He unlocks it and hands it over without seeming to think about it.
I take it and tap my number in with a lemon next to my name. Then I open his Spotify and add the playlist heneedsin his life to his library.
He peers at the screen when I hand it back. “1989? How old are you?”
“Twenty-six, but I was born decades too late for my ancient soul.”
“Molly says that. She thinks she died at a Fleetwood Mac concert in the seventies and got reincarnated in 2002.”
Molly. I match the name with the petite bartender I met yesterday. Absorb the fondness dancing in Kai’s gaze.Are they together?Possible, but I reckon Kai’s older than me, and he doesn’t seem the type to tap a girl ten years younger than him.Friends, then. And I like that. Jax told me Molly is funny as fuck, and I wanna see this bloke laugh more.
She’d still be funny if they were together…
But oddly, that’s one thought my brain doesn’t want to chase down.
“Going back to your original question.” Kai pockets his phone. “The plumbing isn’t finished downstairs, and Tanner wants it done by the weekend, so that’s howthisThursday is gonna play out.”
“What about next Thursday?”
“What do you mean?”
“When the kitchen is finished. What are you going to do?”
Kai sighs. “I don’t know. I have a bunch of construction jobs I can quote for, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Heart not in it?”
“It’s not that, I just…fuck, you don’t want to hear this. We just met.”
“Can’t be worse than me smashing your crockery already.”
“I told you I don’t care about the plate.”
“Neither do I. I am who I am, mate. I gave up worrying about it a long time ago.”
“You don’t get frustrated with yourself?”
“All the time. But I don’t wish I was different. Just that I liked it more.”
I didn’t wake up with the intention of an existential examination, but I don’t mind. Kai is easy to talk to, and helistens, I can tell, filing away the bargain-basement wisdom for another day. “Anyway.” I straighten and retie my hair. “I need to meet Tanner. You coming?”
Kai blinks. “What?”
“Downstairs. You have work too, right?”
“Right.” It takes him a second, a heartbeat where I see the struggle from last night overtake him. But he fights it back and retrieves a utility belt from a cupboard. “Let’s go.”
We leave together, him squeezing back past me to lock the door.
He doesn’t complain that I forgot, and I don’t apologize. Couldn’t even if I wanted to, cos I’m too busy taking a lungful of his earthy scent and then pretending I didn’t.
We descend the stairs. Knowing Tanner is waiting somewhere at the bottom and this sacred time with Kai is nearly over...it slows my steps, though I can’t say why. We live together and we’re headed to the same place for the day. It’s not like I’m never going to see him again.
“Joss?”
My name on his lips jerks me to a halt. I stop on the third stair from the bottom and give him my full attention without question.
Kai chews on his bottom lip, the scruff on his face glinting in the sunshine filtering through the landing window. “I don’t want this job to finish because being out in the real world again scares me to death.”
