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He sighed. He shifted, wrapping his arms around my waist. He sat cross legged on the bed and I let him pull me into his lap. He pressed his cheek to the top of my head, keeping his arms around me. “Is that it?”
“I think so. I mean the ankle you know about but it isn’t so bad right now,” I said. My fingertips pressed to his chest and I rested my head against his shoulder. I couldn’t believe how easily I’d let him pick me up into his lap. When he’d done it at Nathan’s house and in front of everyone, I was too in need of wanting to feel him, or anyone, that I didn’t give it a second thought. Here and now, when he probably didn’t need to and did it anyway, I didn’t know what to think. He called me his friend. Do friends do this?
“Why didn’t you tell me about your tailbone yesterday?”
“We were kind of busy,” I whispered.
His cheek rubbed against my hair. “Sang, you need to speak up for yourself more.”
“I’m not used to talking.”
His hand lifted, brushing at the hair against my face. He curled a lock behind my ear. “I like it when you talk to me,” he whispered.
“I like when you talk to me, too.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. “Then we have to talk together a lot more.”
The way he said it made my heart ripple. I did enjoy talking with him, and lately I rarely got to spend time alone with him like this. Did he mean to say he wanted more like this or something else? “What happens today?” I asked, not sure how to approach what I’d been really thinking about.
“Well,” he said, dropping his hand against my leg, his wrist hanging loosely over my knee. His other hand rubbed at my back. “You and I are going to have a nice, quiet Sunday. We’ll keep an eye on your mother. Nathan should be back soon and he wanted to hang out.”
“I didn’t know he drove,” I said.
Kota grinned. “Sweetie, we all drive.”
“He has a car?”
“He took mine.”
“You let him borrow yours?”
“He can use it when he needs it,” Kota said. “I think we all have copies of each other’s keys.”
“To your cars?”
“To everything.”
I twisted my lips. Something in his eyes told me a secret I wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me. “Do you have a copy of the key to my house?”
He tilted forward, pulling out his set of keys from his pocket. There was a house key with a pink cover near the top in the collection.
“Kota,” I said. I thought I should be shocked or angry about it, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t hurt that he’d done it, just that he didn’t tell me. If he had asked me for one, I would have given it to him. North must have made copies when he offered to do so when Marie wanted one. Was Kota not going to tell me they had those?
“It was convenient of you to bring us one,” he said, stuffing the keys back into his pocket.
“So everyone has one?”
He seemed hesitant to respond but he nodded. “If they didn’t before, they do now.”
I made a face. “Do I get keys?” It only seemed fair.
He laughed softly. “I suppose you should get mine. Maybe Nathan’s. I don’t know how you’d get to anyone else’s house to use a key.”
Wasn’t that a big deal to have copies of someone’s key? Did friends keep copies of house keys and car keys? “Maybe I’ll learn how to drive.”
“You still need a car.”
“Maybe I’ll borrow your car,” I said, giggling.
He grinned and his hand brushed over my side, tickling. “If you ask nicely.”
I gasped, laughing and playfully patted at his hand. “Could I please borrow your car, Kota?”
“Nope.”
“Aw.”
“I have to teach you how to drive, first.”
I perked up. “You’ll teach me?”
“Who else was going to?”
I didn’t have the answer to that. Outside of the guys, who else would ever teach me how to drive? Marie was old enough now but we knew better than to ask our parents. It wasn’t an option to us.
“Anyway,” he said. “You’ve done your homework, right?”
I nodded.
“It might be a good idea to start working ahead when you can.” He reached for his book bag and dragged it closer. “If it gets busier in the next couple of weeks, we won’t have to study so hard to keep up.”
“Are we going to be busy?”
He was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing over the zipper of his book bag. “Sang...”
The silence hung in the air, thick with cobweb secrets. “Does the Academy keep you busy?”
His fingers curled into a fist. “There’s a lot that needs to be done.”
“Do you have the time to sit here with me?” I asked.
His eyes darkened and his expression turned serious. “Of course,” he insisted.
“But I make things complicated.”
He shook his head, but a little too quickly. “It’s nothing.”
I chuffed. “Friends are honest with each other, Kota. If there’s important work to do, the last thing that needs to happen is me getting in the way.”
“I’m not leaving you alone,” he said.
“I’m not afraid of being alone,” I said. I didn’t want to be, though. I didn’t want him to leave. I just needed to be sure I wasn’t being totally selfish. If I got them to stay when they needed to be somewhere else, would they come to resent me? “I’ve been fine.”
He frowned. “You weren’t fine yesterday.”
“I’m fine now. I didn’t realize she would do that.”
“What happens the next time you think it’s not going to be that bad and it ends up killing you?”
“What if that never happens?”
“Then we’re lucky,” he said. “But we’re not taking the risk.”
I blew out a breath. “Why?”
His head reeled back, an eyebrow going up. “What do you mean?”
“Why me?”
“God, Sang,” he pulled me back into his arms. I wanted to push him away because I was feeling confused. When his hands pressed to my back and side and he hugged me against him, the warmth in his body melted my rigid composure. He buried his face into my hair against the top of my head. “What happened to you? You’re intelligent, sweet, considerate. You’re too nice to speak up for yourself, even when you’re in trouble. If one of us isn’t right on top of you, you end up stuck inside a tree, or you’re tied up in the shower, or hanging off the arm of some goon at school. And you’re asking me if I’m inconvenienced?” He nuzzled his cheek against my head. “You’re a beautiful wreck.”
I swallowed hard, my head pressed up against his chest. Was that horrible? Was that supposed to make me feel better? “There are a lot of girls in trouble out there, Kota. There’s many who have it much worse than I do.”
His breath fell against my hair. His fingers rubbed at my back and side, massaging. I thought he wasn’t going to answer. It was true. There were girls kidnapped and tortured every day. My mother said so.
“When I first started at the Academy,” Kota whispered to me, “I thought the same thing. You might have noticed the Academy helps when it can. I wondered how they picked who they helped and why. There’s so much that needs to be done. Why didn’t we try helping everyone we came across?” His cheek brushed against my head again. “But we can’t help everyone, Sang. We can’t do it all. We have to trust that there’s other people doing their best for those they love and hope it works out. We start with friends and family. That’s our priority. If that’s in order, we move on to helping others where we can. Family first, Sang. Always.”
“But I’m not family,” I whispered.
“You’re one of us,” he said, the command in his voice returning. Kota’s fingertip traced the tip of my chin, drawing my head to tilt up to look into his eyes. His forehead hovered over mine, warming. “I know you don’t feel it yet. You’ve got a family that d
oesn’t act like one. It takes time to get used to someone caring about you when you aren’t used to it. You might not know this, but Nathan and the others know exactly what you’re going through.”
