Whisper to Me (Between Breaths 3)

I shook my head—Kai was always in some kind of trouble.

Some dude pulled in way too fast on a red Yamaha motorcycle. “Don’t crash, you idiot,” Mile’s old teammate yelled as the bike skidded in the grass. Too many eyes darted in my direction, and there was nervous tittering from some of the girls. Nope, being home was not awkward in the least bit.

“I’m getting another drink,” I said, jumping down from the truck. “Want anything?”

“No, I’m good,” Dakota said. She and Shane had gotten involved in a conversation with some former classmates who’d just arrived at the party.

I headed toward the cooler for another beer. As I passed by the bonfire, I heard Kai’s low and smooth voice telling his admirers how the red-light district wasn’t as it appeared in movies.

“Let’s drill Rachel about what the big city’s been like.” I felt strong fingers grip my hand, and then I was yanked into the hard wall of Kai’s chest.

“Sound good, Turtle?” he whispered, and I playfully elbowed him in the ribs. It’d been his nickname for me since middle school cross-country. I was one of the slowest on the team in my forest-green uniform, and he’d gotten a kick out of his joke. When I’d tell him where to stick it, he’d only change it to a turtle name like Shelly or Myrtle just to piss me off.

Kai’s arm immediately curled around my neck in a kind of headlock, like the three years had never passed between us. He’d made this same obnoxious move countless times in high school and I’d clamber to get away from him, because it always made me feel like a kid in front of his metal-head friends. And, more important, in front of him.

But this time felt different—he was all warm skin over hard muscles, and his arm had sprouted biceps I’d never felt before. Instead of trying to get away, I grew motionless as the enormity of my own smutty thoughts crashed down on me—thoughts about this boy who was now a man, who just happened to be my best friend’s brother.

Apparently, nostalgia was a bitch, too. I didn’t know what in the hell had come over me.

“Are you going for your CPA, Rachel?” Julia, one of my old high school friends, asked. I could muster only a nod, but that was enough of an opening as she went off on a tangent about how hard her own business classes had been at her university.

I remained hyperaware of the fact that my body was aligned with Kai’s, that my ass was right up against his crotch, and how it seemed so damn wrong to even think about the nice package he had going on behind me.

Kai would never know that I included him on the short list of guys who’d left me. Right there with Miles and my dad. When Dakota was considering her college options, I’d decided that, despite her impossible standards of perfection, I wouldn’t let her leave me, too. So I was the one who chose a college far enough away that I wouldn’t return to visit very often. I wouldn’t return at all. Until now.

Now Kai ran his thumb through the back of my waves like he used to do right before he’d fuck up my hair—usually after it had been carefully flat-ironed and sprayed. He’d always irritated the hell out of me.

I’d finally finished growing out my locks this past spring—my hair had remained short for too long after surgery and had been an almost-constant reminder to me that I had cheated death.

But this time I didn’t care if he messed up my hair or not. Having his strong arm around me made me feel protected. Safe. Like I was home.

I shivered as the edge of his nail skimmed my scalp in slow and lazy circles. Until it traced along the very edge of my scar. His fingers stilled and his grip on me tightened, as if to say, I know you.

It felt way too damn intimate, so I pushed on his forearm and broke free of his hold, scooting far away. But not before turning back and shooting him a scathing look.

But my cutting gaze didn’t faze him. He chewed on his bottom lip and stared at me with a questioning gaze.

Who have you become, Rachel?

Wouldn’t he like to know.

Chapter Two

Kai

As I watched Rachel walk away from me, I realized she was all grown up. And she was different.

Not only physically. Yeah, her rich brown hair had grown below her shoulders and it softened her carved cheekbones and strong jawline. But there was a sharpness in her eyes that I’d never witnessed before—not even during the months after Miles left her or while she’d worked her ass off during physical therapy exercises, determined to use her limbs again.

This was a different kind of fire. Harsh. Resolute. Unwavering. One that told me she’d drawn a line and anyone who crossed it might get burned. The severity in her eyes was like a road hazard, warning someone not to get too close. Not even me. Not even the boy she’d grown up with and told practically everything.

Sure, we hadn’t seen each other in three years, and it had taken me a long while to stop thinking about her every minute of every day. To stop hoping she was still healthy, and to prevent my fingers from dialing her cell too often. Instead, I got updates from Dakota or my cousin Nate, on my mother’s side. I only ever saw him at holiday time but I knew he also attended TSU. Hung in the same circle of friends, even.

He’d told me Rachel liked the jocks, and when I couldn’t stomach it any longer, I told him to shut the fuck up. Told him I only wanted to know if she seemed healthy and happy.

I figured I’d run into her again someday. Maybe by then I’d be over her.

Over her piercing emerald eyes, which were as translucent as the green bottle fisted in my hand. As multifaceted as the sea glass that washed up on the lakeshore. Or maybe I’d be over the feel of her fingers entwined in mine, and the image of her teeth tugging at her bottom lip, which happened whenever she was unsure of herself.

But on the night I returned from meeting with my former band, all it took was catching sight of her curled up on Dakota’s couch, and I was right back where I was three years ago. I knew she was there the moment I came in the front door. I could smell her scent, and I gripped my guitar case so tightly my fingers ached.

Because seeing her basically unhinged me.

As I removed my boots so as not to wake her and then padded toward the couch on the hardwood floor, the realization hit me that she had changed. She was prettier, shapelier, more womanly.

Her scent was the same as in high school. The one from her mother’s holistic or whatever-the-hell shop where she made her own soaps and lotions. Rachel had said it was called rice flower and it was like a whiff of fresh spring air with subtle floral undertones. I’d never smelled it anywhere before and anywhere since, and I had to restrain myself from picking her up off the cushion and folding her into my chest as soon as that scent filled my nose.

But she awoke as I neared her, and as she took me in through narrowed eyes, I wondered what she saw in me three years later. Her scrutiny sent my stomach into a free fall.

Because I had changed, too. In fact, I had changed the very night I’d heard the news of her accident. It was after band practice and I was out partying with my boys. I dropped everything to rush to the hospital, even though I was high as a kite.

I was there for her every damn day after that. Especially when Miles left. He’d never been worthy of her and she didn’t deserve his abandonment. Her parents, Dakota, and I kept a rotating shift at the rehab facility. She’d had minimal use of her fingers and her speech had been slurred, so we needed to keep up her morale, keep her fighting.

It was a one-person battle, and she recovered weary, yet unwavering.

When she began choosing colleges, I was still waffling on what the hell to do with my life. I was living at home, playing in bands, my parents getting increasingly more irritated with my supposed laziness. When I was almost implicated in a breaking and entering my band mate pulled off, I decided to get as far away from Rachel and my feelings about her as possible—before I screwed up even more right in front of her eyes.

Mom called in a favor with her cousin’s friend who ran a recording studio in Amsterdam, and I headed out there to work as his intern. I studied music theory at the university, too, but I was only truly happy during my nights at the studio, when I helped an album come together or sat in on a creative session, like when a jazz band put together a demo before an upcoming tour.

Otherwise, I was constantly reminded that something was absent from my life. Someone.

I asked myself why I hadn’t just told her what I was feeling, but I knew she’d been too raw. From the accident. From her recovery. From Miles dumping her.

Besides, I had my own life to figure out. My parents were great, but I’d always been kind of a fuckup. I didn’t know what I wanted to do other than play music, and I felt as if I should’ve been more ambitious, like my father.

Thankfully Dakota fulfilled that role for my parents. And even Shane was more like a son than I’d ever be. Every summer he returned home to work for my father at the casino.

“Kai.” On the first night I’d seen her, Rachel’s voice had been raspy, drowsy, sexy. She’d reached out her hand. “Your hair grew.”

“Yeah,” I’d said, kneeling beside the couch. “So did yours.”

Her fingers entwined with mine and she tugged me in for a hug. “I’ve missed you.”

I stifled a groan as she laid her head against my neck and slipped her arms around my shoulders. She was warm and soft and sleepy. I kissed her temple quickly and then pulled away before I fell back under her spell. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

After that night, Dakota had helped Rachel and me get our belongings sorted out in our temporary spaces, and we hung out together often. We watched movies, opened bottles of wine and reminisced—always skating along the surface, never delving too deep into who we’d become.

And before tonight, I hadn’t touched her since.

I headed toward Shane’s house to take a leak. Nudging past a few people in the kitchen and then a couple of dudes who high-fived me, I made my way to the guest bathroom located on the first floor. Shane’s mom always used some sort of strong lavender air freshener in here and it brought me right back to our high school days and all the drunken weekend bashes.

It was probably wrong of me to have sought out Rachel at this party. To have wanted contact with her. Call it homesickness or nostalgia or whatever the hell you want, but I swear, she was like a goddamn remedy or cure or something. Still, she had no clue how I felt about her. She’d never know. Behind the weed, the piercings, the girls, and the I-don’t-give-two-fucks attitude, I hid it well.

If she found out I’d fallen for her during her recovery, she’d freak. Her heart had been broken and she’d lost the substance of her former self. A huge wall of grief surrounded her on all sides. I’d gone day after day as her friend. I held her hand when she cried, her hair back when the contents of her stomach wouldn’t cooperate with her medications, read her books, and watched countless hours of television with her.

So tonight, when I’d pulled her into my chest like a brother would do to antagonize a kid sister, she never suspected that I’d just wanted to smell her. To push aside her hair and taste the skin just below her ear. My elbow rested just above her breasts and I couldn’t help noticing how they’d filled out, along with her shapely hips, since her recovery. She looked healthy and gorgeous and irresistible.

And most surprising was that she didn’t push me away like she normally did. She didn’t tell me I smelled like weed or that I was too rough or whatever excuse she’d usually give to get away. Tonight I felt her settle against my chest like she was relishing it. Like maybe she missed me, too. Even though it could never be as much as I’d missed her.

But then I made the stupid-ass move of finding her scar. What a douche bag. It probably reminded her of how broken she once was, when all I wanted to do was help her remember that we were connected. Shit.

I needed to find her and apologize. Tell her I didn’t mean anything by it. That I didn’t want her to run away from me. I was probably still such a fuckup in her eyes. I was the guy who’d gotten kicked out of my internship in Amsterdam after Johan’s too-young-for-him girlfriend came on to me. Returning to my father’s disapproving gaze sucked big time, but finding out Rachel had returned as well almost made the whole thing worth it.

I headed back outside and heard the low rumble of a hot rod pulling up to the field in back. I looked over my shoulder at the sweet blue ride with gleaming silver tail pipes. My gaze slid to the driver’s side and my whole body tensed. And just like that, I knew I was meant to be Rachel’s friend tonight more than anything else. She was going to need me.

Because Miles had fucking wrecked her and now he was here to screw with her again.

I stormed through the crowd, pushing past people to search for her. Julia tried to reach for my arm, but I shrugged her off. I was pretty sure she only wanted to drag me into the woods to hook up for old times’ sake.

I rounded the bonfire and slowed my steps as I spotted Rachel near the wooden fence in the back of the lot. With her jaw set and her fists clenched tight, she looked fierce. Determined. On fire.

I realized that she’d done pretty well without me the past few years.

Maybe she didn’t need me to protect her anymore. Not when it came to him.

She could probably kick his ass all on her own. And maybe mine, too.

Chapter Three

Rachel

There was a squealing of tires as a muscle car pulled up and got the attention of everyone at the party. It was hard to see who was behind the wheel through the tinted side window. But then a couple of the guys whistled, knuckles rapped the bumper of the car, and I heard the nickname I hadn’t heard in years. One that I hadn’t become immune to—yet.