Tanner isn’t Kai, but he’s an intuitive dude.
He lets it go and takes the breakfast dishes to the sink. It’s quiet while he washes them, and I stare into space. I’m fucking floating, and I don’t find dry land until Kai comes back dressed in the construction clothes that hug his dreamboat body in all the right places.
A tic buzzes in my jaw.
Ten years ago, I’d have turned my head to hide it.
I don’t give a shit anymore. Take me as I am.
Kai smiles.
He knows.
“Hey, you wanna ride?” Behind me, Tanner is done with the sink, and he’s looking at Kai. “I’m heading past Dr. Canon’s office on my way to the printers.”
Kai glances at me, then shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll take my bike.”
Tanner nods and reminds me to meet him downstairs in an hour. Then he leaves and it’s like a ten-ton weight has been lifted from my chest. “Fucking hell. He’s like the dad you should’ve had, right?”
Kai laughs. “I guess. He can be intense, but he’s a good guy. The best.”
“I see that. How long have you been friends?”
“We’ve been acquaintances forever. Since we both signed up for mountain rescue back in the day. But we weren’t really friends until last year.”
“What changed?”
Kai chews on his lip. Thinks better of it and stops. “He saw something in me he recognized. Pulled me from a ledge I didn’t know was there yet. I don’t know if I’d be here without him.”
It hurts to hear. I can’t hide it. But Kai’s brutal honesty is as pure as him. Itishim, even if it makes my stomach flip and goosebumps prickle my skin.
“Hey.” Kai ventures nearer. He doesn’t touch me. But he doesn’t need to with the addicting heat that radiates from him and into me. “I’m sorry it got heavy. I can be fun, honest.”
“Seriously? You think I don’t know that?”
A shy smile curves Kai’s lips.
Fuck it. I kiss him. Once. No tongue. On my best fucking behavior. “Who’s Dr. Canon?”
“My therapist. I see her every two weeks. Tanner always shows up to drive me, but I never let him.”
Vital information my brain has chewed up reforms and slots into place. “That’s why he wanted to meet me here? To get up in your business on the sly?”
Kai toys with a stray lock of my hair. “He’s a crafty fucker, but there’s no need. I’ve never missed an appointment, and I won’t. I’m committed.”
“To what?”
“All of it.”
He holds my stare, and his words send my imagination straight to the gutter.He’s not talking about sex.I know it. Butfuck. It doesn’t seem to matter. Everything he does, everything he says, he’s so fucking hot—
Wind your neck in. He’s talking about recovery.
Like that, my brain does a one-eighty. It’s abrupt enough to make me dizzy, but I’m used to my thoughts playing hopscotch. I don’t try and keep up anymore, I just roll with it. “You never told me what happened.”
Kai is still playing with my hair. Tension creeps into his stance, but it’s not extreme. I’ve seen him worse, and his frustration over the crowded bar makes sense. “Maybe later?”
“You don’t have to. That’s not what I meant.”
