Playing for Kinley (Cruz Brothers Book 1) (15 page)

He didn’t deserve to be called trash by anyone, not even himself.

“Don’t say that,” I told him, my voice stern. “You’ve earned your success, Parker. No, you didn’t really luck out in the parent department, but you rose above all of that. You’re better than that. You’re nothing like them so don’t ever think it.”

His head turned back to me, his face softening at my words. “You always had a way of convincing me that I could be more, you know. You believed in me before I ever did.”

So much for a less emotional conversation.

I tried to pull away, create a little more distance between our bodies, but he tightened his grip on my waist, stopping me. “It was hard for me sometimes growing up, Kin,” he continued. “But you never treated me like the emotionally messed up, dirt poor kid that I was. Nobody in your family did…but you were different.” His eyes penetrated mine, gazing so deeply into them I was sure he could see straight into my soul. “You always looked at me differently. Like you were in awe of me sometimes. It never made sense to me.”

I could barely breathe as memories of the past accosted my mind. My heart actually hurt from what he was making me remember. Everything that I once had and then lost.

But I couldn’t have prevented myself from responding to him. “I was in awe of you. You’re the strongest person I know. I can’t even imagine what you had to deal with when you were younger, but I know that you never let it break you. You are who you are today because of your past, not in spite of it. And that says a lot about you.”

If there could ever be a more intense look on a person’s face than Parker’s right now, I couldn’t imagine it. At those words, his face darkened, with emotion but also with something else. The lust in his eyes was unmistakable. The desire emanated from his dilated pupils and his grip had become almost suffocating.

The song came to an end and I took the opportunity to wrench myself from his arms. To my relief, he let me go, though he seemed reluctant about it. I needed distance, space from him to strengthen my will against those feelings that were always at the forefront of my mind.

“Thanks for the dance,” I whispered and walked away without meeting his eyes again.

This was why I had to avoid emotional conversations with him. Those only led in one direction with Parker and it wasn’t a place that we could go.

Not again.

Because if we did, I wasn’t sure that I’d ever be able to find my way back.

Parker

Of course it had to storm tonight. It was the perfect ending to an already emotionally exhausting evening.

I wanted to kick my ass for how intense I got with Kinley at Clay’s dinner earlier. I wanted to say that I wished I hadn’t said all that I had. But it would be a lie. I can’t regret being honest with her. If I ever wanted another shot with her, I needed to start opening up, something I had never really done with her in the past. Not to the extent that she wanted me to, anyway.

Besides, everything that I’d said was the truth.

Which she knew, otherwise she wouldn’t have practically sprinted in the other direction from me.

Yeah, I’d freaked her out. And now I needed to fix it somehow. I’d maintain this “friends” thing we had going on because after all, it had been my idea. But the purpose of it was to wear her down with my friendship, make her realize that she missed me and eventually admit that she still had feelings for me.

So far, I couldn’t tell how my plan was working.

We hadn’t really talked much since we left Clay’s party. We were both staying at her parents’ house tonight and leaving tomorrow sometime. Clay had invited me to stay at his place, but I couldn’t do that to the man on his birthday. He needed alone time with Gwen.

And it’s not like I could have told him that I wanted to be closer to his sister.

Because obviously, that was the real reason I was staying at the Masterson house.

Not that it really mattered at this point, though, because Kinley had gone up to bed almost as soon as we all got home from the party, claiming the traveling today had worn her out.

I was calling bullshit on that.

She was clearly avoiding me. I hadn’t yet figured out what exactly that meant.

So, here I lay in Sam and Diane’s guest bedroom with memories of me with their daughter floating around inside my head, while the woman I wanted most in the world lay right across the hall from me. And I couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t touch her. At this point I was afraid to even talk to her, uncertain of her mood and worried that I might lose any ground that I’d covered.

Then, it started storming.

It was a big one, too.

Lightning was flashing across the sky, turning night into day for seconds at a time, and the rumbling of the thunder was so loud, it felt like it was shaking the whole house.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of storms. I wasn’t.

They just brought back really bad memories. Well, maybe not
all
bad.

I couldn’t sleep.

The storm woke me up and now I couldn’t go back to sleep.

I should have been passed out, sleeping soundly like Clay. But I couldn’t. And I so badly wanted to wake him up to play some video games or trade some baseball cards or something. It was the middle of the night, though, and I didn’t want to wake him up.

Plus, I didn’t want him to think I was scared. Or that I was a wimp.

I was fourteen now and Dawson told me I had to stand up for myself. He told me I needed to be a man and I didn’t want to disappoint him, which he would be if he saw me now.

I just hated the sound of storms, although they sounded different at Clay’s house than they did at mine.

I could remember being little and listening to the rain and hail hammering down on the roof of the trailer we used to live in. The noise would get so loud that it made it impossible to sleep, for me at least.

And usually, that was an excuse for Dad and Momma to yell louder at each other, so they could be heard over the noise.

You’d think that the noise would have drowned out their fighting, but it somehow just made it worse. Because to me, storms always sounded angry and violent and when that mixed with my parents’ arguing—especially Dad’s hostility—it became overwhelming.

Now, even though we moved out of that trailer a few years ago, storms always reminded me of bad things. The sound of it on our trailer roof. The strength of the wind blowing our trailer back and forth to the point that I thought it would topple over. And Dad’s and Momma’s screams echoing throughout the tiny rooms of that place.

I never felt safe there, but I especially didn’t when it stormed.

Anymore, I would read one of Mason’s books to distract me or play with my baseball cards when it stormed. But I didn’t have a book tonight and it was too dark in Clay’s room, anyway.
Maybe I could go downstairs and watch some TV.

I quietly crept out of Clay’s room and down the hall, hoping I wouldn’t wake up his parents and get into trouble. They were nothing like my parents, but I didn’t want them to be mad at me if I wasn’t supposed to be out of bed.

I tiptoed down the stairs and into the living room, feeling along the wall so I didn’t trip over anything. The lightning would light up the room every few seconds, so I was eventually able to make it to Sam’s recliner. He always kept the TV remotes in a little stand on the table beside his chair.

I reached out and turned on the lamp on the table and clicked on the television, immediately turning the volume down so I wouldn’t wake anyone up. I kept flipping through the channels until I found the one I was looking for. I stopped on The Cartoon Network, hoping that something like silly cartoons would distract me from my bad memories.

I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been sitting down there when I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I spun around, expecting to see Clay’s dad standing there and preparing myself to be yelled at, readying to apologize.

But it was just Kinley.

I relaxed and blew out a breath. “Hey, Kinley.”

“Hi, Parker,” her ten-year-old voice whispered. She was in her pajamas and her brown hair was all tangled. It was obvious that she had been asleep.

“What are you doing up?” I asked her, keeping my voice low.

“I was thirsty. Needed something to drink,” she replied, inching her way into the room, like she was afraid to intrude on me. “What are you doing down here?”

I turned back to the TV, shrugging. I didn’t want her to think I was a wuss either. “I couldn’t sleep. Storm was too loud.”

“Yeah. I don’t really like storms either.”

I actually smiled at that. She wasn’t making fun of me or anything, and it was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one who had problems sleeping during these things.

“Whatcha watching?” she asked, taking a seat on the couch and pulling a blanket over her legs.

I nodded toward the TV. “Roadrunner.”

I felt myself relax with her sitting there with me. It didn’t make me feel so alone.

“I like the Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd ones best,” she said. I actually agreed with her there. Then, she turned to me, her smile bright and eyes excited. “I can do an impression of Donald Duck. You wanna hear?”

“Sure.”

I busted up laughing when she started making these weird duck sounds in her throat and saying words I couldn’t understand. It actually sounded a lot like Donald Duck and I was impressed. I’d never heard her do any impressions like that.

“That’s pretty good,” I said when I caught my breath again. She beamed at me. “How’d you learn to do that?”

One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I don’t know. I just tried it one day. I can do Elmer Fudd, too.”

“Do it.”

“It’s wabbit season and I’m hunting wabbits, so be vewy, vewy quiet.”

My side started to hurt from laughing so hard. She started giggling, too, and before we knew it, we couldn’t stop laughing. By the time I was able to calm down, I had tears in my eyes. I wasn’t sure how long we stayed down there watching cartoons and trying out different character impressions. I never knew Kinley could be funny before that night.

And when I finally went to bed, I wasn’t thinking about the storm anymore.

That was why I found myself, once again, in the Mastersons’ living room, in the middle of the night, with a storm raging outside the window. That wasn’t the last time Kinley and I had watched cartoons like that. There were many more nights after that first one that I stayed over with Clay when there was a storm. Every time I would come down to turn on The Cartoon Network and every time Kinley would eventually follow me.

It sort of became our thing.

Of course, after I realized that I had a crush on her, those nights became more like torture than a form of relief. Granted, she still distracted me from the storms but for a whole different reason.

“My Sylvester the Cat impression has really matured over the years, you know,” came her soft voice from behind me.

My head snapped around to see her standing there at the entrance to the living room in tiny boxer shorts, a loose Boston College sweatshirt, and thick wool socks. Her face was free of makeup and her long hair was tied up on top of her head.

Looking more beautiful than she ever had.

“Is that right? Well, I hope your Tweety Bird did, too, because that one really sucked.”

Of course, I was hoping that she would come down when the storm had started, but with the way our earlier conversation went, I wasn’t sure that she would.

She smiled and walked farther into the room. “I taut I taw a puddy tat…”

God, I love this woman.

I clicked my tongue. “Not bad. Still needs some work but it’s improved.”

She chuckled and wrapped herself up in a blanket on the couch, just like every other night. I so badly wanted to go over and join her, wrap her warm body around me, and cuddle into each other until we fell asleep.

She probably wouldn’t appreciate that, though…yet.

“I haven’t watched these in years,” she said, laughing at something Tom and Jerry were doing.

That comment flooded me with guilt because we knew why she hadn’t. That was all my fault and I silently wondered if she was ever going to forgive me for the past. It was a question that was always plaguing my mind because the answer would determine whether or not we actually had a future together.

But we’d already had a lot of serious tonight, and Kinley had run away from it. So, maybe I shouldn’t bring up the then and just stick to the now.

“When are you headed out tomorrow?” I asked her.

She yawned and responded, “My flight’s at 1:20. Got a photo shoot at Lake Michigan that hopefully won’t last more than two days.”

I shuddered just thinking about it. I hated cold weather, which made living in Boston a real bastard in the winter. “Hope you packed your long underwear.”

She gave me a look. “I have three pairs of it. And if this wasn’t for the National Parks Service, I wouldn’t even be doing it. But it’s good money and they provide a hell of a reference.”

“Just be careful, okay?”

Her head swung around in my direction. She cocked her head, a curious expression on her face, and gave a small smile. “I’ll be fine, Parker.”

That mountain lion story she told earlier had completely freaked me out…and pissed me off, which had been obvious with my behavior afterwards. I’d been a jerk, I knew, and she probably hadn’t understood it.

But I hated—loathed—the thought of her out in the wilderness with absolutely no protection. A lone guy with a gun could only do so much if an animal got too friendly with her, especially if he was standing a hundred feet away.

I also knew I was overreacting, but I had honestly never once thought about Kinley’s job being in any way dangerous. She was a photographer for crying out loud. A nature photographer, sure. But I had never realized the extent of her job. And the realization that she had come that close to a mountain lion scared the shit out of me. Now, I was going to be worrying like crazy every time she went on a damn shoot, afraid she was being torn to bits by a wolf or something.

Loving someone was hard work.

“When are you leaving tomorrow?” she asked. “Are you going back to Boston?”

I nodded. “Yeah, for a couple days. I have a photo shoot of my own up there for an endorsement deal I have with Jimmy’s Pro Shop, a Boston-based sporting equipment company. Then I have a short break, so I’m going to go down to Baltimore and stay with Mason for a few days. See Dawson and the kids, too. I think my flight leaves at, like, 2:30 or something tomorrow.”
I should probably double check that.

“How are your brothers?”

Since we hadn’t talked much the last few years, I knew that she only knew what I told everyone else about my brothers. The nitty gritty facts about our childhood and how we’d all three dealt with it? That was stuff I didn’t really divulge to anyone. And the last thing I wanted to do was taint Kinley with all the fucked up drama of my dysfunctional family. Well, not my brothers so much as my parents.

“They’re good. Mason’s shop is doing well and Dawson’s still loving being a detective. Leo and Gabby are in preschool, so that’s been interesting.”

Kinley smiled, shaking her head. “I can’t imagine. Two starting at the same time. You teach them any new cuss words for Christmas this year?” she asked, an amused glint in her eyes.

I rolled my eyes. The kids repeated a couple words that I accidentally let slip around them once and I was labeled the bad uncle. “No, smart ass. My mouth is pure and clean when I’m around them now.”