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I blink at him. “Wait. What?”
“You don’t need this, Baby,” he says, but his hand tightens on the curve of my neck. “I don’t know what this means moving forward. More doors being kicked in. More bullshit, anger. I’ve been on fire recently—”
“Stop. Stop.” I can’t breathe. I swat his hand away from my neck, the greedy tightness at odds with his words. “Are you seriously telling me to say this is too hard? That I don’t need this shit or something?”
“You can.” He clenches his jaw. “Is all. If you want.”
My lip wobbles. “What happened to needing me, huh? You fucking—Fuck!” Heat hits my ears. “What happened to ‘Stay, Kaya! Stay with me.’” I growl at him, my hand twitching, wanting to knock some sense into his beautifully damaged face, but that’s how we got here. Too many knocks to the fucking head. “’I want to keep you!’ What happened to that?”
“I’m sorry.” He pulls me into his arms, my body shaking slightly as air becomes a wild force, neither going in nor drawing out of me. In a panic. He’s going to pull away. Leave me with this sinking sensation inside. With a world, faded around the edges and void of its sole focus.
But he crushes me to his chest, saying, “I’m sorry. I want to say all that, Kaya. Fucking trust me, I do. But when I woke up, I could hear you beneath me in that shower, could hear you groaning and unable to get free. I couldn’t move, but I could fucking hear you for so long. I can’t hurt you.”
“If you push me away—” I lock my jaw as I punch the words out, still stiff with anger. “You’ll hurt me then.”
“Okay, Baby.” He soothes my back, his fingers tracing the tense muscles along my spine, relaxing them until I can breathe again. “Okay.”
I groan against him. “Are you finished?”
“Yes.” He kisses my hair. “I’m finished.”
It’s a contronym. “Which one?” I say through a sob caught in a growl. “Which finished?”
“Complete,”he stresses, his lips next to my ear now. “I’m not finished, Kaya. We’re not finished. We will never be finished if I can help it. We’ll be complete. I don’t need sanity, remember? You drain it from me anyway.” His hand moves up my side, possessing my throat again. Dragging my lips to his, he kisses me so deeply, I fall into him.
We kiss hard, soft, and everything in between, until the nurse advises us that he can leave when he’s ready. She walks from the room, and he stares at her retreating back.
Lost for a moment, he mumbles, “They’re done with me here. I don’t know what to do.”
Confused, I ask, “Like, with your life?”
“No. Just when I get home.”
I shrug. “Chill.”
“I don’t know how to,” he laughs, and so do I, but then I see the glossy pain to his gaze. “I’d usually go train. Eat. Fuck. Box. Sleep. I’ve usually got two things going on at once. Even when I work on Clay’s campaigns, I have the television on in the background. Music, too. I’m, like… always doing something. Then I hit the bed. Out. Ya, know?”
His eyes shift to mine as I search his boyish face, blue and green, but beautiful. “Will you stay with me tonight, Woman? I don’t know what to do when I get home.”
God, he’s so lost. So vulnerable and wild at the same time. His whole life has changed in an instant. Adapt.
“You know, they studied habits and addiction in Vietnam vets…” I remind him, grinning, and his eyes soften on my face. “Adapt, and all that.” I touch the chain around my neck, feeling the thin loops move across my collarbone. “What about your family? You live with your dad, don’t you?”
He smiles, yet it doesn’t meet his eyes. “Nah. He’ll probably be on a plane to the other side of the country right about now, Baby. Maybe, he’ll be in Sicily. That’s what he usually does when things get rough and shitty.”
His blue eyes darken. I plummet heart-first into his gaze, lost in the shades of tragedy and abuse. Sad, I nod. “Yeah. I’ll stay with you, Hothead.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
kaya
His house remindsme of our holiday home in British Columbia—well, the holiday home weusedto have. The walls are vast, tinted, single-sided windows, letting the outside world in while privacy remains. The steps that incline three levels are a rich red wood—Jarrah, probably. Another wood, like mahogany, that’s hard and stunning and imperfect.
The house is spectacular.
We drove straight here from the hospital after I texted my mum with updates. It’s past midnight now but I have a planned visit with dad in the morning, so I’m in Xander’s laundry room, going toe to toe with his washing machine, while he’s showering upstairs.
Squatting, trying to figure out this touchscreen machine, I laugh contrived. I secretly wish for the old top-loaders at the motel with the coin push to activate. Simple. Just right for people who had so much abundance they didn’t learn with changing technology.
