“Nah. I’m pretty good at not doing that these days.”
“These days, huh?” Kai dumps the broken plate in the trash and holds out his hands.
It takes me a second to understand that he wants me to do the same. That he wants to inspect me for damage. And you know what? I’ve had worse requests.
I hold out my hands. Kai grips me, and his hands seem a million times bigger, but maybe that’s just him. A gentle giant, but it’s all on the inside and even he can’t see it. “I’m okay.”
Kai checks all the same, methodical and kind. Then he lets me go and turns away. He’s whistling, his warm-brown hair damp and pushed back from his face. His broad shoulders relax as he cleans up around me, and it hits me that this is the real him—the man he wants to be and the man he is.
So I let him do his thing and take my turn in the shower. Swallow my ADHD meds and rescue my kitchen gear from my bag—a biker bandana, a knackered Oasis T-shirt, and black and white trousers that are as old and faded as my sweats. It’s a look, man. I dig it.
I drift back to the living space, half expecting Kai to be gone. But he’s still there, washing soap suds out of the sink. “You don’t have to clean up after me.”
“You don’t have to cook for me, bro.”
Touché, and it’s an arrangement I can live with. Kai’s a tall bloke. Athletic and tanned. But there’s a hollowness to his cheeks I’d bet my left nut wasn’t there before he got PTSD, and I see that shit as a challenge.
I wasn’t lying when I told him there were two things on this earth I’m truly good at. “How do Thursdays usually play out for you?”
“Me?” He glances up, squeezing water from a dish cloth and hanging it over the tap to dry.
“No,” I deadpan. “My invisible roommate. I’m trying to ask what you do for work.”
“You know what I do for work. You’ve seen me up to my eyeballs in stanky water.”
“That’s a regular thing?”
He shrugs. “Looks like it’s gonna be.”
“That makes no sense.”
Kai opens his mouth. Shuts it again and seems to take a breath. “It isn’t my regular job. I used to work mountain rescue, but I had to quit when PTSD kicked my ass to the curb.”
He didn’t want to tell me that. I see the shame creep into his face, and I’m not here for it. He doesn’tdeserveit. “Are you seriously telling me you built that kitchen from scratch as a distraction?”
“You got me. Tanner decided to do the work four months earlier than he’d planned so he could invent a job for me. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be standing here.”
The implication that he wouldn’t be standing at all is one I don’t miss. I venture closer and force myself to stop at the counter, dropping my elbows on it for good measure. “Works for me. But you realize you smashed the shit out of it, right? The kitchen? It’s the best I’ve ever had.”
“Maybe you’ve worked in shitty places.”
“Truer than you know, mate. But I worked for ten minutes at The Ivy once and I like what you built much better.”
“Ten minutes?”
“Not my scene.”
Kai chuckles. “Jax told me you dumped a can of paint on your boss’s car one time.”
“Can’t deny that either. I was having an Ian Brown moment.”
“I don’t know him.”
“No Stone Roses? We need to fix that.”
A bemused haze descends over Kai’s glorious face. He’s a patient bloke, but I’m gathering momentum. I need a circuit breaker before I lose him.
But…Stone Roses, man. He needs to know. “Where’s your phone?”
