My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) (32 page)

“Grady, what’s happened?” My imagination ping pongs between dire scenarios. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Rhyson’s father.” Grady presses his lips together and swallows before speaking. “His father . . . my brother . . . had a heart attack. It’s bad. They’re not sure . . .”

Grady chokes the words back and composes himself before going on.

“They had a horrible argument at Christmas”

“I know. He told me.”

“The things they said to each other.” Grady levels a concerned look at me. “As bad as their relationship has been, I know Rhyson loves his father. He’s always wanted his approval. He thinks he’s been defying his father with all of his success, but I know on some level, he’s wanted my brother to be proud of him. If those things he said to him at Christmas are their last words, it’ll eat Rhyson alive.”

I am so far from where I belong. I should be right by Rhyson’s side. I know it immediately. I can’t help but think about my emotional implosion at Thanksgiving dinner, how he blocked everyone else out and comforted me. I need to do that for him.

“What . . . where?” I can’t piece together words. The desire to go to him is like a heat-seeking missile, strong and searching.

“He and Bristol were in Chicago for a few shows when they got the news, but they’re already in New York.”

Of course. I forgot about Petra. Maybe she’s with him. Maybe he doesn’t want anything from me now. Maybe he wouldn’t even accept it from me. I pushed him away.

“I’m sorry, Grady. Is there . . . is there anything I can do?”

“Bristol has arranged a private flight for me out to New York. It leaves in about an hour.”

“Good. I’m glad you can get there right away.” I pause, studying my Converse for a moment in silence. “Please tell him I’m praying for his dad.”

Grady holds my eyes, grabs my hands.

“Come tell him yourself, Kai.”

I look up from my shoes, my eyes wide.

“He doesn’t want me there, Grady. We had a . . . a disagreement and—”

“I know.”

“You know?” Confusion twists a frown onto my face. “How do you know?”

“Because I’m the one who told him to leave you alone and give you the space you asked for. I told him to let it go for now and deal with it when he got back from Chicago. He’s wanted to call you a dozen times.”

My heart rises and falls.

“He wanted to call?”

“To put it mildly.” Grady smiles a little for the first time since he walked into the restaurant. “I nearly had to hog tie his phone to get him not to.”

“So I have you to thank for the last week of torture.” I manage a smile too, no bigger than Grady’s.

“If it was torture, why didn’t
you
call
him
, Kai?”

I drop my eyes to the safety of my shoes again.

“I don’t know what I want, Grady.”

“Are you sure about that?” I look up to find Grady’s eyes, knowing, wise, studying my face. “Or are you just afraid of having it?”

These questions in the midst of everything going on with Rhyson’s dad only muddy things more. One thing is clear. Clarion clear. I may not know what I should do about my feelings for Rhyson. If it’s the right time. If I’m ready to risk my heart to a man who will take everything I give him and anything I would try to withhold. But I
do
know where I’m supposed to be. Right now.

“Grady, let’s go.”

SITTING IN THE WAITING ROOM OF
a hospital while my dad is dying behind swinging double doors is purgatory. Hell would be knowing my last words to him were “
cold, heartless, mercenary bastard.”

The acrimonious words we flung at each other over Christmas pile up in my mind like stones until my head is too heavy to hold up. I drop it into my hands. I’m exhausted, but it isn’t just fatigue weighing me down. The guilt, the regret, the anxiety. Shit, the fear. They are all bricks tied around my neck, pulling me under. Even though I sit here in this uncomfortable chair, perfectly still to the naked eye, inside I’m flailing. Gasping. I can’t breathe.

“I’m gonna step out and get some air, Bris.”

My sister nods, but doesn’t look up from her focus point on the floor. I don’t look at her before heading out of the waiting room and toward the cafeteria. I haven’t been able to look her in the eye since my mother called. We were just about to board the flight for Los Angeles, Bristol maintaining a constant flow of shit I didn’t want to talk about. The interviews I did in Chicago. How well the shows went. What we should keep for the tour later this year. What we might want to reconsider. How to work Petra into a few cities.

All I could think about was getting home to L.A. and bee-lining for Kai’s apartment. I was prepared to sit on her stoop until she got home if she was working.

Grady may be right. Kai probably
does
need space to sort out her feelings. To figure out what our next steps should be, but I can’t leave it all up to her. A week with no word was long enough to show me I’m not that guy who does the wise thing when something I want this badly is slipping through my fingers. I’m the kamikaze who flies in knowing he may not come out successful, but dammit I go down blazing for the mission.

And, no, I wasn’t planning to apologize. Fuck no. I was actually going to make sure she knew I’d do it all again. I’d pay her mother’s measly medical bills off a thousand times. If anything, I would have done it months ago. And I sure as hell wasn’t planning to apologize for having sex with her. I planned to force my way past that door and figure out how to do it again, only slower and in a bed this time. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not giving up. “Relent” is not a word I allow myself in anything, definitely not with Kai. It’s been long enough. If there was any question about us staying in the friend zone, the Richter-busting sex should have answered it.

I was going to say all of that. Do all of that. I had a plan, but that apple cart got tipped over with my mother’s frantic phone call. Shit’s been rolling at my feet, out of my reach and control, getting away from me ever since.

And now I cannot fucking
breathe
. My lungs constrict, and the air I keep pulling in through my nose and blowing out of my mouth doesn’t help. Doesn’t relieve this suffocation of guilt and desperation. They wrap around my face like a clinging plastic bag.

“ . . . cold, heartless, mercenary bastard.”

Those words pound in my head like hard rain. Like a hailstorm of things I wish I’d never said, but can’t take back. That I may never get a chance to apologize for.

I wander into the cafeteria, not really even remembering how I got here. Maybe a cup of coffee will do me some good. I’m studying the menu up on the wall when someone squeals behind me.

“Oh my gah!” A brown-haired girl wearing—I kid you not—a T-shirt that says “Mrs. Rhyson Gray” on the front, explodes into my personal space. Her hands are on my shoulders. She’s kissing my cheeks and chin and any part of me her eager body can reach. I’m too tired to freak out. Between the physical exhaustion of the trip and the emotional turmoil of the last few hours, she could shank me where I stand and I’d barely muster enough energy to bleed.

“Jillyyyyyyyyy!” The girl bounces on her toes. “Jilly, come here quick!”

Jilly rushes over, phone already aimed at me.

“Hey, could you not take my—”

Snap and flash before I can finish my request.

“I am your absolute biggest fan,” Mrs. Rhyson Gray gushes. “I saw you in Philadelphia last year and I drove to Boston too. I’m so excited about the tour. I already have my tickets for your show in New York. Would you sign my T-shirt? Jilly, a pen! A pen!”

Jilly is so handy with the pen, I want to ask if she has a paper bag somewhere on her person I could borrow to breathe into. The pen is in my hand and poised over the girl’s nipple. I give her my “are you kidding me?” face before raising the pen a few inches to sign on her shoulder.

“Girls, my dad’s here sick.” I give Jilly her pen back and hope they’ll cooperate. “I kind of want some privacy for my family. If the media finds out I’m here, it’ll just be a circus. Could you not post that picture or say anything about seeing me here for a while?”

“I’m so sorry.” Jilly looks contrite, yet proud. “I’m really fast. I already tweeted it.”

“Well, that just happened,” I reason. “You could delete the tweet, right?”

“I cross post.” She holds up her bedazzled phone. “It’s such a pain when you have to do all the platforms individually, you know? So I’ve connected all mine.”

“All?” I slide my clenched fists into my pocket. “What we talking here?”

“Just Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and tumblr.” She snaps her fingers. “Oh, and Pinterest.”

A few years ago, I would have ripped these girls a new one. My space, my privacy, my choices were out of my hands so young that I take as much of it back as I can every chance I get. Used to be when that was violated, I’d lash out. It only took Grady witnessing one such episode to change all that. That lecture on humility and how I owe all my success to my fans, well, it’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back. Nor do I want to relive.

“I gotta go, girls.” I manage a smile for Mrs. Rhyson Gray. “See you in New York.”

I need to get back and let Bristol know we may have a situation. We got here without much fanfare, but there’s no way I’ll get out the same way. Not with little Miss Cross Post on the job. We had a small security detail in Chicago, but didn’t bring them with us home. We should get someone down here fast.

I’m just about to turn the corner back into the waiting room, when Bristol’s voice reaches me. It’s sharp and heavy like a butcher knife. Whoever she’s talking to is lucky to still have a head.

“This is a family matter.” Bristol’s voice is slightly louder than it should be.

“Bristol, you can’t—” Grady says, but Bristol cuts into his words.

“Why is she here? She should leave before Mother lands. It will only upset her having an outsider here.”

My mother wasn’t with my father when he collapsed. Bertie alerted her, and she caught a flight from the conference she was attending in Amsterdam. She’ll be here soon. So who’s the outsider? Paps? Jilly couldn’t have gone viral that fast. I hang back until I know what I’m walking into.

“Look, I don’t know what I did to make you dislike me,” a soft but firm voice says. “But it’s obvious something about me bothers you. We can deal with that another time. I really don’t much care.”

I’d know that voice, that accent, as thick and sweet as molasses, anywhere. When I round the corner, Kai and Bristol face off. It should be no contest. Bristol is several inches taller than Kai, but Pep isn’t intimidated. Not backing down. She has her hands on her hips, and her dark eyes hold steady and hard like flint.

“I’m not here for you, Bristol. I’m here for Rhyson. He can tell me to go. If he . . .” Uncertainty briefly flickers across her face. “Well, if he doesn’t want me here, of course I’ll leave. If he wants me to stay, then I’m staying.”

I walk fully into the waiting room, and Kai catches my eyes just over Bristol’s shoulder. The last time we were together, we argued, we had sex, and she pushed me away. Maybe I handled things the wrong way. Maybe she overreacted. Truth be told, right now I don’t care. I’m just glad she’s here, and I make sure she knows that immediately.

“I want you.”

I walk up to her, ignoring Bristol’s frown and irritated sigh.

Kai reaches up and wraps her arms around my neck, tucking her head into my shoulder. She’s like the eye of the storm. Chaos all around, but right here, in her arms, at the center, peace. Unreasonable, undeniable peace. I grip her tightly like my lungs grip air, because for the first time since my mother called, I can finally breathe.

I see Grady standing there and mouth “thank you.” He had his doubts about me pursuing Kai in the beginning, but I think I showed him over the last few months that I don’t just want a quick screw. Do I even know what I want with her? I’m not sure. I know it’s more than what I’ve ever had with anyone else. I know that even with my father fighting for his life beyond those double doors, just having her here where I can touch her and see her, makes me feel better.

“Are you okay?” She settles back down on her feet, her slim fingers pushing my hair back and her eyes worried on my face.