Documentary (51 page)

“That felt really good,” she said, sounding surprised, and she even laughed a little. “That felt really, really good. I just need to walk this off because…” Erica blew out a breath as she put her hands on her hips. “…I’ve pictured that moment for months and…” Erica blew out another breath. “Whoa. Wow.”

              Dylan squeezed her shoulder. “You did good, girl. I’m just glad you’re okay. Do you want to go back to the tent and hang out for a while?”

             
Erica hugged Dylan. “I’ll come over, but first I’m going to get some work done and just clear my head. Would you still be able to help me later?”

“Definitely.
I’ll remember to keep an eye on my phone,” Dylan assured her. When they parted, she hurried back to the tent, still shaken from what had transpired. Jeremy’s attempt at intimidation was malicious, especially because it was so subtle. He
did
think he was untouchable. All this time he had maintained a perfect cover, and when the truth came out, he would have his defenders. It had happened before with famous people and public figures. Dylan clenched her teeth and growled under her breath. They would say why would he
need
to rape anyone? He had looks, fame and money, so he didn’t have to force anyone to do anything. He didn’t even have to
try
to get sex. They never understood that sex was merely the weapon used to seek and assert power, especially for someone who seemed to deem himself entitled to have whatever he felt he deserved. He had admitted as much to Kai in the alley. In this case, Dylan guessed, Jeremy had felt powerless and inadequate compared to Kai, and his resentment had spurred some need for control over him, like he felt Kai’d had over him when he left Evernight and the group fell apart. He wanted Kai to feel what he’d felt. He’d decided to disregard Erica’s humanity and autonomy and reduce her to some tool for revenge so that he could have power. Dylan felt so helpless and angry. She knew that she did not truly understand what Erica had been through, but she just wanted to do something,
anything
, to make it right.

“I
s everything okay?” Dylan slammed right into J.Kutch as she neared Kai’s tents; he caught her by the shoulders.

“Yeah…” she said, smiling faintly. “No, not really.”

“It looked like things got heated with the Bunyan brothers. I was just telling Kai,” J.Kutch explained.

Fuck shit. “Kai was
here?
” Dylan asked, eyes widening.

“Ye
ah, he was here when I got here…he’s been wandering around the festival since we arrived, but mainly hanging out near his tents. He looked pissed when I told him and he stormed off.”

“To Jeremy’s tents?”
Dylan asked as she pushed away from him to drop her camera off in the tent.

“
I guess! Yeah!” J.Kutch called after her. “I thought y’all were still over there.” Dylan dashed in the direction of those tents. Kai was probably going to beat the shit out of him again, and this time, there would be far more consequences. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell him how she felt. She had to find him. In the movies, the person who had made the mistake always got there in time even as the dramatic, “will-they-make-it?” instrumental played. He or she always stopped the other person they wanted to be with from getting on the train or the bus or the plane or from doing that really stupid thing they had planned to do. The crowd would simply give way and they would make eye contact. Not so here. She was in a sweaty, drunk, several thousand-person jumbled mess that only seemed to get more confusing and more resistant to her movements as she pushed through it, but she kept surging toward the empty skyline and the Bay, ignoring the disgruntled mumblings of the people she shoved aside. Finally, she broke through the main horde of bodies at the edge of the park with a useless scream of his name, turning every which way in frustration. Her heart was striking her ribs as she inched toward the billowing tents, and she was staring at every guy who fit Kai’s physical description as they moved quickly around her. Each time, she was wrong; each time, her heart clenched. She should’ve just told him everything earlier when she’d had the chance.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Dylan muttered as she darted her gaze around as quickly as she could. Suddenly, her eye
s caught something after space cleared briefly in one area. The guy’s back was to her, but it was Kai. She was sure of it this time, and he was going toward the tents on that side with determination. She strode toward him, keeping her eyes on his form as he was swallowed and regurgitated by the moving crowd. Sucking in a breath, she drilled a line right through the mass and leaped for him, grabbing his arm with both hands. Kai spun and looked surprised to see her before a heartbroken expression took over his features.

“I need to say something…”
Dylan shouted over the noise, laughing nervously. They both tried to stand still, but it was impossible with people constantly bumping into them. “…And I apologize ahead of time for how cheesy this is about to get.” Then she pulled him through the crowd in the direction of the street adjacent the park, which had been closed to cars because of the festival, and it was far less clogged than the grass.

When they stopped walking,
Dylan exhaled and squared her shoulders after she moved to stand directly in front of him, clutching both his hands. “I can’t say enough how sorry I am about that night in Maui. I
did
choose you. I was just scared to admit it because it felt like I was making a choice between you and the future Mac never gets to have, and it was never that. I just couldn’t see it. I had lost so much of myself when he died that I’ve been struggling a little to get it back. It’s been confusing. It still is, in a lot of ways. It’s grief and guilt. And then wanting to be happy and acknowledging anything happy began to feel a little selfish. And then I was punishing myself for it. It’s all a mess.

“
But I’ve started to remember what it is to enjoy myself again and to remind myself how it’s okay to be happy. I know that we honor the dead by living, and living for me is laughing, and being social, filming things that matter to me…and loving. I carry a lot of guilt because I wanted so much more for him. Mac was such a special person. I thought I had to live my life a certain way to make amends for his death. I thought there was no room in my own life for myself anymore, and that meant shutting you out because wanting you was thinking about myself. And I know now what you meant about knowing me. I know you
get
the guilt.”

She took in and released another deep breath.
“So, I
do
choose you, Kai White. Every week that I’ve gotten to show the world how beautiful and wonderful of a person you are, I’ve chosen you. I
am
choosing you, and I wanted to find you, the same way you have
always
come to find me. I want to always find you, too, because I am falling for you. I
have
fallen for you. I was leaving not because I wanted to, but because I thought I had to. I thought leaving you was the right thing to do. But I’m holding on to something I don’t have anymore and letting go of something I actually do. So, please know now that even though I’m leaving, I’m not leaving you.  I never want to leave you, Kai.” She was trembling as she waited nervously for him to speak. She wasn’t sure she was cut out for his lifestyle, but wanting to be with him superseded the unappealing glare of life in the spotlight. It felt good to get it all off her chest, to express herself purely
for herself.

Kai’s smile was huge before he took her face in his hands. “On a cheesiness scale, that was perfect.”

“…Perfectly cheesy?” She put her hands on top of his and closed her eyes as he dropped a kiss on her forehead. Dylan felt a moment of calm, a sudden peace of mind that everything was going to be all right for them.

“No, just perfect.” He
gathered her up in a tight hug that lifted her off the ground. “I’ve missed you so much, Dylan. More than I could stand.”

“Erica told me it got
Real Housewives
bad,” Dylan said.

“It did.
Can’t believe she told you that,” he said, laughing but then he sighed wearily. “It got that bad because I’ve missed holding you and kissing you, but I’ve just missed talking to you.”

“Me too,” she said, pressing her face into his shoulder. “So, so much.
It’s been a crappy few days for me.”

Kai finally put her down
, but he was still hugging her. “I didn’t know if you would want to see me anymore, and I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I was making you choose between me and Mac. I wasn’t. I want you to grieve your brother, and you need to do that. I just thought we both wanted to be a part of each other’s lives.”

“I know
, and I want you here, too. I’ll be a fucking mess though. You know that, right?”

“Yes, but
my
fucking mess. Just like I’ll be yours. But we’ll get through it together. And I’ll protect you as much as I can from the mess of celebrity too. I promise you.”

Kai needed to know people didn’t always leave, and she needed to be set free. Maybe it was saving. Maybe it was supporting. She wasn’t quite sure but, either way, she knew they would both try really hard to make it last.
And it just sort of works out due to some sort of cosmic fuckery.
Kate’s words echoed in her head.
Good old cosmic fuckery.

Kai held his hand out to her
once they stopped hugging. “Come on. I have to do something.” They walked together toward Jeremy’s tents. He was standing outside chatting with Rayna Rodriguez and some other girls. Kai approached the metal barricade that enclosed the tents but didn’t walk in, even though with their VIP passes they could’ve just gone into the area.

“Jeremy!” Kai screamed, drawing all the eyes to them. Chase and the bodyguards moved toward them, but Jeremy stayed where he was. Dylan wished she knew what was going on but she decided to trust Kai. A few people started taking pictures.

“Fuck off, White,” Chase said. “What is it with you? Do we need to get a restraining order? You got that hot piece of ass on your arm, and yet, you can’t stop thinking about my brother. I mean, if you don’t want her…” A perverse smile stretched across his face.

“Not
in this lifetime or any others that exist, asshole,” Dylan said.

“You think I’m the one who needs a restraining order
placed against me…” Kai laughed humorlessly and his grip on Dylan’s hand tightened. “Clearly, kicking your ass doesn’t actually get anything through to you. You apparently have some resistance to learning, so I’m not gonna bother this time. You’re not worth prison. Look, I just want to talk to your brother. He doesn’t have to be afraid. I’m not gonna hit him,” Kai assured Chase and the bodyguards. “I’m holding her hand, and I don’t plan to let it go any time soon.” He lifted their clasped hands to display. “But I was standing right over there for a while…” he said, pointing behind him, “…trying to figure out what I would do when I got over here. And I decided I just want to talk.”

“
Get one thing straight, my brother isn’t afraid of you. You just got lucky that night,” Chase defended before he turned to yell to Jeremy. “He wants to
talk
!” Jeremy didn’t look convinced but he looked curious, so he nodded at the bodyguards. He dismissed Rayna and the other girls, who looked like fans. There were actually quite a few fans around, and they were probably part of Jeremy’s image protection. Dylan and Kai were escorted into the VIP section, and they all went into one of Jeremy’s empty tents. His bodyguards stayed on Kai, standing about two feet away from him. Jeremy’s gaze pivoted from Kai to Dylan, and he smiled at her in a very unsettling way. It was meant for Kai, to provoke him, of course. Dylan shot Jeremy a hateful stare back even as her legs trembled from the tension.

Kai sidestepped in front of her. “I’m not
gonna hit you, Jeremy, but don’t fucking look at my girl like that, dude. Don’t fucking look at her. Don’t fucking look at Erica or Jamie or Odette or any girl I know. Better yet, don’t look at anyone,” Kai warned. “So here’s what I came to say. I want to be better than you, and I really want to be the man Dylan sees in me. If I hit you again, I’m not that, and plus…” Kai paused and leaned forward with a cruel smile as he began to whisper. “…I want a front row seat someday for when the rest of the world gets to see you for what you really are.”

Dylan jumped into Kai’s arms the minute he stepped down off the stage. Her anxiousness and excitement were enough to drown out the roar of the crowd around her. He and the band had just performed a mix of never-before-heard music featuring J.Kutch, whose record label, Dylan thought, would have been ridiculously stupid to argue that their musical chemistry was worth less than whatever issues they had with Kai’s reputation. Dylan had filmed the whole thing, and she would see to it that it went viral. The movie had been well received too, and the Elliott twins had initiated a standing ovation at the end.

Kai held her hand as he greeted nearby fans and signed autographs.
It was chaotic and really overwhelming for her. People took her in with their inquisitive stares, took in their hands, and Dylan knew it wouldn’t be long before their pairing officially went viral, too. There were just too many pictures of them together to deny it.