Playing it Kale (The McCain Saga Book 4) (10 page)

I rub my thumbs over his cheeks, feeling
as if I’m probably glowing.
 
“I’d love
that,” I say.
 
“I’ve never been to the
east coast.
 
But…”

“But we’ll see how your meetings go
tomorrow,” he says regretfully.
 
“I have
a feeling they’ll want to whisk you away to Los Angeles right away to meet with
record labels.”

And as much as I’ve wanted that, for so
long, I almost hope it doesn’t happen.
 
Who knows how long that will take?
 
And how long that could keep me away from Kale.

All it takes is a boy to derail my
dreams.
 
Even if he is
the boy who set my dreams in motion.
 
He is the boy of my dreams, after all.

“Stay with me tonight?” I ask.
 
My eyes search his, looking and hoping for
acceptance.
 
For him to
want me as badly as I want him.

He doesn’t answer.
 
He simply pulls my lips back to his.

CHAPTER
SIX

I roll over,
flopping
my arm over something warm and hard.
 
My
hand hits something even harder, sending out a sonorous ring.
 
I open my eyes in confusion.

My arm is across Kale’s bare chest.
 
And my hand just hit my guitar.

Kale
squints
an
eye open, peering at me.
 
A contented
smile crosses his lips, and he hugs me tight to him.

“Good morning,” he mumbles as his eyes
slide closed again.

“Morning,” I reply.

We’re tangled in a pile of blankets and
pillows on the floor.
 
We had the
strangest non-make out session of my life.
 
There was endless kissing.
 
But it
was just that.
 
Deep
and soulful and life changing.
 
And then Kale asked me to sing for him.

So I pulled out my guitar and played him
a few of my original songs.
 
He then
asked me to make up a new one for him.
 
I’d panicked for a moment.
 
The pressure, being on the spot.
 
But then I remembered what he’d said to me at
the wedding.
 
That he already thought I
was amazing, so I could not worry about it and just do my thing.

It’s rough and not complete, but I came
up with something short.
 
“Angel
On
Your Shoulder,” is what I started calling it last
night.
 
Kale seemed to like it.
 
He’d kissed my soul to pieces afterward.

And then we’d fallen asleep in each
other’s arms.

“How’d you sleep?” I ask, pulling back
to the current morning.

“Great,” he says, and I can hear the
smile on his face.
 
“Until
I was woken by this high-pitched squeak at four in the morning.”

“What?” I ask in confusion.

And he says nothing, just laughs, while
I figure out what he’s talking about.

“Oh
my gosh
,” I
say in horror as I jump away from him.
 
I
turn my face away
cause
I know that I am
beet
red.
 
“No, no way.
 
That could not have happened or I will
die
.”

Kale keeps up the humiliating
laughter.
 
I hear him shift, and then he
presses a kiss to my bare shoulder.
 
“Seriously, it was funny, and somehow, kind of cute.
 
I’ve never heard a fart like that before.”

“Holy crabapples,” I say, standing up,
unable to get away from him fast enough.
 
“Just stop, okay.
 
And please hand
me one of those pillows so I can suffocate myself now.”

“Whit,” Kale laughs again.
 
“Seriously, don’t freak out about it.
 
Here, let me make you feel better.”

And with that.
 
He.
 
Lets
.
 
One.
 
Rip.

“Kale!”
I screech as I cover my nose and run out of the room for the bathroom.
 
“You’re disgusting!”
 
I slam the door behind me.
 
And break down into laughter.

I hear him still laughing out in the
living room.

What the hell just happened?
 
And how do I take it all back?

Already set to wash the events of this
very short day away, I climb into the shower.
 
I wash my hair, scrub myself down.
 
Spend far too much time in here, because eventually the hot water runs
out.

I can’t avoid Kale and the embarrassment
of what just happened all day, though, so finally, I shut the water off.
 
The sound of music trickles into the
bathroom, way too loud considering Calvin is probably still sleeping.

When I slide back the shower curtain, I
find the door to the bathroom cracked.

And realize that I forgot to lock the
door behind me.

Frantically, I search for a towel.
 
Only to realize that it’s disappeared.

“Kale!”
I yell in frustration.
 
“What’d you do
with my towel?!”

About giving me a heart attack, his face
appears in the crack of the door.

“Kale!”
I scream as I grab the shower curtain and yank it in front of me.
 
But not before he has a chance to take it
all
in.
 
“What are you doing?!”

Mischievousness floods into his eyes and
he opens the door just enough to dangle the towel before him.
 
“You can only have it back if you promise not
be embarrassed in front of me anymore.”

“What?” I screech.
 
I’m horrified that the shower curtain is only
one of those ghostly white ones, and he can very much still see my naked silhouette.
 
“Just give me the stupid towel!”

“Nope,” he says as he shakes his
head.
 
“Not until you can wipe
embarrassment from your emotional abilities.
 
It’s just me, Whit.
 
And you’re
just you, no regrets about it.”

“I am so going to kill you,” I say with
an annoyed chuckle.

“Fine,
so
long
as you’re not going to be embarrassed doing it,” he says as he raises a
freaking eyebrow at me.

“Kale…” I growl.

“Whitney…” he echoes back to me with a
smug look.

“Fine,” I say, my expression growing
serious and annoyed.
 
“You want a lack of
embarrassment, here you go.”

And then I fling back the shower
curtain, spring from the shower/tub, and bust an off-beat move to the music
playing.
 
Right there.
 
In the bathroom.
 
Totally naked.

“No embarrassment, Kale!” I yell, even
as every last inch of me turns blush red.

“Holy shit,” he laughs in a
stutter.
 
His eyes grow wide and his face
flushes hard.
 
He drops the towel on the
floor and slams the door.
 
“Holy…” I hear
him laughing.
 
“Way to
go all balls out, Whit!”

And realizing what I’ve just done, I
clamp a hand over my mouth to keep in the laugh/scream/squeal that’s climbing
up my throat.
 

What in the all mighty world of
homo
sapiens did I just do?

“That’s a cute birthmark on your hip, by
the way,” Kale says through the door.
 
“
Kinda
looks like a bird.”

Too shocked to say anything, I grab the
towel from the floor and wrap it around myself.
 
A good thirty seconds of silence stretches on.
 
Because.
 
What.
 
Did
.
 
I
.
 
Just.
 
Do?

“Whitney?” Kale calls, his voice more
gentle now.
 
“You okay?”

So, being brave once again, I open the
door and step out.
 
He stands just
outside, still in only a pair of sweats.
 
He’s got this sheepish look on his face, and he’s trying really hard not
to smile.

I just shake my head and step forward
into the arms he’s holding open for me.

“That was really awesome,” he says.
 
There’s traces
of
laughter there, but he’s also serious.
 
“I don’t want you to always be embarrassed in front of me.
 
I just want you to be you.
 
All of you.
 
All the time.
 
Okay?”

I bury my face into his chest, still not
ready to look him in the face.
 
“Okay.”

“I don’t quite believe that okay,” he
teases, jabbing a finger into my side and tickling me.

“Okay!” I scream, jumping away from
him.
 
“Okay.”

And with that, I turn away from him,
drop my towel, and head for the bedroom to go get dressed.

I look over my shoulder at him just once
before I disappear behind the door.
 
His
eyes are wide, his mouth open just slightly.
 
But there’s a hunger in those eyes.

And it’s there for awkward, quirky
little ole me.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

“I swear I can get you a seven figure
advance if you sign with me,” the man says as he walks toward the front
door.
 
“If you want to be the next big
thing, give me a call tonight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ando,” Calvin says as he
opens the door for him.
 
He waves a
goodbye and closes it behind him.
 
I look
out the window and see Tony follow him out to his car.
 
“That’s the last one.”

I collapse back into the couch with a
huff.
 
My brain is spinning with all the
promises that have been made in the last hour.
 
All the numbers people were throwing at me.
 
All the labels everyone has said they’re
already gotten “guaranteed deals” with.

“So?” Kale asks from the table.
 
He’s got an entire gallon of orange juice
sitting in front of him.
 
He’s already
downed half of it today.
 
And it’s only
seven in the evening.

“I don’t even know how to process all
that,” I answer honestly.
 
“But I can
guarantee I can’t work with Mr. Ando or Mrs.
Shanka
.
 
They will eat me alive.”

“At least that narrows it down to three candidates,”
Calvin says as he looks back down at his tablet.
 
“I think you should go with Ron
Taysen
.
 
Every one of
his current clients has had a top ten hit.
 
He’s experienced and aggressive.”

“Yeah,” I say as I rest my elbows on my
knees and rub under my eyes.
 
I have a
headache.

“Go with your gut,” Kale says after
another swig of OJ.
 
“Trust your
instincts.
 
They’ll almost always be
right.”

“My gut is confused,” I say as I stand
from the couch and go to the fridge.
 
Jamie, the cook, left us a ton of left overs, and I’m suddenly
ravenously hungry.
 
I pull out a box of
ham fried rice and put it into the microwave.

This
is all so overwhelming
, I text Ming.
 
So far I haven’t gotten good enough reception
to actually call her.
 
So we’ve been
texting back and forth.

Meetings
over?
She responds back.

Yeah.
 
I actually have to make a decision now.

It’s
easy.
 
You just go with whoever is
hottest.

I chuckle and shake my head.
 
That’s so Ming.
 
She’ll say the most inappropriate things, so
long as it’s not in front of a real live male.

But as the night progresses, as Kale,
Calvin, and I watch some movie from the late nineties that was sitting on a
shelf, I know exactly who my gut is telling me who to go with.

“I want Hadley,” I say when the movie is
just about over.

“Miss Heart?” Calvin asks as he looks
over at me with disbelief.

“Yep,” I say with a nod.
 
And something settles into me.
 
It feels right.
 
It feels comfortable.
 
“She’s the one.”

“She’s also by far and wide the most
inexperienced,” Calvin says as Kale
pauses
the
movie.
 
“She’s a baby in the music
industry.”

“That’s why I want her,” I say as I
cross my legs up on the couch.
 
“We’ll
watch out for each other.
 
We’ll figure
this out together.
 
And if she’s still
just getting her legs under her too, she’s not going to be as eager to screw me
over.
 
She’s got a lot riding on this,
too.”

“You sure?”
Calvin asks.
 
Even as he does, he stands
and walks back over to his tablet on the table.

“Yeah,” I say as I look over at
Kale.
 
There’s support there, written all
over his face.
 
But
also sadness.
 
Cause he knows what
this means.
 
I won’t be going to New York
with him.
 

“I think you made the right decision,”
he says though, without a doubt in his voice.

It all happens in an incredible rush and
hurry.

Calvin calls Hadley that night.
 
In the morning she comes to the cabin and we
immediately hit it off.
 
She very simply
explains what I can expect to happen over the next four weeks.
 
She doesn’t pressure me to sign any paperwork
right away, but she does give it to me to look over.

She immediately books me a flight for
this evening.
 
Arranges
accommodations for me in Los Angeles.
 

And then Kale and I pack.
 
It’s depressing.

I keep looking over at him as I stuff my
things into my bag.
 
He’s somber.
 
He’s serious.
 
Something he almost never is.
 
Leaving
my leggings hanging half out of the bag, I turn to him and grab his arms until
he’s facing me.

“What’s on your mind?” I ask, meeting
him eye for eye.
 
They’re sad and
heavy.
 
“What’s going on behind those
serious eyes?”

He bites the inside of his cheek and his
eyes dart away from mine, searching the room for answers.
 
“I just…I don’t want to go.
 
I’m not ready for you to go.”

“I know how you feel,” I say
quietly.
 
“It feels really scary to me,
too.”

Finally, he looks back down at me and
something in his eyes softens.
 
“Look, I
know it’s only been like…six days since we met, but…hell, I don’t know how to
say what I want to say.”

“It’s okay,” I say as I brush his hair
back.
 
It’s a mess right now, something
I’m pretty sure no one but me has ever seen it as.
 
“It doesn’t have to sound perfect.”

He reaches up and cups his hand around
my jaw.
 
He runs his thumb over my
cheek.
 
“I know what distance does to
people, but I don’t want this to even begin to fall apart before it
begins.
 
I want you, Whitney.
 
I want you, and I want you to want me.”

Something stings at the back of my eyes,
but it’s good.
 
“I do want you.
 
Every bit of you.”

“Then let’s be together,” he says with a
breathy, once only laugh and a smile.
 
“I
want you to be mine, just mine, no other guys allowed to touch you, you get to
bitch slap any other girl who looks at me, mine.
 
And I don’t mean in the super possessive,
creepy way.
 
Just…be with me, Whit.”

A crazy smile breaks across my face, and
I press my lips to his just once.
 
“Only if you’re mine.”

“Without a doubt in me,” he says as he
looks at me with dancing fire in his eyes.
 

I smile and squeeze him tight to me.

“Okay, so I have to be in New York for
one week,” he says.
 
He talks quickly and
with excitement.
 
It only takes a second
for his mood to whiplash.
 
“I have three
shoots, and then Calvin says I’ve got like two months before I have to be in
Paris for some show.
 
So
as soon as I’m done in New York, I’ll fly out to LA, and then we’ve got lots of
time.
 
How does that sound?”

“It sounds perfect,” I respond as I
press my forehead to his.
 
And that’s the
truth.

In all the unreality of the past two
days, I forgot about real life.

I have exactly twenty minutes to collect
what I want to bring with me from my apartment to LA.
 
I fly around my room, gathering things,
hoping I won’t forget anything important.
 
Kale doesn’t even bother going back to Sage and Julian’s.
 
Apparently, he almost always stays with them
when he comes back from New York.
 
Which
I’ve learned he’s only around for maybe a month combined throughout the entire
year.

It starts hitting me how hard this is
going to be, for us to be together, if my life really does go the way it’s
looking like it will and Kale keeps working like he does.

But somehow, we’ll make it work.
 
We will.

First, before we go our separate ways, I
have to deal with some real life things.

My parents.

“Turn left here,” I tell the
driver.
 
“That building
there.
 
Yep.
 
This one.”

He pulls up to the curb and Kale hops
out, followed immediately by me.
 
I look
up, to the fifth floor where I know I’ll find them.

“I’m really nervous,” I say aloud, not
really meaning to.

“Would they really not support you in
this?” Kale asks
,
his brows furrowed when he looks at
me.
 
He slips his fingers through mine,
squeezing tight.

I shrug.
 
“It’s not really that.
 
I mean, I
know they love me and want me to be happy, but this isn’t a particularly
logical direction.
 
My parents are just…”

“Concerned for you,” Kale says, pulling
me close and wrapping his free arm around my shoulders.
 
“I’m sure they’ll see how badly you want this,
and they’ll be happy for you.”

“I hope so,” I say into his shoulder.

“We only have ten minutes here,” Tony reminds
us.
 
He’s standing just to the side of
the car, watching the crowds.

“’K,” I say, taking a deep breath and
fixing my eyes on the doors.

We ride the elevator up in silence.
 
Kale keeps looking over at me, concern
rolling off of him.
 
But he doesn’t say
anything.
 
He also never lets go of my
hand.

We get off on the fifth floor and walk
down the hall to apartment 5E.
 
The same
apartment I grew up and lived in since I was nine years old.

For half a second, I have the ridiculous
urge to knock on the door.
 
Already, I
feel like an outsider to my scientific family, and I haven’t even told them
what I’m going to do.

I open the door, and we step inside.

They both must have just gotten home
from work, because Mom is bustling about making coffee, and Dad is sitting at
the table looking over his papers.
 
This
is how it’s always been, as long as I can remember.

“Whitney,” Dad says when he sees
us.
 
His eyes pause on Kale for a long
moment.
 
“We weren’t expecting you
today.
 
Is everything okay?”

And that statement, it makes me feel
like I’m not welcome.
 
Like there must be
something wrong for me to come home.

“Yeah,” I
say,
my voice breathy and nervous.
 
“Everything is great.”

“Who’s this, honey?” Mom asks as she
crosses the kitchen, her hand extended.
 
Kale shakes it.
 
“No,
wait,
you’re the boy from that video of Whitney, right?”

“This is Kale,” I say, looking over at
him.
 
It’s hard to tell what he thinks of
my family.
 
“My
boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?”
Mom asks, one eyebrow rising.
 
“Well,
that’s not a word we’ve heard come from Whitney more than once.”

“Well, I’m honored to hold the title,”
Kale says.
 
And I’m pretty sure I detect
a hint of a hard edge in his voice.
 
“It’s nice to meet you both.”

My eyes flick to the clock on the wall
above the kitchen sink.
 
We only have
five minutes left.

“I need to talk to you both,” I say in a
rush.
 
“You might want to sit down, Mom.”

Her face instantly blanches.
 
“You can’t be pregnant.
 
I never heard of this boy until last week,
and I know there haven’t been any others.”

“Mom!”
I shriek in horror.
 
Kale’s jaw
drops.
 
“No!
 
I’m not pregnant!”