“Wait,” Jace called out, and she glanced at him over her shoulder. “We accept.”
Her eyes narrowed on him as she slowly turned to face him. “Are you sure? Do you speak for the others? Because I don’t want there to be any bitching later down the road that you ruined their lives or some other sobbing cry baby bitch story by accepting my offer when they didn’t want it.”
“We all agree,” Cash quickly assured her.
“Yeah,” Kale told her, his voice just as full of awe as Cash’s still was. “All of us.”
Emmie turned her eyes on me and Sin. We hadn’t said a word the entire time she had been in the room, but it was usually safer if we didn’t. With just a handful of words from either of us, we could have caused all-out war.
“Well?” she asked.
Sin nodded. “I’m in.”
“Me too,” I told her, keeping my excitement banked down for now. “Tainted Knights are now in your hands.”
She took a second to let that sink in, as if giving us a chance to change our minds, but when we all just stared down at her, she grinned. Holy hell, she was even hotter when she smiled like that.
“Well then, we have things to discuss, but that can wait. I want you five to keep your noses clean until your year is up with Harris, and then we can start turning your lives upside down. And I mean that literally as well as figuratively. No drugs.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jace assured her. “We don’t mess with that stuff.”
“Good. Because I do regular piss tests. You fail, you go to rehab. No exceptions.”
“We understand,” Cash confirmed.
“Great. I’m looking forward to working with you guys.” She smiled again and turned to leave. “I’ll be in touch,” she called over her shoulder, and Harris followed her out of the room.
The five of us stood there for several long minutes, trying to absorb what had just happened, each of us wondering if maybe we had just hallucinated the last fifteen minutes. Then Jace shook his head and we all seemed to come out of the daze Emmie Armstrong had put us under.
“Fuck yeah!” Kale yelled.
Beside me, Sin didn’t look like he was completely out from under Emmie’s spell yet. “Did that just happen?”
A grin pulled at my lips. “Hell yeah, it did, brother. You know what this means?”
“It means I get to rub it in my bastard father’s face,” Cash muttered half under his breath before he laughed wholeheartedly. “We’re going places, dickheads. Emmie fucking Armstrong is going to take us straight to the top and beyond. Just wait.”
My earlier buzz was gone, but it had been replaced with the millions of possibilities the little redhead had just given me.
“Let’s go get a drink,” Jace suggested, grabbing his wallet and his keys. “We need to celebrate.”
The others agreed, and five minutes later, we were upstairs, beers in hand as we got lost in a crowd of chicks who wanted to talk to us. But I no longer wanted to find a girl and work off the high I was on. I wanted to share the excitement of what had just happened with only one person, but she wasn’t there to celebrate with me.
I pulled her name up on my phone. It was only eleven back in Virginia, so I didn’t hesitate to call Kassa. It rang a handful of times before she finally answered, sounding groggy.
“Did I wake you?”
“No, I was only starting to doze off,” she assured me, sounding more awake now. “How did it go? Did you rock their socks off?”
I leaned back against the wall and grinned up at the ceiling. “Tonight was the best night of my life, Kas.” The smile dimmed a little though as I realized it was missing something. “Fuck, I wish you had been here.”
“Tell me about it,” she encouraged.
I closed my eyes, imagining her lying in bed with her head on her pillow and her favorite pillow hugged to her chest. I wished I had been right there beside her so I could see her face when I told her about what a firecracker Emmie had been.
“Oh my God!” she screamed when I got done telling her everything. “Gray! That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you and the guys.”
“Is that Kas?” Jace asked as he approached me. “Did you tell her?”
I glared at him, not wanting to share this moment with him and my little caterpillar. There were hundreds of people in the club, a whole slew of chicks ready to jump on his dick if he would give them ten seconds of his time. Instead, he wanted to take time away from my call with Kassa.
“It’s her.”
“Hey, Kas!” he called loud enough for her to hear him. “Love you.”
She laughed softly in my ear. “Tell him I love him too.”
“You tell him when you call him later,” I grumbled. “Or, better yet, tomorrow. You can talk to me all night.”
“Gray,” she gently scolded.
“Fine. She loves you too, dickhead.”
She sighed, but Jace only smirked.
“Now, go away,” I told him. “I’m talking to her.”
“That Kassa?” Kale asked as he handed me a new beer.
I nodded, not wanting to share my time with her with my friend, either.
“Hey, pretty girl!” he called out. “You missed a hell of a show tonight.”
“She knows. I told her.” I took a quick drink of the fresh beer and shoved his shoulder. “Go find you a chick to play with for the night. I’m spending the night with Kassa.”
He rolled his eyes at me but grinned and went back to the group of girls Cash was in the middle of. A few shot me hungry looks, but the expression on my face must have told them to keep away.
“What are your plans for the night?” she asked, bringing my attention back to her.
“The guys are getting drunk and Sin has already left with some girl.” I took a swallow of my beer. “And I was thinking of spending the night talking to my favorite person on the planet.”
Her breath caught before she spoke. “You’re my favorite person too, Gray. But don’t you want to go with the others?”
“No, little caterpillar. I’m doing exactly what I want right now. You okay with that? You’re not too sleepy?”
“No,” she whispered, but I still heard her. “I’m not sleepy at all now.”
EIGHT
Kassa
If time flies when you’re having fun, it slows to the speed of a sloth when you’re missing the people you love the most.
It was agony, waking up every morning, knowing I was alone in the house. Knowing that I was going to be alone until much later that night unless, on the off chance, one of my friends would be home from whatever summer activities they were enjoying and could visit. But that wasn’t often. They were all having the best summer of their lives, while I was slowly suffocating from the quietness of my house.
I had to find things to keep myself busy. AJ’s Gym became my salvation. I was there almost every day, finding something to do so I wouldn’t have to go home. I usually did an hour on one of the treadmills. There were huge flat-screen televisions over the cardio equipment, so I would watch some mindless morning talk shows while I was on the stair climber for at least half an hour.
I didn’t lift any weights, but a few of the regular guys who knew Gray had tried to get me to start “pumping iron” with them, or so they had teased. They were nice but a lot older than I was, and the one time I had told Gray about the guys trying to make me laugh, he had gotten quiet on me and abruptly ended the call. The next day, those guys had only smiled and called a quick hello, but there had been no more chats and definitely no more offers to teach me how to get ripped.
My gut told me that Gray had called them and told them to stay away, and while I wanted to yell at him that they were only being nice to me, I kind of liked that he had put such a quick stop to the harmless teasing and flirting from his friends. Secretly, I hoped he was jealous, that he hated the thought of me actually liking any of the bodybuilders who practically lived in the gym.
But I knew deep down that he was just b
eing overprotective—and, yeah, a dick too. I didn’t call him out on it though. Instead, I started taking classes with the other women who used the gym. I went to spin classes at six every other morning and yoga at nine. Then I did a kickboxing class on Saturdays.
With all the exercise I was getting, I was able to fall into bed every night and not care that the house was just as quiet and lonely as it was when I got up the next morning. But I was also liking the new changes I was seeing to my body. My ass actually had a curve to it, I had a cute set of abs going on, and my boobs, which seemed to have grown in the months since Gray and Jace had been gone, were even perkier than they use to be.
I hadn’t been out of shape to begin with, hadn’t even been overweight in the slightest, but the changes in my body put a smile on my face, and that was rarely there these days. I didn’t tell Gray or my brother though. I wanted to surprise them both with my new appearance, and maybe—just maybe—make Gray’s jaw drop a little if he liked the new me as much as I did.
Before they had left, I had still had a girl’s body. Now, it was all woman, and I wanted him to see it and have trouble taking his eyes off me. But there were no plans to see each other until Thanksgiving, so I had to bide my time. For the moment, at least.
School began in the middle of August, and I wasn’t nearly as excited to start my senior years as I was ready for it to be over. Two of my friends had moved away, including David, whose father was still determined to fix his “gay problem,” since camping throughout the summer hadn’t done the trick. My already small group of trusted friends was even smaller, but I was just happy to be with actual people during the day.
After school, I went straight to the gym and got in a quick run on the treadmill before taking a Zumba class. By the time I was done, I was covered in sweat and so exhausted that my eyes didn’t want to stay open.
“I thought I would find you here,” AJ said with a grin as he came into the classroom when Zumba was letting out. He crossed his massive arms over his chest and gave me a mock stern glare. “Got a call about you not twenty minutes ago. Some hotheaded rocker wanting to know if I had seen his sweet little caterpillar.”
I grimaced. “Was he mad?”
I hadn’t talked to Gray all day. Or the day before. I had been so busy with working out and sorting out everything for the first day of my senior year that I had let all of his calls go to voicemail. But the sad part was that it had been a small relief not to talk to him. I missed him so damn badly, and every time I heard his voice, I missed him even more. Not speaking to him for nearly forty-eight hours had helped me, if only a little.
“More worried than anything, sweetheart.” AJ dropped an arm around my shoulders and guided me out past the other women who were still catching up.
For most of them, this was their only time away from their children and their husbands so they could unwind, and they made it last for as long as possible. A few times, I had actually tagged along when a small group of them had gone to dinner, but I had nothing in common with any of them. They were wives and mothers, the majority in their thirties. Whereas I was just a high school student with no commitments to anyone but myself. One of them had actually said that she was jealous of me, of my freedoms, and she wished she could trade places with me.
I had laughed and pretended like I hadn’t been tempted to find a way that would let us swap lives. Because I was just as jealous of her as she was of me. I had seen her in the grocery store the week before that dinner. Her kids had been so cute, and anyone who’d looked at her with them could tell that her kids adored her. Her husband had been with them as well, and the way he had touched his hand to the small of her back the entire time they were moving throughout the store and that smug look on his face every time she glanced up at him had spoken volumes of how much he loved her.
I wanted that.
While my friends were psyched to go off to college, party for the next four years, and then start careers, all I really wanted was to start a family. I wanted to be a mom, a wife, and I ached to have those things with Gray. But that wasn’t ever going to happen, so I got good at lying and telling my friends or anyone else who bothered to ask that I was just as stoked to join a sorority at my first-choice college. I even had a five-year plan, which was what Alicia wanted me to have more than anything. Plans were good. They were safe.
But they weren’t the plans I wanted most.
AJ walked with me through the gym and outside to my car before speaking again. I could only imagine how upset Gray had been the last two days, and I felt guilty for not at least checking in with him to let him know how my first day of school had been.
“I get it, Kassa. Really, I do,” AJ told me in a quiet voice as we reached my car. He turned so we were facing each other and gave me a gentle smile. “Missing someone isn’t easy, and as close as you and that boy are, I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for you. But he’s a special case, and me and you, we’re the only ones who really understand that. Don’t push him too away too much, sweetheart. It might destroy him completely.”
I swallowed around the sudden knot that had filled my throat and blinked back the tears that threatened to blind me. “That wasn’t what I was doing, AJ. I swear it wasn’t. The last few days have just been crazy busy is all.”
His smile said he didn’t completely believe me, but he opened my car door and I got into the driver’s seat. “Just give him a call back, Kassa. Let him know you’re okay. But be prepared for him to be overbearing.”
I sighed and started the car. “I will. I promise. See you tomorrow?”
He nodded and shut the door for me but stayed where he was until I had backed up and pulled out of the parking lot into traffic. Then he went back into the gym.
Knowing that Gray would be too hard to focus on and drive at the same time, I waited until I got home before calling him. As I pulled into the garage, I was surprised to see Alicia’s SUV already there. That was the first time she had gotten home before me in weeks. I didn’t know if I should have been happy or concerned that she was home before midnight on a work night.
Concern won as I opened the back door, stepped into the kitchen, and find her leaning over the sink and vomiting. I dropped my gym bag and backpack to the floor beside the door and hurried over to help her. I poured her a glass of water and got a dish towel to wipe her face as she weakly lifted her head and gave me a grim smile.
“Thanks, honey,” she whispered in a voice rough from repeated vomiting. Her eyes were glazed with pain and discomfort, her face pale and beads of sweat clinging to her skin.
“What hurts?” I asked. There was a shake in my voice because seeing this woman sick terrified me.
She was the only parent I had ever known. I had only ever seen her sick a few times in the years she had been my mother, but they had been scary for both me and Jace because we couldn’t live without her. She was everything to us.
She touched trembling fingers to her head. “I have an awful migraine. But it’s nothing to worry about. Just stress from work, sweetheart. I’ll be okay by morning.”
“Do you have anything to take for it?”
“I have some over-the-counter migraine relief up in my bathroom.” She pushed away from the sink and started to move away from me.
I was watching so closely that I knew the second her knees started to buckle. I caught her around the waist before she could fall, thankful for the few added muscles I had acquired over the last few months so that I could help her upstairs to her room. I guided her to her bed and helped her sit. Then I hurried into the bathroom to find the medication she had mentioned.
When I came back to her, she was bent in half, her hands covering her eyes while she moaned in pain. Tears burned my eyes, but I held them back so she wouldn’t see them. Swallowing hard, I helped her lie down and then offered her the two of the gel tablets from the bottle. She swallowed them only to gag almost as soon as they were gone, but somehow, she was able to keep them down.
I set her
glass of water on the nightstand and then undressed her. I got her skirt off and then unbutton her top, but she waved me away when I would have helped her with her bra.
“I’ll just sleep like this, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Thanks for helping me. You go on to bed now. I’ll be okay.”
“But Alicia—” I started, wanting to stay with her in case she needed help in the middle of the night.
She shook her head only to grimace as the pain seemed to intensify. “Go, Kassa. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Biting my lip to keep from begging her to let me stay, I tucked the covers up around her and then turned the light off before shutting the door behind me. Blowing out a deep breath, I went back downstairs for my bags and to grab a yogurt. After taking everything up to my room, I tossed my gym bag toward the closet and put my backpack on my desk. Then I fell onto my bed with my yogurt.
As I took my first bite, my phone rang and I quickly lifted it, worried that it might have been Alicia. Seeing Gray’s picture on the screen, I had to fight a fresh flood of tears back, but this time, I wasn’t able to hold them in. I had been brave while taking care of Alicia, had been able to keep calm because she had needed me to be, but now, I didn’t have to be brave or calm.
“Hi,” I whispered in an emotionally choked voice.
There was a pause on his end, as if he could hear the tears in my voice and they bothered him. “Are you mad at me?”
I put my yogurt and the spoon on my side table and then turned onto my side, curling up into a ball as I closed my eyes, reliving everything that had just happened with Alicia. It was just a migraine, I tried to tell myself. Just a really horrible headache. She would be fine in the morning. She was okay. She was okay…
“Kas?” Gray’s voice was full of concern now, which made it louder and sharper.
“I-I’m here,” I murmured. “I just had a really long day.” I wouldn’t worry him about what had happened with Alicia. Not yet. Not unless her headache didn’t go away. “And no, I’m not mad at you.”