“I’m sorry,” I said, not even sure what I was apologizing for. I just didn’t want her to make me leave. Just for tonight, I wanted to act like Kat gave a crap about me, that I was more to her than just sex.
Turning her hand over, Kat pulled me to my feet. “Come to bed.”
I wasn’t going to question it. Blowing out the candle, I followed her into the house and down the hall to her bedroom. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I sat on her bed to take my boots off. I felt like I could just collapse onto the comfortable mattress. I unzipped my jacket and felt Kat’s eyes on me.
“You’re not wearing a shirt? What kind of a fashion statement are you trying to make?”
“It was dirty after my fight,” I explained, tossing the jacket onto an easy chair in the corner.
“Fight? So, that’s why you look like you’ve been beaten with a bat.”
“Street fighting. I wanted to let out some aggression.”
“Looks like you lost.”
I kicked off my jeans so that I was just wearing a pair of boxers. Kat pulled back the sheets and slid into bed. When I did the same, she moved closer, pressing herself into my side and resting her head on my shoulder. I told myself not to read too much into it. She just felt sorry for me, and things between us would return to normal in the light of day. But it still felt really good.
I turned off the lamp on the table beside me, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn’t see Kat, but I could feel her and hear her even breathing. I felt my eyelids grow heavier and was almost asleep when her voice spoke, pulling me away from sleep.
“You know, it’s weird. Our dads are complete opposites. Yours is an intense army man with all these expectations, while mine is a drunk that probably doesn’t think about me at all.”
“That can’t be true,” I said, even though the man was a Las Balas member. How could he not care about someone like Kat?
“It is. Sometimes I wish that we were closer, but I’m not going to spend my life trying to establish a relationship with someone that doesn’t care enough to try.”
“Fuck him,” I said, once again struggling to stay awake. I wanted to talk to her while I could. She’d be back to pushing me away soon. But exhaustion was winning the fight.
“I wish it was that easy.”
Me too.That was my last thought before I finally surrendered to sleep.
* * *
Kat was already awakeand showered when I stumbled out of her bedroom the following morning. I found her in the living room, scrolling through television channels.
“You have any Tylenol around here?” I asked, taking a seat on the other end of the couch. I didn’t even have to speak to her to know that her walls were back up. She’d sent the message by leaving me to sleep in her bed by myself.
“In the bathroom,” she said without looking away from the TV screen.
I sighed through my nose and stood, walking to the bathroom and rummaging through the medicine cabinet. I needed something to take the edge off the aches and pains from my losing the fight last night.
I went back into the bedroom instead of joining Kat in the living room. I pulled on my jeans and boots, carrying my jacket into the kitchen, where I put it on the back of a chair at the table. I poured myself a pot of coffee and looked out the window above the sink, where a familiar motorcycle was pulling into the driveway beside my own.
“Your brother’s here,” I told Kat. She clicked off the television and joined me at the sink.
“What is he doing here?” she mumbled to herself.
She didn’t look happy, and I had a pretty good idea that it was because I was here.
“I guess I’ll go,” I said, putting my half-empty mug into the sink. “Thanks for not turning me away last night.”
Kat finally looked directly at me, and her expression softened. “I really am sorry to hear about your brother.”
The front door opened, and Kat turned away from me. I felt somehow colder without her attention.
“Hey, Kat, the place looks great,” Jason said as he walked in and looked around. “You’ve really—”
He stopped speaking as he turned and saw me standing shirtless in the kitchen. His mouth opened and closed for a moment, and he looked like a fish out of water.
