He’d be sparkling like Edward Cullen for the rest of the week but he didn’t so much as bat an eye.
Of course he didn’t.
“Oh!” Gran clapped. “Look at you! A perfect pallbearer. Tori, you stand next to him and prepare your speech.”
“What speech?”
“The one you’ll give when I’m dead, darling. Something heartfelt.” She pointed one bony finger at me. “None of that sarcasm.”
Kai snorted so hard he almost dropped the box. “Yeah, good luck.”
I glared at him, but his grin only widened. Gran smacked him affectionately with her boa, which earned him a mouthful of feathers.
Ah, Karma.
“Okay!” Gran announced. “Processional music!”
She pressed play on her speaker and the opening beats of 'Another One Bites the Dust' filled the room.
I covered my face with both hands. “I can’t be here.”
But Kai … Kai was having the time of his life.
He hip-checked me lightly with the cardboard casket, genuinely dancing his way past the couches, navigating Gran’s furniture maze with impossible grace for a man shaped like a fucking boulder. He even did a little shoulder shimmy in my direction.
“C’mon, Tori. At least pretend you’re having fun. Your gran’s put heaps of effort in.”
He looked ridiculously happy; being in my house with my family and doing the stupidest thing imaginable seemed to be exactly where he wanted to be.
Something in my chest tightened when I realized how right it felt — too right. Scarily so. This was why I didn’t let people get close.
Because he’d leave.
He’s leaving, he’s leaving, he’s leaving.I chanted this in my head, never allowing myself to forget he wasn’t staying; that he’d return to his real life, while I stayed here with mine.
Gran lay down with a theatrical flourish across the loveseat, arms folded across her chest.
“Okay! Imagine I am dead. Tears only from ugly criers. Tori, begin.”
“I’mnotdoing this.” I stubbornly shook my head, folding my arms across my chest.
“Kai?” Gran turned to face him dramatically.
Kai cleared his throat, his expression suddenly softening. “Uh, right. Janet … cheers for kind of adopting me.”
My chest did that tightening thing again, only it was sharper this time.
He continued, though more quietly.
“And for feeding me. And for giving me cookies even when Tori reckoned I didn’t need them. And for telling me I’ve got good shoulders, I suppose?”
“You do,” Gran said solemnly.
Kai nodded. “Yeah. Going to miss you.”
Gran sat up slightly. “Well don’t make it sad, dear!”
Kai opened his mouth as if he were going to try again, then shifted his gaze to me, looking helpless. I had to look away.
