My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) (35 page)

“Yeah, well, I didn’t get to spend much time in it.” I hesitate. I’d love to show her the place that held some significance for me years ago, but if she’s tired, I won’t. “You wanna see it? I mean, if you need to sleep now—”

“Lead the way.”

We walk in silence through the kitchen to the rear of the house. I open the door to the backyard, and immediately the sight of the well-manicured lawn, an almost unnaturally vibrant green in the dead of winter thanks to our gardener, transports me to the lonely afternoons I spent out here. At the far end of the yard, a hundred-year-old tree holds the one place I felt at home here. I grab Kai’s hand and walk her across the yard, my heart growing heavier instead of lighter with every step.

I take the first rung and then the next, glad to see Kai right behind me when I look down. She doesn’t break the silence, but her eyes show her concern.

It hasn’t changed. Other than Bertie’s sweeping, it’s like no one has been here since the last time I was at sixteen years old. Grady found me up here that Christmas, sick and shaking, fiending for Xanax. Trying to quit on my own, but having little success. That night set into motion all the events that saved me, but ruined my relationship, and Grady’s, with my parents.

Even with my father in the hospital, still fighting for his life, and even with a possible second chance to restore our relationship, I can’t hold back the bitterness that almost chokes me. The small space at the top of the tree is empty except for a few music books, a composition notebook, and a sleeping bag. So bare, but it was all I needed. With that beautifully decorated house just yards away, I preferred it out here because it was my only escape from my parents. From their agenda. From the demands of a career I never asked for.

I sink to the sleeping bag, my back to the wall and my legs stretched out in front of me, and can’t help but remember all the nights I spent here alone in the dark.

“What’s going on in there?” Kai taps my temple with one finger.

I grab her hand and press my lips to her knuckles. She’s so sweet. She’s everything I never thought I would deserve. I
don’t
deserve her, but the idea that I might not ultimately have her turns a knife in my chest.

“Rhyson, talk to me.” She settles beside me, not pulling her hand away, but linking our fingers on her thigh. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me about this place and what it means to you.”

I don’t want to. I don’t want her to know how pathetic and weak I was. How I allowed them to control me with music and medication. How they withheld their approval to keep me coming back for more. But it’s Kai, and she is my irresistible force.

“When I was twelve, I told my dad that I wanted to go to school.” A half smile twists itself on my face. “Not like tutors, but like school with other kids my age. He said I’d be on the road too much for that but promised to consider it later. He got me this tree house as some kind of compromise. I guess to make me feel like I had something other kids had. I was already too old for it, but I wanted it. I loved it because they never bothered me here.”

I squeeze her small hand in mine.

“I used to pretend I had friends coming over. I used to imagine how we’d roast s’mores down in the yard and then sleep up here at night.”

“Sounds like fun,” she says, her voice small, her head resting on my shoulder. “Where was Bristol in all this?”

I frown, struggling to place Bristol in my life all those years ago.

“We weren’t your typical twins. We weren’t close at all in anything but looks. She wanted my life, or at least she thought she did. The supposed glamour of being on the road, earning money, having my picture taken, and being respected by adults.” A short laugh ruptures my words. “But I wanted what she had. She went to school. She had friends. She had a
life
.”

“And every time we’d come home off the road, I’d come out here, hoping my dad would come looking for me, but he never did. He just bribed me with it and forgot it was even here. Once we were off the road, he forgot
I
was even here.”

The tears burning my throat make me so angry. I’m not some punk ass kid with no friends falling asleep in this dumb tree house anymore. What the hell do I have to cry about? I escaped this glittering prison. I made my own way. I made my own money. I even made real friends. Does remembering the cold past hurt that badly? Is it the uncertainty of my father’s health? The relief that he pulled through surgery? I’m not sure where this flood of emotions comes from, but I don’t want it. I fight it.

“It’s okay,” Kai whispers, reaching one hand up to cup my jaw. She crawls onto my lap, straddling one knee on either side of my legs. She presses our foreheads together, her breath cool on my lips. “It’s okay if it still hurts. It’s over, but it still hurts, and that’s normal. Don’t bottle it up, Rhys. Whatever it is, you can let it out with me.”

I know that. I believe that. As I bury my head in her neck, my whole body relaxes into her. My arms wrap around her, squeezing at her back. She doesn’t complain. She just squeezes me in return. The hurt is draining away with every second I have with her. I’m sure it’s not gone completely. I know it doesn’t work like that, but she is a balm to my wounds and makes everything feel better.

A snapping sound startles us. I look over her shoulder just in time to see the lens of a camera as someone backs down the ladder of the tree house. A flash makes us both squint and throw our hands over our faces, but too late.

“Fuck!” My head falls back to bang against the wall. “Photographer.”

I know I should chase them, but I don’t have the energy. So they got a picture of me collapsing all over a dark-haired girl. I just hope they didn’t see Kai’s face. I don’t care anymore what they say about me.

“A photographer?” Kai’s eyes go wide, and she springs off my lap and out the tree house door before I can stop her.

“Kai, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” she yells back up. “How dare they invade your privacy at a time like this.”

I rush to the door and almost fall out of the tree house with shock. Really, with laughter.

My girl, no bigger than a minute, all five feet two inches of her, has caught that poor, unsuspecting pap. She is on his fucking
back
! I should go help, but this is just too entertaining, and she seems to have it under complete control.

“Get off me!” the photographer screams, shaking his back like Kai is a pesky spider monkey he can’t get rid of.

“Give me that camera!” Her legs clench him, and her slim arms have his neck in a death grip. She finally grasps the camera strap and tugs until the camera hits the ground, breaking into pieces. She’s immediately off his back, scooping up a chunk of it and sprinting back toward the tree house. He grabs Kai around her waist, lifting her off the ground so her feet dangle and kick.

Motherfucker just crossed the line.

I’m down the ladder so fast I almost lose my shoe.

I grab Kai’s waist, pulling her from the ballsack who is by now red in the face and sweating.

“Keep your hands off her,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Little bitch broke my camera.”

My fist is halfway to his face when Kai grabs my elbow, stepping between me and this lowlife.

“Your camera is broken and you’re trespassing,” Kai snaps. “So let’s call it even. We won’t press charges if you don’t.”

Gep comes rushing through the back door, gripping the piece that’s usually concealed in his boot or at his back. The pap starts stuttering as soon as he sees Gep’s nine.

“Uh, yeah. Sounds good,” he gulps, one eye on my fist still checked only by Kai’s small hand, and one eye on Gep’s Glock.

“’Bout damn time.” I narrow eye Gep, and he has the decency to look slightly embarrassed. We’re in the middle of Nowhere, New York. He can’t keep one half-assed pap out of my backyard?

“Sorry, boss. I was—”

“Checking the perimeter, yeah, I know.” I jerk my fist free of Kai’s hand, pulling her to my side and slipping my arm around her waist. “Maybe you should have started a little closer in.”

“He said he was sorry, Rhyson.” Kai gives me a look that tells me she thinks I’m mistreating the help.

What the fuck ever. Instead of being a harmless pap, it could have been a stalker. Someone packing real heat. For me, I’ve never worried about security much. I know it sounds reckless, but I always feel like I can protect myself if it comes down to it. But now that Kai is in the mix, it’s a different story. I need to make sure everyone on my team knows that.

“Get this trash out of here, Gep.” I glare at the red-faced photographer. “I’m sure you have insurance for your camera, right?”

The pap nods, glancing between Kai and me.

“What are you looking at?” I demand.

“This your new girl?” the pap has the nerve to ask.

“Are you kidding me?” I take a menacing step closer. “You’re still trying to get a story? Seriously?”

“Just thought you should know I wasn’t alone.”

“What do you mean?” Kai frowns. “There was someone else?”

“Yeah, he got away.” Pap shakes his head. “Never seen him, but he got shots of you guys. If you’re trying to keep whatever you got going a secret, just thought you should know it’s out. Those shots will fetch high dollar.”

“That’s enough.” Gep tightens his meaty fingers around pap’s arm, making him wince. “Time to go. You’re lucky we aren’t calling the cops.”

Under Gep’s escort, the pap leaves the way I assume he came, through the back fence that can be accessed from the sidewalk.

Kai turns worried eyes up to me, a frown crinkling her pretty face.

“If those pictures get out, everything could change.”

She’s right. If they got a clear shot of her face, she’ll have paps at her house maybe by the time she returns home. The intimacy between us was obvious. There’s no playing that off or spinning it. We could say we’re just friends, and she was comforting me because of my dad. That’s true, except I’m so tired of that. We’re not just friends. I can’t help but remember how Kai rushed down that tree, no thought for herself.

“What are you grinning about?” Kai asks, eyes suspicious.

“You should have seen yourself on that dude’s back.”

Despite the lingering worry about my dad, the close call with the pap, and the pictures probably releasing soon, I laugh. It starts as a chuckle, but it builds and gains steam until I can barely stand. Maybe it’s hysterics, and I’m finally cracking. Maybe it’s exhaustion. I don’t know, and I don’t care. All that really matters is that on one of the shittiest days of my life, I’m still laughing.

And I know it’s because of Kai.

She sees the humor in it too. Laughter lights her face up, stretching her mouth wide and squinting her eyes until tears run down her cheeks. We’re both caught up in this ridiculous day that has roller coastered me from exhaustion in Chicago, to fear at the hospital, to anger and frustration in these last few moments. There’s no one else I would want with me on the ride this day has been.

On the verge of a huge music video, the kind of opportunity she’s been waiting for, she dropped everything to be with me. She endured Bristol’s and my mother’s downright rudeness to stay by my side. She took off after that pap like her life depended on it because she thought
I
depended on it. Grady is the only person who has ever fought for me, ever put me first, and he has earned my undying gratitude. He’s earned my love.

And so has she.

The laughter drains away, leaving only that shake-me-to-the-core revelation and a rock solid resolve behind. A resolve to do something I should have done, should have said a long time ago.

“Pep, things are about to change.”

A grin lingers on her lips, fading slowly as she realizes the shift in my mood.

“You mean because of the pictures?” She nods, twisting her lips to one side. “I bet Bristol can spin it. Say we’re just friends, and that I was—”

“We’re not.”

She frowns up at me, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

“We’re not what?”

“Just friends. We’re not just friends.”

Caution takes over her face, and I can already see excuses and rationales lining up in her head.

“Rhyson, let’s talk about this. Listen to me.”

“No, you listen.” I stroke a finger over the curve of her cheekbone. “This all started with your ultimatum, but it’s ending with mine.”

“Ending?”

I wonder if she realizes she’s leaning into my hand or that her face softens when she looks up at me. Every touch between us, every look, tells me she wants this as much as I do, and I’m going to give it to her. It goes completely against my nature to allow anyone to control anything in my life. I’ve bucked my better judgment long enough.

“You have a decision to make, and you need to make it now. I’ve given you time. I’ve given you space, now I need you to decide.” I pull in and exhale a quick breath. “Either I’m yours, and you’re mine, or we’re nothing.”

“What?” She blinks her confusion.

“I said,” drawing out the word and giving her a few seconds to get accustomed to our new reality. “Either I’m yours and you’re mine, or we’re nothing. I don’t want to be your friend. I want to be . . . yours.”

“I think—”

“Rhyson.” Bristol’s voice cuts in from the patio where she stands at the edge of the yard.

Seriously? If we’re interrupted one more time . . .

“What, Bris?” I snap.

She lifts her brows before dropping them into a frown so like my mother’s it’s eerie.

“Your
father
is awake and wants to see you.” Her voice bites me even across the yard. “Forgive me for thinking that’s why you’re here.”

“I’m sorry.” I’m so twisted around right now. One minute all I can do is worry about my dad, and the next, I’m lost in Kai. “Of course.”

Kai walks with me across the yard. I shove my hands in my jeans pockets to keep myself from reaching for her. In my head, I keep hearing Grady harp on space. He’s forgotten more about life than I know, so maybe I’ll listen. I told her what I want. Now she has to tell me what she wants, and I have to let her.

“The car’s waiting out front.” Bristol looks between Kai and me, speculating or judging. I’m too tired to tell which. “We blocked off the street so no one can get down here. The neighbors aren’t happy, but they’ll be all right.”