Whisper to Me

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.