KIT
Friends.
Did I seriously just say that? Why did I say that? Why couldn’t I just tell her the truth?
I want to be so much more than just friends.
Those beautiful brown eyes of hers haven’t stopped staring at me, and she bats her lashes bashfully. God, I want to kiss her right now. So badly. But I can’t. I can’t, and the pain of it smothers me like a weighted blanket.
Not just because I’d be betraying Hayes, but because I would never take advantage of her vulnerability. The last thing she needs is for me to come in and make her life a thousand times harder. I have to be here for her as a friend. It can never be anything more.
Unspoken words press against my throat, wanting a one-way ride off my tongue, but they refuse to budge. Great. She’s made me inarticulate. My nerves have never been so out of control around any girl before.
Just being in her presence lures me to the edge of a steep cliff, baiting me to plunge into the roiling waves below, to let my body be flung every which way upon the soft chirp of her voice or the flick of her finger. She has a hold on me that she’ll never realize. A hold that, no matter how hard I fight against, is about as strong as tungsten and just as unrelenting.
She’s still curled in on herself, looking three times as small as usual in the seat next to me.
As much as I wanted to see Faye during my trip, this is the last circumstance I ever wanted to meet her under. It’s taking everything inside of me not to hunt that fucker down and make him eat his own intestines. Faye doesn’t need me playing vigilante though, and I’d just upset her more if she found out her date’s body was discovered rotting in a sewer pipe.
Swallowing my anger down, I start the ignition. “It’s late. You should get some rest,” I say.
Faye rams her teeth into her lower lip. “Okay.”
I don’t bother with making small talk, knowing how exhausted she must be. So we sit in silence for the ride to the hotel. It’s the longest silence I’ve ever experienced, every second torturous, every hitch of her breath sparking a foolish hope that it might turn into a sentence. I occasionally steal a glance at her, hoping that her furrowed brow and downturned lips will magically right themselves. They don’t. In fact, she keeps her body angled toward the window for the rest of the drive.
When we make it to the hotel, it dawns on me that I might’ve made the worst decision of my life, because when I flick on the light…it illuminates the single queen-sized bed in the middle of the room.
Fuck. How could that important piece of information possibly have slipped my mind?
When I bid a look at Faye, her eyes are wide, like she’s a deer caught in headlights. She looks scared, and I can imagine why after the trauma she just relived.
“I can take the couch,” I blurt out, panic swooping low in my stomach.
Even though my legs are guaranteed to hang off the edge, I’ll have no room to roll over, and my muscles will probably scream at me for a hot shower in the morning, I’d take days’ worth of neck pain to make sure Faye is comfortable.
She gives me a stunted shake of her head, her long, caramel hair swaying with the movement. “It’s okay. We can share the bed,” she says, though the tremor in her voice betrays her.
I hate seeing her like this. So…drained of her natural light. Faye’s the embodiment of everything pure in this world, like the furry, white heads of blooming dandelions swirling away in a summer breeze, or the way seafoam laps between your toes before dissolving into damp granules of sand.
I know—that’s some sappy, poetic shit. I’m not sappy; I’m not a poet. In fact, the only compliments I usually give girls focus on how big their ass or tits are. If they’re lucky, I’ll throw in some shit about getting lost in their eyes.
I’ve never had great relationships with women. Well, emotional relationships. Growing up, my parents never provided me with a model of what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like. They fought all the time, rarely ever spent time together, constantly blamed one another for the most trivial things, and never showed any affection. And all of that translated to the way I treat women—no strings attached, no consideration for their feelings, no effort invested aside from wrapping it before I tap it.
But with Faye…it’s like she’s personally redesigned my fuckboy DNA. Ever since I met her at Hayes’ initiation party, I’ve had a little bit of a thing for her. She’s drop-dead gorgeous in that girl-next-door way, funny as hell, and can bring any grown man to his knees.
But I never pursued her. One, because Hayes would probably murder me. Two, because I’d convinced myself it was nothing but a crush. I tricked myself into believing that she was just another girl and I’d eventually switch my infatuation with her for a supermodel or a B-list celebrity.
But this…crush…it’s been gnawing at me for four years. I haven’t been able to shake it. Every time I’m with a girl—whether I’m inside her or sucking her tit—my mind can’t help but stray to the freckle-smattered little sister of one of my best friends.
And now she’s here. In my hotel room.
I roll my jaw. “Faye, I want you to be as comfortable as possible.”
She doesn’t say anything. She’s shivering despite the room being warm, and that’s when I realize she’s still in her tiny scrap of a dress.
“Do you want to take a shower?” I ask, lightly touching her bicep. She doesn’t entirely flinch, but I can feel her muscles tense under my fingertips.
Her bloodshot eyes blink up at me, cheeks concaved from a pent-up breath. “I don’t have a change of clothes.”
“I can lend you some,” I coax, walking over to the dresser and fishing around for a soft, cotton shirt. I also pull out some baggy shorts for her. Both of which will probably be too big.
She hesitantly takes the folded pile from me, scuttling toward the bathroom. The door snicks shut, and after a few minutes, I hear the shower turn on.
While I wait for her to finish, I starfish on the bed, the mattress dipping under my weight. The digital clock on the nightstand blares a daunting 3:45 a.m., and I can feel exhaustion pull at my limbs as my eyelids shutter closed.
The whole night replays in my mind, and I’m a memory away from a migraine just waiting to squeeze my brain until my thoughts themselves turn into splinters of fiberglass.
The second I hear the door open, I haul myself up. Steam filters out, along with a pall of hot air, and Faye’s five-foot-five body emerges from the impending fog, the hem of my shirt ending at her knees. Her hair is in slick tangles, the dew from the shower lifting some color onto her face, and the shirt—which fits her like a dress—muffles her slender curves.
Jesus. I want to hug her, touch her. I want to hold her in my arms and never let go.
I absentmindedly rub the edge of the comforter between my fingers, but it does nothing to abate the nerves rumbling inside me. “How are you feeling?”
She ponders my question as if it’s the most confusing thing in the world, then murmurs, “I’m, uh, I’m okay.”
I scoot to the side to make room for her on the bed, and she tentatively makes her way over to me. She sits down on the mattress, barely making a dent.
Even though she’s just washed away the remnants of the night, I can still smell the faint oven-baked peaches scent that lingers on her. Whether that’s from her shampoo or body wash, I don’t know, but it’s addicting, and it makes me want to nestle my nose into the crook of her neck.
Her unconvincing words percolate through my mind. I don’t think she’ll be okay for a long time. I don’t think she has been in a while, and I wish I’d been aware enough to notice.
The gaping maw of guilt sinks its teeth into me. “I’m headed back to California tomorrow, but I don’t want to leave you alone,” I tell her, keeping my hands to myself, though they itch to finger the corkscrew of hair by her ear.
“You don’t have to stick around for me, Kit.”
“I don’t like the idea of you being by yourself while you’re working through this.”
She sighs. “I’ve been working through this by myself for a long time.”
Fuck the professionalism.
I take her hand in mine, interlocking our fingers, doing my best not to crush her bones in the process. “I hate that you’ve been carrying this all by yourself,” I confess, the words like ash on my tongue, sickening my palate.
I’m half-surprised she doesn’t pull away from me.
“Kit—”
If I wasn’t currently holding Faye’s hand or two thousand miles away from home, I’d be beating the ever-living life out of my punching bag. “I wish you would’ve told me, Faye. I wish I’d been there for you. You don’t have to do this all by yourself. You shouldn’t.”
“I’m used to it,” she insists, the gloss over her eyes barely there, but visible enough to make me want to dry her unfallen tears.
“You shouldn’t have had to get used to it,” I retort.
Sensing my poorly veiled anger, she withdraws her hand, exchanging the comfort to pluck her necklace—a nervous habit she’s seemingly perfected whenever I’m around. Her fingers twist aimlessly in the silver chain, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a line of discoloration around her throat.
The sight of her so helpless, so broken, barely hanging on by a thread…it’s a fucking sucker punch to my gut.
“Things like this happen, Kit. A lot of girls have to live with this.”
I’m not sure if that’s a poor attempt to get me to calm down, but it only riles me up more. Before I regret saying the wrong thing, I opt for a word vomit that I’m partially certain will have Faye running for the hills the first chance she gets.
“Come back with me to California. Just for the summer,” I say.
