“I’d give it all up to have a complete family,” I sigh. “Money isn’t everything. Sure, it’s great. It gets a lot of things done, in many ways it makes life easier and I’m glad my folks have it, but I wish they still cared about each other. I wish my mom could care about me without it breaking her heart. I wish I could undo a lot of the things that happened in this house. I wish I could be myself without the world ending.”
I can feel myself becoming emotional. This isn’t where I saw this conversation going tonight. I haven’t touched on a lot of these hot button triggers for a while. Some of them, I haven’t allowed myself to think about for years.
“I wish I could I have a million wishes Kace, a billion wishes, but you know what?” A tear slips onto my cheek, and he’s staring at me intently, completely locked into this moment with me. “If you gave me a billion dollars, not one of those million wishes would ever come true.” I can feel my nails sinking into my palm as I ball my hand into a fist. “I wish I could use all our money to fix all the things it can actually fix because God knows, it will never fix our problems and it will never fix us.” And it will never bring Dani back.
“There doesn’t seem to be a lot about you that needs fixing,” he says and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him be this calm, or this honest.
I can feel myself going off into a strange place in my mind and I have to fight to stop it.
“The Bradshaws are broken people, Kace, through and through. We’re just very optimistic.” I manage a smile, fighting how misplaced it feels on my lips.
I can see that Kace is thinking about what I said, and I silently wait for him to decide how he feels about it.
As we settle inside the car, the air seems to get stiffer. I’m completely comfortable with him, but I’m also anxious just being this close to him. I can feel the horse races being run in my chest as I wait for him to speak.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him this quiet for this long. The silence seems to drag on forever until he finally picks up the keys and shuffles over to the driver’s seat.
I smile to myself as I secure my seatbelt and insist that he does the same. He silently complies and within a few seconds, we’re zipping through the streets of Filter Square, the most unlikely pair of friends. Two people so different with a tragedy so similar.
As I steal another glance at Kace, I feel my heart crack just a little bit more.
I know what it’s like to lose a sibling.
And I know what it’s like to have everyone blame you.
25
Kace
Janey seems to be on another planet even though she’s here in the car. I can sense that her earlier confessions opened up a can of worms she hadn’t planned on popping the lid off of. To be fair, I hadn’t expected that kind of honesty from her. At this point, I’m not sure why anything about Janey still surprises me, but somehow she still does and I think I like the unpredictability of her straightforwardness. There’s no bullshit with her. She says what she means which eliminates the guesswork. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that. Or how refreshing it could be on the worst possible night of my life.
She’s staring out the window now, chewing her bottom lip. Dressed in a satin robe and bedroom slippers, it’s hard for me to see her as an obnoxious brat. She looks...human. Simple. Beautiful.
“Hey.” I turn to face her. I can tell that she’s still distracted which is exactly what I don’t need right now. Silence will allow the thoughts to come rushing in and I’m not adequately equipped to deal with Josh’s death. Not now. “Dark and brooding is kinda my thing,” I say. “You’re trampling on my territory. Any chance of you going back to being preppy and mildly annoying?” I ask and she chuckles, but the humor doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m so sorry about your brother, Kace,” she says, bringing to light what she’s been mulling over this entire time.
Her words open up a hole the size of Australia in me. But I don’t feel empty. Instead, it feels like someone’s stuffed all the grief in the world inside that hole. Of course, it doesn’t fit and if I don’t do something about it, if I don’t push it away, its only option is to consume me.
“Don’t do that, Janey.”
“Kace,” she says, tears pooling in her eyes. Crazy, isn’t it? The amount of emotions that this one girl has in her.
“Not now, Janey.”
“It’s okay to feel, Kace,” she counters. “It’s okay to be hurt or sad or angry or whatever it is you are right now.”
“I’m not anything right now,” I tell her and reach forward to turn up the music.
Loud and clear, something familiar booms through the air. “You listen to Oceans Ate Alaska?” You must be shitting me.
“Kace,” she says again, and I shake my head at her, finger on the knob, threatening to blast the music as loud as it gets.
“How you can find it in you to give a shit about somebody like me is beyond me,” I interject before she has the chance to say anything else. “Why you gave a damn about Bubba when you didn’t even know him, baffles me. I’m happy that you care, Janey. It’s the reason I’m not alone tonight. But right now, I want you to just pretend that none of this is happening. Can you do that?”
When she nods, there’s so much resistance in it that I almost feel bad for asking her to drop it. A bigger part of me, however, doesn’t feel so bad at all. Tonight, of all nights, the one thing I need is to forget because heaven knows, the moment the tears and the grief take over, I don’t think I’ll be strong enough to stop them.
“Now,” I say, steeling my voice against all the quakes that are trying to put cracks in my façade, “tell me where we’re headed.”
Janey shrugs and chews on her bottom lip for a second before huffing a sigh. “Somewhere that allows us to park without me getting a ticket.”
“I think I know just the spot,” I offer and flick the blinker on before turning left. Just like that, Janey Bradshaw is trusting me to drive her around at eleven o’clock at night.
We settle into the darkness, coming to rest in a spot where the silence is so loud it’s almost deafening. Outside, the sky looks promising – like hope and fortune and a bundle of lies I’d like nothing more than to believe. I adjust the driver’s seat and feel the worries of my world lower with me as I press my head back against the leather headrest.
“Do you like animals, Kace?” The question comes out of nowhere, but it doesn’t quite take me by surprise. I can understand her need to break the silence, no matter how trivial the conversation.
I cock my head to the side, regarding her with a small smile. Here, in this car, with only the night sky watching us, this almost feels normal. This almost feels like she’s nothing more than a girl and I’m nothing more than a boy.
“I’m an animal whisperer,” I say in response and my heart skips a little at the way her face lights up. Janey Bradshaw isn’t your typical pretty girl. Her beauty is more of the kind that strikes at the oddest of moments, like right now in the midst of all this sadness. So heavy is the impact of it that I have to look away for a second.
“So,” she says, leaning over the gear stick to stare up at me. “If I have a stubborn dog, you can have a quick word and I’ll know what’s up?”
I reach across and brush a lock of hair away from her face.
“Animals seem to really like me,” I say, opening the car and stepping outside. The air is fresh here, the chill of it cooler than I expected. Even colder, is the metal of the car against my back.
Janey joins me, only leaving a few inches of space between us as she comes to a stop.
“Animals are the best judges of character,” she smiles, and I smile back at her. Those are the last words that are spoken for quite some time. They’re pointless, of course, and don’t have much to do with the situation at hand, but still, they linger.
Moments turn into even longer moments before Janey’s voice cuts through the silence. “What is it?” she asks, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve
been staring at her this entire time.
“I just don’t get you.”
Her gaze deepens. “What’s not to get?” she asks, and I know that she really has no idea what I’m talking about.
“I’m a train-wreck waiting to happen and a train wreck that’s already happened,” I say, feeling the weight of every single word. Still, something propels my tongue and I find myself saying more than I should ever say to Janey Bradshaw. “My mother is paralyzed from the waist down. She was shot protecting my baby sister when cops were chasing my dad and my eldest brother.”
“I’m so sorry, Kace.” Her voice sounds like a scratched up CD and in her eyes, I can already see fresh tears forming.
“People like you don’t mix with people like me. I’m oil and you’re water. My future has been written in disaster and yours is still light and blindingly bright.”
Her lips quiver. Everything in me wants to reach out and console her; tell her that this isn’t her burden to carry. But there’s another part of me that selfishly wants her to carry it because for once in my fucking life, somebody cares. It shouldn’t be her. But at least it’s someone.
“That’s what changed, isn’t it?” she asks, and I feel like there’s a searing hot crowbar in my chest.
I feel naked as I nod and even more naked as Janey covers my hand with hers. With her head tilted up, she’s just below my chin and yet somehow still a force to be reckoned with. Without warning, her arms are around me and her head is against my chest.
“What are you doing, Janey?”
“I’m hugging you, Kace,” she whispers back. Her breath is hot against my heart, comforting and scorching in both good and bad ways. When she doesn’t move, I work up the courage to give into the human in me who just wants to be comforted.
I wrap my arms around Janey and take a deep, cleansing breath. I inhale her essence. I inhale the scent of hope. Of a future. Of second chances.
A single tear escapes my eye and for the first time in forever, it feels okay to let it fall.
26
Janey
I’ve gone mad.
If anyone had an eye on the situation at hand, that’s exactly the conclusion they would come to. As I look at Kace, however, I can’t help but think that maybe insanity isn’t such a bad thing. For the third night in a row, I’ve managed to sneak him into my room and for the third night in a row, I’ve never felt more content breaking the rules. I know that this isn’t his home, but he looks right at home here. My doggies seem to feel the same way too. It’s crazy, for the longest time, I was convinced that – barring my mom – they only had a soft spot for Bradshaws. Kace, though, they like him. So much so that it should make me a little jealous that it’s his warmth that they’ve started snuggling into as opposed to mine. But then, I think about the comfort these dogs have brought me throughout the years and I know that they’re at least a part of the reason Kace is a little less tense than he usually is.
He tussles a little in his sleep and I pull my eyes away from him, not wanting him to catch me staring. Unsurprisingly, I’m too late. His hawk-eyed gaze fixes on me, so sharp is the intensity of it, that it’s hard to imagine that just a millisecond ago he was sound asleep.
“You’re being creepy, Janey,” he says. There’s a smile on his face, but somehow it’s still hard to miss the sadness that consumes him.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” I say.
“Because you wanted to be creepy,” he teases, and I reach for the glittery cushion beside me and toss it in his direction. He catches it with ease and pulls it to his chest. When his eyes settle on me again, I know that I need to jump into action quick. As much as Kace is not shy about saying that this beats sleeping on a park bench, he never misses an opportunity to insist that he shouldn’t be here and that he’ll be alright fending for himself. That he’s done it all his life.
“So…ready to tackle Shakespeare?” I ask and he chokes out a laugh.
“You’re not gonna stop, are you?”
I shake my head at him. I’ll make sure he gets a full ride to college if it’s the last thing I do. He might not believe in himself…but I sure as hell believe in him.
“Until you get it out of your head that Oscar Wilde was a madman and Shakespeare had a speech impediment, nope...I won’t stop.”
“Aren’t there any current authors worthy of the school curriculum?” He hisses and I laugh, spinning around to pull my textbook from the shelf behind me.
When I turn back around, Kace is seated on the ottoman.
“Okay.” I flop down beside him and I’m instantly aware of my leg rubbing against his.
I move my leg away and he glances down at me to see me blushing bright red.
I clear my throat and my mind from all inappropriate thoughts and proceed to go into details about Shakespeare’s early life and a mass of pieces more notable than Romeo and Juliet.
After fifteen minutes I am amazed at how much of an idiot he is not. Not that I shouldn’t already have known, but to think that he intentionally caused his grades to plummet…it’s mind-boggling to say the least.
“What is it?” he asks, and I look away.
“Nothing. You’re just…well informed.” I smile and he snorts.
“You’re trying really hard not to call me smart, aren’t you?” He’s got a brow cocked at me and his incredibly chiseled jaw tilted in my direction. My stomach does about a thousand somersaults in less than a minute and it feels like an entire tank of oxygen is trapped in my chest.
“Why do you keep looking at me like that, Janey Bradshaw?” His voice is lower than a whisper, and his body, as though of its own accord, leans into mine. Before I know it, we’re so close that his breaths are the ones I take and mine are the ones that settle in his lungs. One more inch and the space between us is closed as Kace’s lips find their way to mine. So soft. So gentle. As though he’s asking for permission and pleading with me all at the same time. With no hesitance, I kiss him back, wanting more than I should ever want, taking more than I know he’s willing to give.
Before I’m anywhere close to being ready to come up for air, Kace breaks the trance he’s put me in.
“Janey,” he whispers, pulling back ever so slightly. I shake my head, and keep my eyes closed. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
He’s not wrong. But it’s also hard for me to believe he’s right. Not with how good it felt, how perfect it felt to have his lips on mine.
“I actually have a surprise for you,” I say, abandoning the whole studying thing altogether. We need a change of pace, or at least something that will put a little distance between us.
His face darkens and I hold up both hands, palms facing him.
“No.”
“Kace,” I whine, and he crosses his arms over his chest, walls going up at rapid fire speed.
“I’m not giving you anything, I promise,” I try, but he’s still guarded. “You’ll love it. I promise.”
“I hate surprises,” he says flatly, and I shake my head at him.
“I can see that. You’re like the great wall of China over there,” He only fractionally softens. “Tough crowd,” I add, smiling weakly but satisfied with the fact that he smiles back.
In less than a second, I’m guiding him through the house and toward the elevator. The look on his face is similar to the look a deer would have when staring right into the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.
“You seem to forget that I’m not exactly supposed to be here.”
“There are benefits to having parents who can’t stand each other,” I say. “They’re usually in a competition to see who can race out of the house the fastest and who can stay out the longest.”
He seems at least a little reassured by my answer and shrugs. We take the elevator down to the garage, slip into the car and commence on a journey that, by the look on Kace’s face, he’s intent on hating. Jokes on him, though. Where I’m taking him is guaranteed to cheer him all the way up, at least for a little.
/> I flick my gaze to him every once in a while. It’s interesting to see how he can assume the same position for such long periods. He’s so tense that I could bounce quarters off the ridges and sharp angles of his body.
When we pull into the driveway of the clinic, Kace finally reacts with something other than tension.
“You’re not serious.”
“Maybe I am,” I say, raising a brow at him as I kill the engine. “You like my dogs. My dogs like you…maybe a little too much.” I’m halfway up the driveway before he finally decides to be a good sport and tag along. Thank God. I was afraid I’d have to ask CJ to drag him inside.
The door chime tingles as we enter and Suzanna looks up at me with a smile. “She lives!” she exclaims dramatically, jumping up from her desk to greet me.
“Always the drama queen. I’ve only been off for a few days, Suzanna.”
She squeezes me against her extra-large breasts, and I feel like I’m being fused with her.
“Not so tight,” I squeak, and thankfully she lets me go.
“So sorry,” she chuckles, before shifting her gaze to Kace. The look on her face is wholly predatory as she inches closer to him. “And who is this handsome devil?”
He smirks back at her and I laugh as she goes in for the kill, pulling him into her arms and squeezing him as tightly as she squeezed me. He frantically looks over at me for help and I take out my phone and grab a quick photo, cackling as I do.
“I’m Suzanna, but you, sweet pea, can call me Suzy.” Would you look at that, ladies and gentlemen, Kace is actually flushing beet red.
Infinite Fury (High School Bully Romance) Page 19
