CHAPTER NINE
Ky
I felt like I was to blame for all of this. I’d left her behind. I didn’t stay and protect her. There were things she wasn’t telling me and I didn’t have the first clue how to get her to open up and talk.
Ten years was a long time. Ten years of me being out here, living a life that was the total opposite of what I’d grown up in. I knew all the things she had been put through, because I’d had to go through them too. I knew the shock of being away and I had a good idea of how it must have been for her right now.
Pregnancy aside, that was.
Because I didn’t have the first clue about that.
And if I was being honest, I didn’t have any sort of idea how to comfort and help her with that.
“Hey,” Chris said as he walked up behind me.
I tried my best not to jump. I’d been so lost in my head and my thoughts staring out at the crashing waves. I heard them more than saw them because the moon was only a sliver hanging high in the sky.
“Here,” he said as an opened beer appeared over my shoulder. “I got the feeling like you could use one.”
I couldn’t even open my mouth to tell him that he wasn’t wrong.
I hated that I felt uneasy around him. I hated the tension that hung in the air between us and I knew that it was all my fault. Everything in my head was still sorting itself out and I wasn’t sure if it ever would.
“Thanks,” I managed to choke out as he took a seat in the sand beside me. “You’re not very good at staying mad at people, huh?”
He huffed out a laugh and I couldn’t help but let the side of my lips tip up in a half smile.
When he stormed off from me last night I honestly didn’t know what to do. I wanted to reach out and explain things, say that I was sorry and all that, but I couldn’t get anything out. His words were like a slap to the face, but it was his tone that really made me wake the hell up. I’d never seen that side of him, never heard him talk like that. And I was just utterly in such shock that I didn’t know how to react.
But he was here, acting as if last night hadn’t even happened. I wasn’t about to take it for granted but at the same time, I wanted him to know that I hadn’t forgotten. Not in a negative way, though. I may not have said it, but his rant did get to me in more ways than one. I needed to open my eyes and maybe, my heart too.
“No,” he replied. “I’m actually really bad at it.”
I could see that. I couldn’t recall a time I’d ever heard him say a bad thing about anyone in a non-joking manner.
“How’s she doing?” Chris asked, the genuine concern shown through in his voice.
That was one thing I really liked about the guy. He cared about everyone and he was never fake. If he took you under his wing, he took you into his heart. He was easy to talk to and always the first to smile.
That fucking smile.
I had to hold back a groan just thinking about it.
There went my damn brain again. These were things I didn’t need to be thinking about. Imagining his smile only made me think about his lips. And thinking about his lips…
Nope. No. Nuh-uh. Not going there.
“You know better than I do,” I said and let out a short, harsh laugh. I wasn’t trying to be an ass and I hoped I hadn’t come off that way. “She won’t talk to me.”
I wanted to hate Chris and give into the stab of jealousy that hit every time I walked into a room and they were there laughing or talking together. And it had nothing to do with the confusion that clouded my head. Because it was clear that Chris saw Ingram like a little sister and I could tell that when she looked at him, there was no wide-eyed, starry shit going on there. It was simply because he had the relationship that I wished she had with me. I wanted to be the big brother protector that she could confide in. The one that she turned to for comfort and support. I understood that things were strained but I didn’t have the first clue on how to fix it.
“She’s scared,” he said and out of the side of my eye, I could tell he wasn’t looking at me as he spoke. That was good, I wasn’t sure I’d be alright with his eyes on me right then. “She came here looking for you, so that has to mean something, right?”
“Yeah, but what does it mean? Why? What the hell happened? I get that she’s scared and honestly, so am I. But what I can’t wrap my head around is how this happened. She’s hiding something and I hate that I can sense that but don’t have the first clue how to get her to talk to me.”
I knew Chris didn’t have the answers to anything, but I still felt the need to put them out there to the universe.
He’d just gotten off work, I didn’t need to bombard him with a bunch of heavy shit when he had come out here to unwind. I suddenly felt like I was intruding on his special time.
I noticed shit, though I tried not to. Most nights when he got home, he wouldn’t even go into the house. He’d end up out here, sometimes staring out at the ocean for an hour. I never bothered him and I was sure he wasn’t even aware that I sometimes would watch him the entire time he sat in this very spot.
I finished my beer and brushed the sand off my hands.
“I should go,” I said as I moved to stand.
His fingers wrapped around my wrist and I froze halfway to standing. His hand was so warm and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t deny the zap of electricity that sparked the moment he touched me.
“Or you could stay,” he said as his eyes looked up into mine.
Those damn blue eyes. Tonight they were deep blue and filled with a hint of sadness. I wondered if I had been the reason it was there. I didn’t want to care as much as I did, but it seemed I couldn’t help it.
My legs gave out and my ass hit the sand with a soft thud. His fingers remained around my wrist for a few more seconds and when they slowly slid away, I wished for his touch again.
“I think it’s safe to say that Ingram is a little different,” he said, his eyes set straightforward at the dark sea. I knew he wasn’t being negative or judging her, so I let him go on. “She takes everything in with the wonderment of a child. Seeing it sometimes makes me wish I could have that back—the unknowing.”
He let out a dry chuckle.
“Yeah,” I said on a sigh.
I knew exactly how he felt. Only thing was, once my eyes were opened to the real world, I realized two things. One, the outside world is scary at times. But two, it was even more terrifying to realize that what you’d been raised in most of your life was the real horror.
“You were like her once, yeah?”
“Yes,” I said, then tried to clear the lump that was clogging my throat.
I was torn between wanting to forget and needing to give in to the urge to confess.
“Tell me about it?” Chris asked and something in his tone let me know that he’d never judge me—not for the mistakes I’d made or the past that held me bound, though I tried so hard not to let it.
“I was four,” I started, my gaze cast downward at the sand between my legs. “I didn’t know what was going on. My parents pulled me out of preschool, away from my friends and my grandma. We moved, and I had no idea where to. Ronald, my dad, said that he needed to get away from the temptations of the world. ‘The whores that called a man to betray his wife’ he’d said. I’ll never forget that moment. I didn’t know what a whore was back then, but the way he was going on, I believed they were truly evil.”
The memories slammed into view with a collision that had me rubbing my head.
“We drove through the gates and I started to feel panicked, but my mother assured me that it was a good thing. When we stepped out of the car, a man embraced my dad like he’d known him for a lifetime—like he’d finally come home, if you will.”
Chris didn’t say anything. I needed that if I was going to keep telling my story.
So, I continued on. That man that greeted my dad would only go by the name of Father. My mother remained my mother, and my dad became Ronald. It was like he held some sort of higher, yet lower, rank. It was confusing, especially to a four-year-old boy. And somehow my mom only being my mother, made her lesser than any being.
The camp was set up very strangely, like nothing I’d ever seen before. There was a ‘town center’ in the middle. I don’t know why it was called that, it wasn’t really a town. Long buildings made out of cinder blocks went on for rows, all of them creating an odd circle around the cleared out center area. All of them painted white with small windows. I learned later this was the housing for the people that lived inside of the gates—for us. There was one building that stood out among the others. A two-story building that could have passed for a farmhouse. Later, I was shown that the bottom part of that building was where church and school were held, and the top was Father’s housing. He liked to be raised above the rest of us. ‘His people’ as he called everyone. He liked to watch over us but it felt more like fear than comfort.
“The children went to school in the morning then worked the fields and did chores until dinner time. Though all the families all ate separately, dinner had to be ready by six. Lights out by eight. There were so many rules, and I remember wondering how I was supposed to remember them all.”
Something warm brushed by my hand. It was then that I realized I was gripping the sand tightly like I could hold onto the granules. I forced my hands to uncurl and relax on top of the sand. Chris moved his pinky to hook with mine but he still hadn’t looked at me.
It was a small gesture but it was big to me. My heart slammed against my chest and I felt like I was all talked out even though I’d barely started.
“So you’re telling me that you were raised in a—” he started to say but I couldn’t let him finish.
“Don’t,” I choked out. “Don’t say it. People look at you different when you say you were raised in a…”
“But you were, right?”
“In a sense, yeah.” I shrugged. I really hated this. “It wasn’t all that bad. Until that one night…”
I didn’t want to talk about what had sent me running.
“Ingram didn’t know any better,” I said, skipping over what I was avoiding. “She was born there, ‘pure in blood’ Father had called her. See I wasn’t. I knew the so-called dirty of the world. Never mind the fact that I didn’t remember much of it. But Ingram, she didn’t know what it was like to grow up surrounded by diversity. She didn’t get to have our grandmother there for holidays and birthdays. I wanted to take her with me so bad, but she saw me as a traitor when I tried. She screamed and told me that she didn’t want to be tainted. She looked me in the eyes and it was like she didn’t even recognize me. She told me she’d pray for my soul and that she’d never see me again because I would belong to the devil.”
“Shit,” Chris said and I could feel the heaviness of my story reaching his soul.
“Seven years old and with the blink of an eye, she hated me. She was seven, Chris, and I left her there to live that life. This,” I tossed my head back in the direction of the house, “is my fault.”
“No, Ky. You can’t believe that.”
“I do.”
There was a long moment of silence. Either he knew better than to try and convince me differently or he agreed with me. Knowing Chris and how he always seemed to see the good in everyone and every-fucking-thing, I would have put money on the former.
“She has us now, she’ll be alright,” he said and something in that statement made my heart clench tight. It was hard to breathe and if I couldn’t feel the cool sand under my ass, I would have sworn I was drowning.
He was maybe right, though. Ingram had me, full of sin as I was, I came with a club full of men that would have my back and take care of anyone I brought into their family. And I had Chris, despite the distance I’d tried to place between us.
“I had a group of sorority girls in tonight,” Chris said with laughter in his tone. “You should have seen that mess. Each of them tearing the other’s hair out to get to B-ry and Sketch. B-ry seemed like he didn’t want anything to do with them and of course, Sketch was willing to take them all.”
My laugh mingled with his and faded into the dark sky.
“How many did Sketch try to take on?” I asked.
“Oh, I saw him disappear about three times. Then at closing time, he had two of them wrapped around his arms as he walked out.”
I nodded. Knowing Sketch, that seemed about right.
“Blade left with one and Tripp and Charming looked like they might have had something going with one of them too. I don’t even think one of those girls left without getting a taste of the leather.” He chuckled.
“I wouldn’t doubt it. Oh, man, I’m kinda glad I won’t be around in the morning. Then again, it would probably be an amusing sight,” I said thinking about the whole send-off that the guys would give them.
I knew it all too well. I might have done it a time or two. In general, I wasn’t an asshole to the women I slept with. Most of the time they came knowing the score. The ones that didn’t, I made sure they left happy and fed, but understanding that it wouldn’t be happening again. It seemed that pancakes and an iced latte always softened the blow.
It occurred to me then, that I’d never really seen Chris with anyone. I had seen him make-out with people before, and even gone more in the PG-13 direction, but I’d never seen him walk away with anyone—girl or guy. That confused the hell out of me. I had no idea what was up between him and Brand, and I wasn’t in a place that I could ask. They had this weird friendship and even with me witnessing that kiss, I felt like it was simply that—a deep, brotherly friendship. And I’d seen Chris get hot and heavy with random girls. So the big question that stuck in my brain was if he was trying to hide something or not. He’d never blatantly flirted with me or any of the guys. I’d never heard him mention a guy in a sense other than friendly. I honestly didn’t care if he was gay or not, but the fact that I needed to know the answer to that mystery was overpowering.
Why?
I had no idea.
It may have had something to do with the swirling confusion I was having. A smarter, more aware, man would have said it was because I was trying to figure out myself more than his sexual preference. But I was a dumb fuck that was currently trying his hardest to avoid the whole thing.
If I did admit that I had something other than friendly thoughts towards Chris, what would I do with that anyway? If I made a move and he wasn’t really into guys, that would just make everything even more strained and awkward than it already was. Things were complicated, to say the least.
I stood, deciding that was a problem for another night. I had too much on my plate already. Ingram needed me and I needed to step up and be the family and brother she’d come here looking for. I needed to stand beside her and help her figure out what was next. But I had no clue what that was. I didn’t know the first thing about a pregnant woman let alone the baby that would be here soon enough.
“Thanks, Chris,” I said as I brushed the loose, dry sand off of my ass. “Night.”
“It’ll be okay, Ky. Just remember, the two of you have people. You guys aren’t alone.”
I nodded and headed back into the house. Given the heavy talk I’d just had and the part of my soul I’d bared, I should have felt uneasy. But instead, I felt like I’d set a part of me free. I felt a tiny bit lighter and maybe even a little less alone.
Weariness set deep into my bones and I flopped in my bed, welcoming the much-needed sleep.