Chapter 9 Kari
NINE
KARI
I looked at her face and it told me everything I needed to know. Her lips were pushed down, her eyes sorrowful.
I tried to simultaneously sit up and push her hands away, my throat tightening as the panic set in. I didn’t want her touching me, didn’t want to hear her voice tell me what I already knew. I wanted her to leave! To get out of the room! To leave me alone!
Alone...
Hot, golf ball-sized tears welled up in my eyes, spilling over my lids in a spectacular fashion.
She scooted back in her little round, wheeled chair and away from the examination table as I scrambled to sit upright. The sound of the chair rolling across the floor amplified the emptiness of the room.
The emptiness of me.
“No! No!” I shouted, trying to force myself to breathe but failing. My throat was too tight, my chest too constricted.
“I’m sorry, Kari...”
My eyes flew open. I scanned the room, my heart pounding in my chest. I gulped a breath of air and batted back the tears and fears, not necessarily in that order.
The sound of the ceiling fan. Max’s boots by the door. My purse on the chair in the corner, right next to Max’s belt. Titus’ pillow empty against the wall.
I inhaled deeply, letting the air hold in my chest before blowing it back out. I lay back, putting my hands on my stomach, and tried to relax.
Everything is fine. It was a dream. I’m at Max’s and he’ll be walking in through the doorway in a minute and my world will be right. Breathe, Kari. Breathe.
I remembered Max on stage the night before, singing about trucks and telling me to pack my stuff.
I held onto those thoughts and summoned the happiness I had felt as he walked off the stage.
As he whisked me out of the bar. As he brought me to his house and made me forget everything but him for hours on end.
But is he going to hold me to that little deal we struck? Do I want him to? I needed to stake a claim in front of Samantha, but could it work if I moved here? What would be the point?
I looked around the room.
Could this be home?
It already felt like home in so many ways and it had absolutely nothing to do with possessions or belongings or locations.
The door to the bedroom burst open. Max walked through, giving me a brilliant smile while Titus licked his cheek.
That’s home.
I rolled over onto my side to face him and he sat the puppy down.
“Mornin’, sweetheart.”
“Good morning. Where have you been?”
“I took him outside and then he got to chasin’ the neighbor’s dog around.” Max shrugged. “She’s a cute little poodle, I’ll give him that.”
I laughed. “Did he learn that from you? Chasing the neighborhood ladies?”
He sat beside me. “Nah, he learned that shit from Cane.” He bent down and kissed my forehead. “What do you want to do today?” He gave me a curious look and I knew what he was getting at—he wanted to see what I’d say. But I didn’t know. Hell, I wasn’t even sure how I got in this quandary.
Damn Samantha.
“I need some exercise. Maybe we can go hiking today?” I suggested, figuring that getting him to agree on an activity would put off the conversation to another day.
He smirked. “Exercise sounds right up my alley.”
“You mean the dancing on stage last night wasn’t enough for you?”
“It was a means to an end,” he winked. “Speaking of last night, did ya have fun? I know Brielle kinda gave you the cold shoulder. I don’t know what her deal is.”
“I don’t know why she doesn’t like me, but it’s probably just because I’m with her big brother.”
Max watched me hesitantly. “What did you think of Sam?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say much to me because she was too busy watching you.”
He blew out a breath. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay.”
I watched him figure out how to say whatever was on his mind. I got the distinct impression that I wasn’t going to be a huge fan of whatever it was.
“Lucy asked for some time off and Cane let her have it. Neither of us are fans of temps,” he said warily.
“Yeah, so?”
“Sam asked me for a job last night.”
I gave him a look. Whatever I thought he was going to say—this. Was. Not. It.
“I didn’t say yes or no, just that I would think about it.”
“She wants you,” I said matter-of-factly, cutting to the chase.
“And I,” he said, kissing me on the lips, “want you.” I tried to pull him to me for more, but he chuckled and backed away.
“If you say that this will bother you, I’ll tell her no.
You come first, Kari. But,” he took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair before looking at me again, “I would like to do this for her.”
“Why?”
He looked to the ceiling and then back to me again. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I just do.”
I remembered what Cane had alluded to the night before and a sick feeling rolled through my stomach.
Maybe it’s time to get to the bottom of this...
I quirked an eyebrow. “You just do?”
He blew out a breath. “Yeah. Will you accept that?”
“You know, Cane said something last night and it made me curious. He said you feel obligated to her ‘considering the circumstances.’ What does that mean?”
He ran his hands up and down his thighs. “It’s a long story.”
I wasn’t used to seeing Max look nervous and it wasn’t like him to not just be forthright with me. It only increased my curiosity and left me feeling unsettled. “I have time,” I said softly.
He bowed his head, his shoulders slumped. He stayed that way for a minute before clearing his throat and turning towards me, his gaze staying on a picture on the wall.
“If I tell you this, you have to promise me something, alright?”
I nodded, feeling more unsure about the whole thing as each second passed.
He turned to face me, his eyes filled with something I couldn’t pin point. Sorrow? Fear? Anger? It all seemed to be there, floating and mixing together and it caused those same feelings to rise inside me.
“You know that look you give me,” he said, his voice soft, “when it’s just the two of us? I’ve never had someone look at me the way you do. It’s like... It’s like you think I could do anything. Like I could hang the damn moon.”
“You could,” I whispered.
He shook his head sadly. “Please don’t change that. I never want that look in your eyes to go away. It’d kill me, alright?”
I nodded. Our eyes fixed together, I rose and kissed him gently on the cheek. “I don’t know how I’d ever see you for anything but what you are. And that’s a kind, good man.”
“Damn it,” he muttered, taking off his cap and tossing it onto the chair by the door. Titus popped his head up and looked at us, startled by the sudden movement.
“Alright. I might as well go ahead and do this.” He let a breath whistle through his teeth.
He nodded, like he came to some sort of agreement with himself.
“Sam’s been around my whole life. She has a way of, I don’t know, putting people off.
She didn’t have a lot of friends besides Brielle and her immediate little click. ”
“I can see why,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I was kind of her big brother growing up in a way, too,” he continued, ignoring me.
“She just had her mom and she worked a lot and I think she drank a lot, too, so our family became hers in a way. So when she’d get in trouble or need a ride, one of us would give it to her.
The older she got, the more she stayed with us.
Bri’s room was half her stuff and half Sam’s by the time I left for college. ”
He stood up and walked in a circle. “One night, when I was at ASU, Sam called me. It wasn’t unusual for her to do that, but I was at a party with Cane.
” His eyes darkened, his back stiffening as he relived the story.
“I had gone home the weekend before. She and Bri had been out one of the nights and came home. I was the only one up. I think I was studying for a math test or something. Anyway, they had been drinking.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and faced me, resolution written across his handsome features.
“I lit them up. Not for the drinkin’ part, although they were too young to be doing it, but for the drivin’ part.
That’s just a no-go, dumb as shit. I took Bri’s keys and went to my room to get away from them.
A few hours later, Sam came into my room and. ..”
“And what?” I asked, getting the picture this was going to make me hate Sam.
“She just started babbling in the way only someone drunk can. Telling me she loved me and that she didn’t have anyone that loved her.
She had put on this little dress to look cute, I guess, but her arm wasn’t even in one of the straps.
She reeked of alcohol and it would’ve been funny if she wasn’t such a mess.
I just took her back to Bri’s room and told her to go to bed. ”
“The next morning,” he continued, “she came into my room again. She didn’t remember everything, but enough to know that she made a fool of herself.
She just apologized and said she was embarrassed.
I understood, I mean, we’ve all had those moments.
She promised not to drink and drive again and I blew it all off. ”
“Did she remember professing her love for you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t bring it up and she didn’t either. She was so out of it that she probably didn’t remember. I figured if she was going to hang around our family, it was best not to bring it back up and make things weird.”
“So the next weekend, Bri called and asked if I was coming home. I told her I wasn’t. Awhile later, Sam called and asked me to come home that night. I told her I had plans.”
“Good for you.”
I smiled to myself, a little relieved, that he had put her in her place. If he was looking for a chance at Sam, that would’ve been the time to take it. But he hadn’t. And that made me overjoyed in the midst of the growing disdain I had for her.