Save Me (10 page)

C
hapter Nineteen

Tegan

I hated being such a bitch to him and seeing the hurt in his eyes. I felt awful for saying those things, but he just wouldn’t stop talking. I should have told him I wanted to be with him, too, because I did. Or I think I did. How bad could it be really?

I know he would be there for me
, but the thought of having to go through what Mum and Ava were going through, all that crying and the pain, scared the hell out of me. I wasn’t going to willingly put myself through all that.

If being a bitch meant not feeling
the pain I felt the day he died then it was worth it, no question. If people got hurt or pissed off in the crossfire then so be it.

I walked down the corridor and stood outside the study door for ages, debating
whether I should go in. He probably wouldn’t even want to see me after what I said to him. Why would he? I reached for the door handle but something stopped me. What if he tried talking about my dad again? Lucas was dangerous, always on the edge of asking questions.

Turning swiftly, I ran downstairs and straight out the door. My breathing came out in
heavy pants and I blinked back tears.
Don’t cry. Push it away.
There was one person that could make all the confusion go away. I dialled his number.

“Kai, can
you pick me up, please?” I asked the second he answered.

“
Huh? It’s four in the morning, is everything okay?”

No.

“Fine, I just need you to get me. Can you come?”

“Yeah, of cours
e. I’m just leaving James’ now, you missed a good night. I’m on my way.”

It didn’t take Kai long to find me
at all.

“Hey,” he said as he stopped in front of me and wound the window down.

I took a deep breath and opened the door, forcing a smiled onto my face. “Hey, Kai.”

“Where do you wanna go?”

I shrugged. “Yours.”

He nodded and
drove off. The questions never came. He didn’t ask why I was running away. I loved that he never asked the difficult questions, almost as if he knew why. Everyone else tried to get me to open up, Kai respected that I couldn’t. Shit, he knew. I liked him even more. He knew – of course he did – but he never mentioned it.

“So… you’re not eighteen,” he said.

“Nope. And you’re not nineteen.”

“Nope.”

“Does it bother you?”

He shook his head. “Has your
weekend sucked then?” he asked. Well, that was that done.

Majorly. “It was alright. I’m so
not ready to be home now, though.” Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I was never ready to be at home. Not now. Sinking back into the seat I allowed everything to fall away. There was no other shit going on, there was just me and Kai.

He really was pretty fucking gorgeous and I watched his tattoo covered arms move and flex as he drove the car. The smell of his aftershave filled my lungs, making me relax further. I was back to being whatever version of me I was now, the one that could just be without having to constantly bat conversation away from heading towards the accident. I smiled and put my hand on the top of Kai’s thigh.

I sat on Kai’s bed drinking directly from a bottle of white wine. It was disgusting and had been open for a while – apparently it was what his sister bought when his family v
isited him. He didn’t say how long ago that’d been but from the vinegary taste I could tell it’d been a bloody long time. Didn’t stop me, though.

Kai
was so easy to be around. Our friendship, although not based on anything particularly deep, was as real as any other I had right now. I could be myself around him and let my guard down a bit more than I could with anyone else. I knew he wasn’t going to try and sneak a hard question in there at any moment. I needed his friendship so much.

“That is disgusting.” He grimaced as he swallowed the wine and handed me the bottle back. “I
don’t know why I bothered trying it. I’m not drinking any more of that shit.”

I laughed and shook my head. It was pretty gross but it wasn’t about taste or enjoying a drink, I just wanted to be at that stage where I
was as close to carefree as possible.

“It is gross,” I agreed. Kai took the bottle off me and put it on the bedside table. “Hey.” I narrowed my eyes playfully.

“You don’t even like it.”

“So?”

He grinned and pushed me backwards on the bed. I looked up at him as he hovered over me. His dark eyes alight with mischief and lust. “I can think of a few other ways to pass the time...”

I smirked
and ran my hands under his t-shirt and across his soft yet hard and defined chest. My fingers glided along the bumpy contours and I bit my lip.

“
Hmm, a
few
other ways?”

He nodded and very slowly lowered his face. His lips parted about an inch away from mine. What was taking him so long? I raised my head but he moved back. “Kai
,” I warned. His weight pressed me into the bed in the most perfect way and the hunger in his eyes drove me wild. There was no time for playing games.

“You want me to kiss you?”

I shot him a dark look. “What do you think?”

With a breathtaking smile that made his dark eyes light up, he kissed me hard.

Chapter
Twenty

Kai

Tegan pulled away when my hand touched her thigh. She lowered her head and looked away.

“What?” I asked.

“I can’t do this.”

“Okay,” I said, backing away a fraction. “What’s wrong?”

She ran her hands through the long lengths of her blonde hair. “I don’t know. I just… I don’t know.”

“You don’t want sex right now or at all?”
Man, I was getting some pretty mixed signals from her but then I probably didn’t help matters.

“At all,” she whispered.

On the one hand I was glad, if she wasn’t using sex as a distraction then maybe she would face what was going on, but on the other, I was getting any sex.

“We don’t have to sleep together, Tegan. There’s no unwritten rule that says you need to open your legs to me.”

“I know that but…”

I nodded and closed my eyes. “But that’s what we do.”

“Yeah, we have hot, blow-your-mind sex and I… Well, I’m a bit of a mess right now.”

“It’s okay.”

“What does that mean here?” she pointed between us and bit her lip. Her cheeks reddened.

“It means we’re not going at it like rabbits anymore.”

She rolled her eyes and cracked a smile. “Yeah, I got that part. Look, for a while now the people in my life haven’t really been in my life. My fault, I made it that way, but it’s kind of lonely and you’re the only person that I don’t feel I have to pretend around or put on much of a show.”

“You’re saying you want us to be friends but you’re worried that I only wanted to be around you while I was getting my end away?”

Turning her nose up, she replied, “Nice. Yeah, though.”

“I get it, Tegan, but that’s not why I want to spend time with you.
I’ve told you this and I mean it.” She frowned, genuinely curious why I wanted to be around her. It sent me right back there, to a few years ago when I thought so little of myself that I didn’t understand why my own parents still called me son. “Now we’re definitely keeping our clothes on I will miss the sex.”

That made her laugh and she finally relaxed. “Yeah, me, too. I don’t have a whole load of people wanting to spend time with me right now.”

That was probably because she didn’t want to spend time with them. I would’ve preferred to chew my own arm off than spend time with friends back when I was like her. I was lucky that James and Holly were still around when I came out of it or I would’ve had no one. Back then the only people I wanted to be around were the ones that didn’t really give a shit about me. We hung out with each other for convenience, for selfish purposes and nothing was even remotely real.

Tegan should’ve been cutting me off and telling me she never wanted to see me again and I wasn’t sure if that was because we had something deep, deep down that stood a chance when things for her were better or because she hadn’t fully committed to turning her life around. I wanted option A but I couldn’t be sure
.

“I doubt that’s true,” I said, “but I know what you mean. Do you want me to take you home or do you want to chill here for a bit?”

“I think I should go home, see my mum.” She was lying. She didn’t want to go home but she didn’t want to stay either. “Think maybe we can hang out in the week? If you’re not busy.”

“I’m sure I can fit you in. Want to go on the bike? I feel like a long ride when I drop you off.”

She blushed.

I loved the bike even more after I’d had her across it.

“Good and yeah, the bike sounds great.”

“Sounded better with you moaning
over it.”

Ignoring me completely, she got up. “
Let’s go.”

I took her home, dropping her off two houses down so I wouldn’t get chased out of town by her mum and crazy-eyed sister. Ava was like one of those creepy-arse dolls that watched you wherever you went.

I rode mostly without thinking where I was going and ended up back in my ‘dark place’ haunts. It looked the same: run
-down, going nowhere and lifeless. There was no ambition here other than getting so off your face you didn’t think about what a dead-end life you were leading.

Most windows in the houses along the long stretch of the high street were boarded up. Graffiti was the only colour around; everything else was grey and dull. Police rarely bothered coming here anymore, unless there was a murder.

I left my bike in a mate’s garage and went to have a look around. A year ago this was pretty much home and I didn’t even care how shitty the place was. It gave me everything I needed to not really exist for a few years.

“Kai!”

I turned around and immediately tensed for a fight. That was how it was around here. Most people were off their tits on whatever shit they could find to shove in their system so you never knew who was going to turn on you. Plus, I’d not been back since the day I left.

“Fuck me, man, it is you!”
Declan said, slapping my shoulder.

“Hey,
Dec, how’s it going? I borrowed your garage, by the way.”

He nodded. “Yeah, not bad, take what ya want.”

He was only saying that because the day I left I gave him my last two hundred for drugs.

“What’re you doing back ‘
ere?”

That was a good question. “Just visiting.”

“Ain’t no one just visit here.”

“How’s your mum?”

Deirdre was the sweetest woman. She never let the fact that her ex husband left her at eight months pregnant and with no money or a place to live. Nor did she let it get her down that she had to work three jobs to support her two kids or that every time she got anything nice it was stolen.

“She’s good, man, you stopping long ‘nough to see her?”

“Not sure yet, if I don’t, tell her I said hi.”

“I’m on my way to the grind, you comin’?”

The grind was what everyone called the nameless club in the shittier part of town. I had no idea why, it sounded as deadbeat as it was so I never questioned it. I’d been high as a kite many times in that fuckin’ club. It was where we spent almost every night that we weren’t out doing over shops or mugging some rich bastard. I was like Robin Hood, had he kept everything he took.

“Nah, can’t stop long.”

“You just come back to take a look?”

“Somethin’ like that,” I replied.

“You shouldn’t come back ‘ere, Kai.”

I tensed again. His pupils were dilated but then I don’t remember them ever being normal. “Why’s that?”

“You did the things we all wanna do, you got out. No one thinks you’re a wanker for leavin’, ya know?”

“Oh, good.” I didn’t think they would’ve. Then I didn’t really think about them much at all after I left. They were just there, same as me. Besides
Dec and Kellen, no one had my back and I was sure he only did because I had a bit of money, could run fast when we needed to get away on foot, drive fast when we needed a driver, sell ice to an Eskimo and throw a decent punch.

“Seriously,
man, you don’t need to be back ‘ere, you know there ain’t nothin’ good in this place. Go, Kai, you’re better than this. Same as Kel.” Turning around, he walked away without looking back. Kellen left before I did but he’d shown his face a few times. I hoped he’d finally get out.

Dec was right, but most people were better than this, him, his mum and si
ster included. When I left four years ago I told myself I would come back at some point, now I knew I never would.

I’d seen all I needed to and knew that no matter what happened to me in the future I’d never call this place home again. I left without looking back.