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.”