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Then I snap to the present and Mom looks at me.
“You want to ask me something, Kelly,” she says.
“Mind reader,” I tease.
Mom glows, shooting me a sassy eyebrow. “You couldn’t be any more obvious if you tried,” she says.
“It’s just what you said about Kane Knight,” I mutter.
“Well, what about it?”
“Why did you say it?” I ask.
Mom shoulders the interwoven strap of her handbag more than necessary, it seems to me, doing it over and over as though procrastinating. Finally, she heaves a sigh.
“I don’t know how much your father has told you about what happened between him and Kane, but there’s more to that story. And sometimes I just wish your father would let go of his pride. I love him more than life itself. But Jason is a stubborn man. But please, don’t ask me anymore. I’ve said too much already.”
She says it in that way I know from childhood, that matter of fact way which always means the end of the discussion, no matter if I have a thousand more questions to ask.
We walk out to the rear parking lot together, toward Mom’s car. I climb in the passenger seat and idly twirl the heart shaped air freshener that dangles from the rearview, and close my eyes and let my head fall back on the rest, the motion of the car sending my mind back.
But not to that alleyway behind the electronics store and the man pushing himself against me, the reek of him, the disgust of him.
Now I feel Kane pushing into me from behind, moving in and out so that the grinding pleasure claims me.
“Mom,” I whisper, opening my eyes before my mind gets too heated.
“Hmm?”
The car glides through Main Street towards the diner, dusky yellow in the fading sun.
“If I found somebody and they made me happy, would you ever want to ruin that? Would you ever try and make me break up with them?”
“Any specific reason for this question, young lady?”
“A friend is going through that same thing right now,” I say quickly, feeling my words catch, surprised my sentence didn’t jumble.
“Hmm,” Mom says, looking closely at me. “I’d say to tell your friend that her mother’s opinion matters when it comes to keeping her daughter safe. But if this man cares about her, and she cares about him, and he’s a good man to her and doesn’t hurt people or do anything illegal, I’d say she shouldn’t give it a second thought.”
Hurt people.
Do anything illegal.
Doesn’t Kane do both?
My belly goes tight, knots of anxiety clamping on.
“Kelly, are you sure this is about a friend?”
“Yes,” I say quickly. “I haven’t got time for a boyfriend, Mom. Too much studying. Plus, hopefully I’ll be going to college soon.”
The anxiety getting tighter, my mind screaming in alarm.
How is this going to work?
I need him.
But can I have him?
The next morning, I sit at the library window, overlooking the small garden that the town maintains, flowers flourishing all the colors of the rainbow, blue winged butterflies darting between flies and fat bees.
I try to force my mind to focus on the textbook in front of me, but it keeps flipping over to Kane instead, to the dream I had last night of him climbing into bed beside me and wrapping his arms around me.
In the dream he whispered, “I’ll take care of you, always. I love you, Kelly. I love you.”
I woke up whispering those words, his words, and clutching onto a pillow I’d tricked myself in my sleep was Kane.
After rolling over in embarrassment, I closed my eyes and immediately saw him, standing there shirtless, his muscles honed, sweat coating him.
His tongue in my hole, pushing, probing, hotter each second as he pumped it in and out.
And my hole getting tight, fluttering, gushing.
The feeling returned to me as I lay in bed last night, wishing that Kane was there.
Now, I trace my pencil over the iambic pentameter and glance out the window, for a second thinking I see Kane leaning up against the wall of the garden with his arms folded in his leather jacket, smirking at me.
I blink, rub my eyes, and he’s still there, watching.
An irresistible smile spreads across my face as all six foot seven of him swaggers over to the window and stares inside.
We stare at each other across the space of the window, but it’s not enough protection, not in Aslado where this man and my dad’s club are rivals, not this man, my dad’s worst enemy.
Anybody could see. Janine with her gossiper’s tongue could spy us. And then Dad would know.
And yet I can’t walk away, not from this man, not from the look in his eyes.
“Come for a ride with me, Kelly,” he says.
“Kane, you’re going to distract me from my studies.”
“I know,” he rumbles. “And I wish I could feel guilty about it. I really do. But the thing is, Kelly, I’ll die if you won’t come with me right now.”
