Mick
My heart threw a wobbly—tantruminginside my chest—as I watched Kayla text with her ex.
She wore the coat she’d checked before coming up to VIP, I noted. That meant she’d intentionally come outside to answer that wanker.
Had I misjudged her? Was she like me mum? Always willing to stick around no matter what kind of abuse me dad dished out to her?
I strode forward, uncaring of the cold winter night. The angry heat in my chest kept me warm as I called out, “Kayla!”
Her head snapped up. And she wore such an obviously guilty expression on her neon-sign face, I knew what I’d suspected was true.
Jealousy kicked a fireball through my chest, and the next words fell out of my mouth like smoke and ash. “You came here to be with me, but you’re out here textin’ with somebody else!”
Me parents had barely been able to go out to the local without coming home in a screaming argument about some bloke Dad insisted me mum had been flirting with. I hated how much I sounded like him now.
But I had to confront her. “You said ya blocked him, but you’ve been out here textin’ with him the whole time while I’ve been all over the club, searchin’ for you like some trained dog!”
Kayla’s expression morphed from guilty to appalled. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t do that to you! You don’t know me from Eve. But tell me you get that I’d never go back on my word like that.”
Her fierce denial took a lot of the wind out my outraged sails. I did get that. At least, I thought I did….
“Then why’d ya look so caught out just now?” I demanded, feeling defensive but also a little foolish.
“Because I did come out here to text with somebody. It just isn’t Dwayne.”
She guiltily turned the phone toward me to reveal a wall of texts. From a contact labeled “Mommy.”
The last of my jealousy faded away as I read their back and forth. But I had to ask, “Who’re Zephyr and Aziza, and why are you so worried about them?”
“Well… ah… My mom and I are kind of book-clubbing the latest Clara Quinn.” Kayla pulled the phone back and returned it to her purse with an embarrassed wince. “Basically, Zephyr is the two-thousand-year-old king of the Wind Fae, and Aziza’s the lowly Elemental Fae that he’s spent the last three books battling to marry. It was finally going to happen, but at the end of chapter five, she gets kidnapped. We’re led to believe by enemy forces—but my mom thinks Aziza’s disapproving father is behind it. So… yeah…”
Kayla finished with an apologetic shrug. “I was out here texting with my mom about what’s going to happen next when I was supposed to be hanging out with you in VIP. I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head and leaned my shoulder against the club’s brick wall. “If you were bored talkin’ upstairs with us lot, why didn’t you just tell me?”
She glanced to the side. “Well, clubbing isn’t exactly my jam, and I can only hang out in the VIP section for so long, yelling at the top of my lungs to be heard, before I need a break.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Kayla.” I furrowed my brow at her. “Why didn’t ya tell me you were ready to go?”
She tensed, then visibly swallowed. “Well, you looked like you were having a good time with those soccer guys. And I didn’t want to bother you just because I was ready to go home.”
“Just because,” I repeated, frowning down at her. “Why do I get the feelin’ you’re comparing me to your wanker ex?”
“No, I just… I guess I got a little triggered by the Eiffel Tower stuff….” She shook her head, refusing to go on.
But I shook my head right back at her and insisted, “No, tell me. Tell me what you’re thinkin’ right now.”
“It’s stupid. I mean, we only have one more night together after this. Why ruin it with real relationship expectations?”
She was trying hard as she could to let me off the hook. But something told me to keep pushing.
“A’right, then. If we was in one of thosereal relationships, if we were all about the communicatin’ aspect of things, what would you be sayin’ to me now?”
“I don’t know.” Kayla shrugged. But then her next words came out in a massive rush. “I guess that relationships are give and take. It can’t be one person doing all the taking and the other person doing all the giving. If you want me to come out and do the things you want to do—especially on short notice, without leaving time for dinner—you should be willing to do the things I want to do, too.”
By the time she finished, her expression had become adorably fierce. I had a strong urge to kiss it off her face.
But first, we needed to sort out this “hypothetical” real relationship issue.
