, trying to make it less tense, trying to make things better.
He nodded. “Just me, huh?”
I made it worse.
Thankfully, he only chuckled at the look on my face.
“The kinds of people who are really out here catching bodies don’t like to be asked those kinds of questions.
They’re real paranoid types, too. That type to get rid of a person for even lookin’ at them funny when they’re out here tryna hide some shit.
Don't let your mouth get you in trouble, Lauren.”
The advice was stern, but it was delivered thoughtfully, like he was more concerned than he was offended.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “It’s just… you pulled a gun out on someone. You didn’t even hesitate. Like you’d done it before. So basically you were ready to commit your first murder that night?”
Kain shrugged. “Yeah.”
I tried not to think too hard about the casual delivery of his response. “But then you changed your mind.”
“No, I didn’t.”
My eyes widened. “Did you…?”
“I already told you… I haven’t.”
“But you just said…”
“It’s not that I just up and changed my mind,” he explained. “It’s just… You. You were clearly scared to death. And I thought to myself, do I really want to add to the trauma of this moment? So he walked. You weren’t ready to see that shit.”
“But you’ve seen things like that, right? People getting killed?”
I turned in time to see his features grow dark, and he looked down at me, thinking about his answer before giving it to me. Maybe he was wondering if it would be wise to tell me of all people.
“I’ve seen some things,” he replied.
The pseudo legal expert in me noted that this statement was too vague for me to ever use against him in court. Not that I was ever planning on doing something like that, but it was still worth noting that he was smart enough to answer my question without really answering it.
A silence fell between us as I let that sink in.
With a tinge of curiosity in his tone, he asked, “Are you afraid?”
“Not of you,” I replied before I could even think about it. His cheek raised with a faint half-smile, and it dawned on me that this was exactly the answer he wanted to hear. Not wanting the mood to turn dark, I changed the subject. “So what's your favorite color?”
At first his smile simply grew, but it wasn’t long before he was laughing at my unnatural transition.
“Yeah, maybe that should’ve been my first question,” I mumbled as we ran out of beach sand to walk on, now looking over the vast Atlantic Ocean.
Kain and I turned and moved along the edge of the water in a strangely comfortable silence.
The only light now was from the moonlight and the neon business lights in the distance.
If someone had told me that this was where my simple lunch date at Carol’s would have concluded, I wouldn’t have believed them for one second.
Now as I walked along the shore with Kain Montgomery under the light of the moon, as the clock approached midnight with no end to my evening in sight, I couldn’t help but sigh in contentment.
“I don't have a favorite color,” Kain said suddenly, after several minutes of silence. For a moment I'd forgotten I'd asked him that question. Sensing an opening, I geared up for another question.
“What was your first impression of me?” I asked curiously.
“I thought you seemed uncomfortable,” he replied.
“Because I was trying to get drunk?”
“No. Sometimes… you can just tell.” Reading my features, he made sure to assure, “That’s not a bad thing.”
“Why isn’t the fact that you could immediately tell I was uncomfortable a bad thing?”
“Because it wasn’t that obvious.”