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“So, um…” Kai says tentatively. “I think we’ve forgotten to keep smiling.”
I nod and feel a blush creep onto my cheeks. “What do you think William and Elaine would be talking about?”
“William?” Kai pretends to ponder. “Probably sex.”
I push his shoulder. “Kai…seriously.”
“What, you don’t agree? You’ve read the script, haven’t you?” he teases.
I laugh, remembering some of his lines. William’s appetite for Elaine never wanes. “Fair enough. You’re probably right. And she would be scolding him…” I pause. “…yet succumbing to his every whim.”
Kai laughs out loud. “She does, doesn’t she? What an accommodating woman she is.”
I smirk and mindlessly trace the front of his shirt. But it is only a moment before I frown again. “You know what else they’d probably be talking about?”
“What?”
“Soon he has to head back to rejoin the military. They’re living in denial. They both knew their carefree days are numbered.”
He gazes intently into my eyes. “That’s true. Knowing he has to leave is eating him alive.”
I let out a shallow sigh, relaxing my fingers and pressing them to the hair on his chest. It’s even softer than it looks. “I think, most of the time, she’s holding onto him for dear life.”
Kai watches me for a moment and then closes his eyes. “Do you think she’s actually afraid she’ll never see him again?”
I close my eyes too and breathe slowly, curling my fingers into the edges of his shirt. “Yes.”
Kai rests his forehead against mine, and we stay like that for a few moments, stuck in the depths of our own thoughts. No one can hear our real conversation out here. It might look like we’re poised like this for the cameras, but little do they know, it’s perfectly genuine.
“I think she’s very afraid of that,” I confirm.
“I don’t think he’ll ever let that happen,” he whispers.
“Good…” I sigh my return gently. I can’t hide the relief in my voice.
I can’t hide anything anymore.
TWENTY-TWO
Kai
In the garden, I lift my forehead from Sophie’s and open my eyes to see her sweet ones gazing back as she clings to me.
The promise I made to her is officially the stupidest decision I’ve ever made.
Stupid. Stupid.
Not because it was the wrong promise to make. No, it was absolutely the right one, because if I didn’t, I would have ruined our friendship before it even began. It’s stupid because I’ve locked myself into a corner, into a generalized promise that prevents me from revealing my feelings for her.
That’s right. Feelings.
Deep, serious, real ones.
There, I admit it.
The truth has been creeping up on me for weeks, yet I’ve continued to lock it away in a tiny box where I could blissfully pretend it didn’t exist. But over those few weeks, it has grown, bigger and bigger until it no longer fits in the box. I can’t hide those feelings from myself anymore. And now they are becoming hard to hide from Sophie too.
She doesn’t speak. She just watches me, silent and still. She’s soft and small and breathtakingly gorgeous. Somewhere, deep in her tender eyes, I see the truth of her confession. She said it with her own lips, disguised by Elaine’s feelings. She’s afraid she’ll never see me again when this is over. She’s afraid of losing me.
