Free Me (Caged Hearts Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter 25

After finishing her fourth glass of wine, Kait was starting to feel decidedly drunk. She and Anna were sat at a booth in the club away from the loud music of the dance floor. Here they could at least hear themselves think.

“So are you having a good night?” Anna asked, her eyes glassy thanks to all the white wine in her system.

“Yeah,” Kait nodded. “I always have a good night with you.”

It was true. Anna was like the medication every heartbroken person needed. She had a vibrancy which was contagious no matter how dark you were feeling. She’d managed to lure Kait out of her shell. Together they had danced and flirted with men on the dance floor. Inch by inch, Kait felt her confidence growing again. But then the alcohol which had made her so bold and confident started to have an adverse effect. She was sinking back in to despair. The hold Jasper had over her was strengthening once again.

Checking her phone, Kait saw that it was ten in the evening. Jasper’s big fight would have long since concluded. She desperately wanted to see if he’d won. Her interest in the outcome annoyed her. She cared too much when he’d been so quick to dismiss her and cast her aside.

“You don’t look like you’re having a good night,” Anna noted with concern.

“I am, really. It’s just…” Kait lowered her gaze, and her shoulders sagged.

“You’re thinking about him? About the guy you were seeing?”

“Yeah,” Kait admitted softly.

“So what happened between you two? Or do you not want to talk about it?”

“It’s okay, I can talk about it,” Kait straightened and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Perhaps talking about would ease some of the pain which pressed down heavily on her chest making her sometimes struggle to breathe.

“So, the guy I was seeing was like a professional fighter.”

Anna’s eyes widened with surprise.

“That’s why he so easily came to my aid in the parking lot when I was attacked. He’s a pretty successful fighter too.”

“Okay,” Anna nodded thoughtfully and sipped her wine.

“But his career means everything to him. He’s so dedicated, and I truly admire that. I mean, he came up from nothing, and now he’s huge in his profession.”

“Sounds like quite the success story,” Anna said dryly.

“It is! He is! He just…” Kait sighed and looked down at her half empty glass. “He doesn’t have time for a relationship. He doesn’t have time for me.”

Saying the words aloud made them seem more real, more weighted. Kait could feel her lower lip trembling.

“That’s great about all his success and his dedication, but you need someone who values you,” Anna told her sternly. “I’m not saying he has to choose between you, but he sure has hell needs to realize your worth. You deserve his time, Kait. And if he can’t give that to you, for whatever reason, it’s time to cut your losses and move on.”

Kait wiped away a tear which had fallen down her cheek, causing her mascara to smudge.

“You’re right, I know that you’re right,” she nodded emphatically at her friend. “It’s just…it’s so hard when I care about him so much.”

Kait remembered how she’d traced the line of his scars. How Jasper had opened up to her about his past. The flowers he’d bought her, though starting to wilt, were still in a vase in her apartment. Each time she saw them, her heart tightened in her chest. He had to care about her. There had been dinner, kind words, and insane chemistry between them.

“With guys, time is currency,” Anna explained.

“What do you mean?” Kait blinked uncertainly at her.

“The more time he gives you, the more valuable you are to him.”

Kait pondered on this. Jasper gave her very little time. He dedicated most of his hours to training for the next fight. But he had to do that. He was still striving to make a point, to prove that he was more than the boy who’d had a troubled upbringing. He was aspiring to be a champion. She couldn’t begrudge him such ideals, could she?

“Stop looking like that,” Anna clicked her fingers in front of her friend’s face. She was scowling angrily.

“Like what?” Kait asked innocently. She hadn’t realized she’d been looking like anything.

“Stop looking like you’re thinking it’s okay that he doesn’t spend his time on you. That it’s okay because he’s chasing some big dream.”

Kait stared at her friend with her mouth agape. “You’re starting to scare me, get out of my head!”

This made Anna throw back her head and laugh. “I’ve known you since like, forever. We’ve grown up together Kait. How many times have we drank wine and dissed on guys who aren’t treating us fairly? I’ll tell you how many times – too many! We’re in our twenties now. We can’t keep letting guys treat us like play things no matter how handsome or impressively muscular they are.”

Anna was smirking now.

Kait waved a dismissive hand through the space between them. “Yes, he’s very handsome and most impressively muscular, but it’s more than that.”

“Oh really?” Anna raised a dubious eyebrow.

“We had a connection.”

“In the bedroom?”

“Anna!” Kait’s cheeks were burning.

“Ah, okay, now it makes more sense. He rocked your world, and now you can’t stop thinking about him,” Anna was giggling to herself as she spoke.

“Look, wait, it’s more than that, it’s a connection,” Kait was starting to slur her words. Fatigue was creeping up on her thanks to the wine. When she thought of her bed, she suddenly desperately wanted to crash against it and just sleep.

“Never confuse sex with love,” Anna said sternly, the smile falling from her glossed lips.

“That’s rookie error, Kait. And we’re not rookies anymore.”

Kait let her friend’s words sink in. Had she been confusing sex with love? She kept telling herself that there was something genuine between her and Jasper, but what if she was wrong? What if it was just a physical connection? As amazing as that was, there could be no future in it.

“Forget about him,” Anna insisted, catching the eye of a passing waiter and ordering more drinks. “Forget about him and move on. You deserve someone who sees you for the amazing, talented woman you are.”

“What about you?” Kait wondered, realizing that these wine fuelled conversations about men were usually centred about Anna’s latest drama with the opposite sex.

“I think I’m too busy nursing old wounds,” Anna announced sadly. Kait thought of the wannabe fighter her friend had once loved. Almost a decade had passed since then. He had a family and a life, and yet Anna still held a torch for him. Kait didn’t want to be like that over Jasper, sat missing him whilst he was busy living his life without giving her a second thought.

“I think we both need to move on,” Kait told her friend confidently.

“Too right!” Anna agreed, her bright smile returning. “And I say there’s no time like the present!”

Together the girls returned to the dance floor, clutching their new drinks. They danced until the small hours, until the lights around them became blurred and their throats ached from laughing so much and singing along loudly to the songs that they knew.

Chapter 26

Kait’s head started pounding the second she woke up. Groaning, she sat up and pushed a hand through her tangled hair. She was still dressed in her skirt and shirt and stank of alcohol, the scent of the nightclub clinging to her clothes.

“Gross,” Kait scolded herself in disapproval, though she reasoned that it was preferable to waking up and inhaling the scent of Jasper which had so stubbornly lingered in her apartment.

Groggily, she got up and shed her clothes from the previous night and headed straight for the bathroom. She desperately needed to freshen up. As she stood beneath the torrent of hot water, she tried to remember the final stages of the night before. She remembered dancing and drinking. She had a vague memory of seeing Anna coiled around some dark haired guy like a python. Had she left with him? Kait tried to remember the cab ride home, but her thoughts were murky.

Showered she felt more human, but her head still pounded. In the kitchenette, she reached for some aspirin and hungrily knocked them back with a glass of water. As she stood by the sink, she noticed that something was missing. The sides were more bare than usual. And then it clicked. The flowers Jasper had bought her were gone. A quick search revealed that the now empty vase was in the dish washer but the flowers were most definitely gone. Had she thrown them out in a drunken fit of rage? Kait wanted to peer out from the window but shame prevented it. If the sad wilted cluster of flowers were on the ground by the first floor, she didn’t want to see them.

Heading over to the sofa, Kait grabbed her phone and called Anna who after a record number of rings eventually answered sounding extremely groggy.

“Hello?” she mumbled sleepily.

“Anna, hey! Did you get home okay?”

A slight pause. “Uh huh.”

“Are you at your place?”

Another pause.

“Uh huh.”

Kait couldn’t help but notice that even with a hangover, her friend was being uncharacteristically quiet.

“Anna, are you alone?” Kait sounded like a concerned mother.

A longer pause.

“Nope.” She could hear the giggle in Anna’s voice as she spoke, the word barely above a whisper.

“Is there a guy there with you right now?” Kait was also whispering.

“Uh huh.” More giggles.

“Anna!”

“Oh, hey, I’ve got to go.”

And then the line went dead. Kait stared at her phone in disbelief. Anna must have gone home with the dark haired guy she’d been kissing. Maybe it would be the start of something, a beautiful relationship. Or maybe it would end up being just another scar she had to wear. Kait realised that she was becoming bitter. Her experience with Jasper had burned her in more ways than one. It wasn’t like her to be so cynical about relationships.

Biting her lip, Kait eyed her phone suspiciously. Then before she could change her mind she checked Jasper’s Twitter account. She wasn’t surprised to see that he’d won his big fight the night before. What did surprise her was how much it pained her to have not been there to witness his victory. Her head banged despite the aspirin she’d taken as she held back tears. She was about to go and get the remains of her ice cream when her phone chirped with an incoming message. It was from Jasper.

I feel like celebrating today. Any ideas what I could do? ; ) xxx

He was flirting with her. After everything he’d said at the gym, after he’d basically told her goodbye, he was now trying to worm his way back in to her life. Kait gripped her phone in anger, grinding her teeth together as she contemplated whether or not to even respond.  

Chapter 27

Eventually Kait opted to meet Jasper at a local park the following morning. She reasoned that in meeting in a public place she was less likely to lose her head and end up in his arms. But even as she walked over to meet him, she kept thinking about how good it felt to kiss him, how amazing it felt to be within those strong arms.

Jasper was sat on a bench waiting for her. A white t-shirt struggled to contain his muscular shoulders and chest. He lifted his head as she approached and smiled. Tentative rays of sunlight warmed Kait’s bare legs as she instinctively smiled back at him.

“When you told me to meet you today instead of last night I thought maybe you were blowing me off,” Jasper remarked as he leaned back on the bench.

“Congratulations on your win,” Kait kindly said from where she was standing just before the bench, her hands neatly clasped before her waist as though she were a formal school girl.

“It was hit or miss for a while,” Jasper nodded thoughtfully to himself. “But I pulled through in the end.”

Darkness gathered behind his swollen right eye; the promise of an imminent shiner. As Kait took him in, she noticed the tension in his jaw as he spoke and the way he was already sitting down when she arrived. How badly had he been injured during his latest fight? Was he now struggling to stand? Was he gritting his teeth through the pain?

“I…um, I’m glad it went well for you.”

Kait felt awkward in her own skin as she addressed him. How was this even meant to go? Was she breaking up with him or just saying goodbye? She didn’t even know anymore.

“Did you watch?” The flash of a cheeky smile illuminated Jasper’s handsome face.

“No,” Kait replied a little too sharply. “I was out with my friend.”

“Oh,” Jasper’s disappointment was obvious as his shoulders slumped.

“Look, about what you texted me last night,” Kait lifted her chin and summoned all her courage. She had to do this.

“Oh, yeah? Shall we go back to your place?” Jasper began to struggle to his feet. As Kait suspected, he seemed unable to put all his weight on his right knee.

“No, no, you can stay sitting,” she extended her hands to him, quickly gesturing for him to remain where he was. Bemused, Jasper ceased trying to stand up.

“I…um…look,” Kait released an exasperated sigh. “Whatever this is, Jasper, I can’t do it anymore. You blow hot and cold, you tell me I’ll always come second to your fighting and then you expect to be able to come round as and when you please.”

Jasper opened his mouth to speak, but Kait continued before he had chance to get the words out.

“I thought there was something special between us. I was wrong.”

Kait could feel the tears gathering behind her eyes. She wanted desperately to just cry them out, to shed waterfalls down her cheeks, but somehow she managed to remain composed.

“You’re passionate about what you do, and I admire that, truly I do,” Kait sniffed. “I wish you the best of luck with your continued career as a professional fighter,” her lips were trembling she wasn’t going to be able to carry on much longer. “That night in the parking lot, you saved me. I’m eternally grateful for that. But I’m not prepared to pretend this is anything more than it is. So, this is goodbye. I hope we can part on friendly terms.”

Taking a breath, Kait ceased speaking. Jasper blinked up at her, his eyes wide and his expression stunned as though she’d just shot him directly in the chest.

“Goodbye Jasper,” she whispered before turning around and running off. She moved at such speed that even if he had followed her, on his bad leg he’d never have been able to catch up.

Kait ran all the way out of the park. She didn’t care that she was now crying and attracting concerned glances from passers-by. All she cared about was getting back to her apartment. She’d done it. She’d released herself from Jasper, but instead of feeling liberated she felt wounded. Her chest burned as if it wasn’t Jasper she’d shot but herself.

Gasping, Kait leaned against a tree towards the edge of the park. Stealing a quick glance behind her, she didn’t see Jasper hobbling after her. He’d just let her go. Of course he had. Wiping away some of her freshly fallen tears, Kait imagined him heading straight back to the gym without giving her a second thought. He’d have to find someone else to celebrate with now.

“Goodbye, Jasper,” Kait repeated the words to herself, saying them clearly and with clarity.