“Are you locked out tonight?” I asked, but didn’t look up at him.
“No. I want to know what’s going on with you.”
Shrugging, I put the cup in the dishwasher and walked over to the couch. “Nothing.”
“So you just walked away from me and avoided me for the rest of the night . . . because you felt like it?”
“Pretty much.”
He walked over until he was standing directly in front of me, blocking my view of the TV, but I still didn’t look at him. “We talked about this.”
When he didn’t continue, I snorted. “We talk about a lot, Kash. You expect me to know what conversation you’re referring to just because you know which one you’re talking about? Can you move? You’re in the way.”
He moved. But it was to grab the remote out of my hand to turn the TV off. “You’re shielding again. Why? Did I push things too far tonight? Did something happen to you? Are you having nightmares again?”
“I’m just having a shitty night. Isn’t that enough?”
“Then tell me! Don’t throw your shield at me. I told you, no shields with us; if something is wrong, I want you to tell me. I can’t help you through whatever is going on if you shut me out.”
“I don’t need you to help me, I need you to back off! You’re not my boyfriend, you’re not supposed to be there to fix things.”
His eyes turned silver and his brow furrowed. “Where’s my Rachel, huh? The girl who just this morning dumped an entire bowl of pancake batter on my head and was kissing me . . . where is she?”
“First of all, you don’t have a Rachel. And as for this morning, we’ll say it was a moment of stupidity on my part.”
“A mo—” His eyebrows shot up and he took a step back as he shook his head. “A moment of stupidity? That’s really what you’re going to call that?”
It was a moment in my life I wanted to relive over and over again. But it was stupid. I shoved off the couch and headed for my room. “Since you like to let yourself in, see yourself out.”
Before I made it to my door, he grabbed on to my wrist and yanked me back toward him. “Stop with the goddamn shields!”
“Fine! You don’t want shields? Then they’re gone!” I tried to free my wrist, but it was no use. “I had a shitty night at work. Which you already mostly know about, seeing as you had to buy me a new shirt. Bad shifts happen, people get over it. As for the kiss . . . can I remind you that you were acting like it’d never happened as well? We shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place.”
“And why the fuck not?”
I kept talking over him. “And then you had to go and sing that song! Why did you pick that song?”
His head jerked back slightly and his eyes lost some of their fierceness. “You’re mad about me singing the song? You love that song. You play it all the time.”
I finally succeeded at freeing my wrist and crossed my arms under my chest. “And how the hell would you know that? I know I’ve never played that song in front of you!”
“Seriously? You leave your windows open! We live right across from each other. I can hear it from my apartment.”
Oh. “Well, that’s private. It’s for my parents. You don’t understand what it could possibly mean to me for you to sing that song to me.”
Confusion crossed his face and he shook his head. “For your parents?”
“Yes! And since we’re throwing the shields out, I lied to you, Kash.”
“About what?” he said through gritted teeth, and called my name when I turned and dashed into my room. “Damn it, woman, stop running from me!”
“I’m not running. I never told my parents about what happened to me like I promised you I would,” I mumbled as I grabbed underneath my mattress for my journal. Turning back to him, I held it up so he could see it and dropped it on the bed. “That is how I told my parents.”
His eyes were narrowed again as they bounced between the journal and me. “Why?”
“Why did I lie to you? Because you kept telling me I should tell them. And . . . well . . . technically, I did. I wrote it to them, so I guess I wasn’t exactly lying, because this”—I picked the journal back up—“is the only way I can talk to them.”
“What are you—”
“They’re gone, Kash. My parents died almost four years ago! I told you I couldn’t tell them. But I wasn’t ready for you to know why; no one in Texas other than Candice knows about it. And that’s how I like it.”
Kash’s face fell and he took a few steps closer to me. “Rach . . .”
“No, Kash. You didn’t want any more shields. Now there aren’t any. That song you sang tonight, my dad used to sing to my mom when they thought no one was watching. He would pull her close and dance with her in the kitchen while he did it, and it’s my favorite memory of them. So I’m sorry if I didn’t know how to react to you singing it to me, but that song means so much to me.”
“Rachel, I’m sorry.”
I threw my arms up and planted them on his chest so he wouldn’t come any closer. “Is this what you wanted? You know everything now. Are you happy . . . are you glad the shields are gone?”
He pulled me into his arms and held me close. “I had no idea, I’m so sorry. I—I’m just sorry. For hurting you, for pushing you to tell me, for upsetting you with the song . . . all of it. I swear to you that isn’t what I wanted.”
My anger was quickly fading and I blinked back tears. “I know, I just . . .”
“That song is special to you. I get it, Rach.” He tipped my head back and brushed his lips across my forehead before capturing my eyes with his. “You need to know—”
“Rach, I’m back!” Candice called. “Time to start this junk-food night!”
Kash didn’t let me go, and I didn’t move. We continued to stare at each other, and when we heard Candice messing with the food in the kitchen, he leaned close and whispered in my ear. “You need to know that you’re special to me. I meant every single word I sang to you tonight and I will never regret that kiss.” He quickly let me go, then walked out of my room and out of the apartment.
I was staring at my empty doorway when Candice rushed in, eyes and mouth wide. “Oh my God, he was here?!”
Nodding, I just kept staring at the space Kash had just left through and replaying his words in my head. You’re special to me. I meant every single word.
“Well are you okay, what did he say? Did you tell him?”
“Yeah.” My voice was hoarse and I had to clear my throat a few times. “I did.”
Before I could even attempt to stop them, heavy tears rolled down my cheeks and a sob tore from my chest. Candice caught me just as my legs gave out and awkwardly sat us both down. We clung to each other and cried for what felt like hours. Since my phone call to Candice early in the morning after their plane had gone down, I hadn’t actually told anyone about my parents. Dad had been well-known, so people found out in their own ways, but I’d never repeated those words again. And even Candice and her parents hardly ever brought my parents up. Eli refused to talk about them.
Most people attempt to heal from loss. They grieve and deal with the pain that comes with it, and somehow try to keep moving forward in their lives. I hadn’t done that. I’d felt like I’d died with them in that wreck, and instead of grieving and moving on, I’d shut down and built walls around me to keep the pain out and tried to act like it had never happened. Kash had been so right; he’d pegged me from the beginning. I shielded myself from the pain and in doing that pushed everyone except Candice and her family away. But no matter how hard I tried to push him, he pushed right back . . . and I wasn’t sure yet if I loved or hated him for that. Regardless, I loved that man.
Once our tears had run dry, Candice and I made our way to the kitchen, piled up our plates, and grabbed a pint of Ben and Jerry’s each before heading to the couches. Halfway through the movie, she fell asleep, so after getting her to her bed, I set about cleaning everything up and went to take a long shower.
As I got ready for bed, I continuously replayed Kash’s words and the sound of his gravelly voice as he sang to me. Each time, the memory of that sound and the heated look in his eyes gave me chills, and each time I think I fell for him a little more.
10
Kash
THE CORNERS OF my lips tilted up at the sound of Rachel’s laugh. I loved it, and though she laughed a lot more now than when I first met her, I didn’t get to hear it near enough.
“Dude, at least tell me you’re hitting that,” the other bartender, Bryce, pleaded as he finished up on a couple drinks.
“What are you talking about?”
“You and your fucking ridiculous constant smiling whenever she’s here with you.” His head jerked in the direction of the tables and I glanced over at Rach, my eyes narrowing as a guy at one of her tables made a grab for her. “That. That’s what I’m talking about. Y’all say you’re just friends, but she’s always looking over at you . . . and you act like the possessive boyfriend when another guy looks at her. And to be honest, it’s kind of disgusting the way y’all are with each other. So why not just admit you’re sleeping with each other?”
I tore my eyes from the asshole who was now fully turned in his chair to keep looking at Rachel as she passed by their table again and looked at Bryce. “Because we’re not.”
“I call bullshit.”
“Call whatever you want. She’s the most amazing girl I know, but for now, all she is . . . is my best friend.”
I’m in love with Rachel. There is no doubting that. And while I have a strong sense that she feels something similar, she isn’t ready for anything yet. What happened after our kiss is proof. At first, I wasn’t ready for a relationship since I was keeping too much from her, but that wouldn’t stop me now. I wanted her to be mine; I was just afraid of pushing her again. As much as I hated not being in control of this, I needed to let her make the decisions.
Things had been different since the night I sang to her; something had changed. She was still a bitch and loved throwing her attitude at me, but I didn’t want her any other way. Rachel was easily the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and that was what had originally caught my attention, but her attitude was what hooked me. In an attempt to give her the time she needed, I had gone back to being exactly like I always was with her. As if there had never been a kiss, as if I’d never sung for her and told her what she meant to me. The last couple weeks though, through the bickering and friends-only relationship, there had been a charge between us. Well, more than usual, anyway. It was constant, and it didn’t make things awkward; it was almost as if it just made us both more aware of each other physically at all times. And I’m not gonna lie. I. Fucking. Loved it. The way she gasped softly whenever I would brush against her, how her arms would be covered in goose bumps when I pulled away from kissing the top of her head, and how she always seemed to shift closer to me without even realizing it.
“Kash.”
I focused back on Bryce and realized he was shaking his head at me and had one hand stretched out toward me. “Hand in your man card. Now.”
My expression was deadpan as I grabbed a stein to fill with beer for one of the regulars who had just walked in.
“I’m so serious. Do you even hear yourself? She’s amazing and she’s your best friend? Dude. I just wanted you to admit you were fucking her, not turn into a chick.”
I threw one of the bar towels at him. “Come talk to me again when you fall in love with someone and stop screwing half of Texas.”
Bryce’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. “You’re in love with Rachel. And you aren’t dating or screwing her?”
“Bryce!”
We both looked over to the redhead who had just snapped his name. Her expression gave a whole new meaning to the phrase if looks could kill. I laughed when Bryce groaned and said under my breath as I walked past him, “My point exactly.”
“Hey there, sugar,” Bryce said smoothly. He called all his girls sugar because he couldn’t remember their names half the time anyway, and when he could he was afraid of mixing them up.
“Don’t ‘sugar’ me. Who was the bitch who just kicked me out of your apartment?”
“Depends on what she looks like. But I’d bet it was either my sister or the cleaning lady.”
Redhead cocked a hip and planted a hand firmly on it while the other slammed down on the bar. “Your place is always a dump; you ain’t got no cleaning lady. And from the things she was shoutin’ at me, she ain’t your sister. So tell me who the fuck she is and why she has a key to your apartment.”
All of our customers at the bar were good, and none of the waitresses had any orders they were waiting on, so I clapped Bryce on the shoulder and spoke softly. “Get her to leave before she causes more drama, or I will when I get back.” He nodded and I headed toward the restroom.
When I was walking back down the hall toward the restaurant, I could hear the redhead running her mouth, and from the sound of it, she wasn’t yelling at Bryce anymore. I groaned and quickened my pace. Bryce needed to stop telling his lays where he worked, and he needed to stop making all of them a key to his apartment.
“. . . assure you, you don’t mean shit to him. I do, bitch. Let’s get that clear right now. Don’t look at him! You have no reason to look at him!” Good God, her voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. “Run along, you little slut—”
“Um, no. You have five seconds to get your hands off me.”
Shit. I would know that California-bitch tone anywhere. I rounded the corner to see Rachel give a warning glare to Red, grab four steins full of beer off the bar, and give Bryce a look before turning back to the restaurant, muttering something under her breath.
Red gasped and reared back. “What’d you just call me?”
Rachel didn’t look back at her, just took another two steps toward the tables, but Red grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her so that Rachel tripped over herself and landed hard on her ass, most of the beer spilling out of the steins and covering her and the floor.
“Are you kidding me?!” Rachel set the steins on the floor and got herself upright. When she stood back up from grabbing the mostly empty mugs off the ground Red slapped her hard across the face and I practically ran the rest of the way to them.
Red’s arms were out like she was waiting for Rachel to retaliate, but Rachel was still standing there just staring at her. I grabbed both of Red’s hands and brought them behind her back, twisting them slightly and bringing the backs of her hands together so I could hold them with one of my own. I realized too late that with that move, I probably looked like exactly what I was, but most people were focused on Rachel at the moment.
“Get off me, asshole!”
“Unless you want this to end up a lot worse for you, I suggest you shut the fuck up,” I growled, and pushed her past Rachel, but stopped so I could brush my hand down the red side of Rach’s face. “You okay, sweetheart?”
“Fine.” She flashed a tentative smile at me and turned to put the glasses on top of the bar.
I took Red out of the restaurant and away from the windows before releasing her and bringing my hand up. “Key to Bryce’s apartment.”
“What? No!”
“Lady . . .” I let my face grow cold and stepped right up to her. “I’m only going to say this once. You do not step foot in that place again. You don’t contact Bryce again, and if you ever touch that girl again? I swear to you I will make sure there are charges brought against you.” Her eyes widened and her face paled. Oh, I knew that look well. “I’m betting you have warrants from the look on your face, so I know you’ll do as I say. Now, give me the damn key and leave.”
She licked her lips quickly and looked to the side as she rummaged through her bag until she found her keys. Her hands shook as she kept trying to get the key off, and as soon as it was in my hand, she took off. I wondered just what kind of warrants that piece of trash had. Bryce really needed to set higher standards.
I jogged back into the restaurant and found Bryce mopping up the floor. I glared at him as I slammed his key on the bar in front of him. “I’ll talk to you later. Where’s Rachel?”
“Rod pulled her into his office. Look, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t know she’d do that.”
“Grow the fuck up, Bryce. You’re a great guy and all, but you’re in your thirties, and you’re still doing the same shit that guys are doing in high school and college. Act your damn age. Get a girlfriend or something and settle down.” I didn’t wait for him to respond, I just walked back to the office. I smiled when I heard Rachel.
“I’m fine. I’ll just clean up, and we’ll all get over it.”
“Rachel, I would feel a lot better if you would just take the rest of the night off.”
“I agree with Rod.” Rachel turned to glare at me and I smirked at her. “You only have a few hours left. Just go home.”
Rod gestured toward me. “You’re outnumbered. Go home. I’m sorry about what happened tonight.”
She huffed and quickly left the office, but I grabbed her arm and brought her back to me when she hit the hallway. “I’m fine, Kash. You’re both being ridiculous.”
“I know you are,” I said softly, and brushed her cheek. She flinched when I touched the red mark. “But you have a handprint on your face, and you’re covered in beer, and I swear to God if anyone touches or looks at you again I won’t be able to stop myself from ripping into them.”
Her blue eyes softened and she momentarily leaned into my hand. “That was actually a really impressive slap. It shocked me.”
A grin tugged at my mouth and I brushed a kiss over her forehead. “I could tell. I’m proud of you for not reacting though. It would’ve just caused more trouble, and since you work here, it wouldn’t have gone over well. What did you call her though?”
“A two-dollar whore.”
God, she was cute. “And she got mad? I think that’s a compliment for her.”
“Right?” Rachel pushed at my stomach. “Go back to work. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Forgiving Lies fl-1 Page 14
