CHAPTER 3
Morning came too soon, and I woke to the sound of my dad knocking on my bedroom door. “Get ready.” He yelled. “We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”
“Uhhh,” I groaned. “Okay, getting in the shower now.”
I shuffled to the bathroom, feeling the stiffness in my muscles and the ache in my ass. It was still dark, and I tripped over something large and heavy on my way across the room. I didn’t stop to figure out what it was.
The hot water cascaded down my body, soothing me and eliciting a deep groan of pleasure. That is until it hit the raw skin of my scuffed up knees, and I hissed and clenched my teeth against the pain. I could barely bring myself to touch my ass. Not only did it hurt, but it felt wrong to wash Kage off of me. I could still feel him there, his strong hands holding me open, the head of his dick stretching me open, his seed pulsing up into my body. My eyelids fluttered closed, and I let my fingers skate over the tender, swollen flesh, wishing those fingers belonged to someone else. I turned, pushed my face beneath the stream from the shower head, and allowed myself a good cry. My shoulders shook with emotion, and I was glad the water was washing away the tears before they could fall.
After I got out of the shower, I discovered that the thing I had tripped over on my way to the bathroom was Kage’s leather suitcase. We’d packed all of our things together in one bag, which at the time had been nothing more than a convenience. Now it was a legitimate excuse to contact him.
Thank you, God!
I didn’t even bother putting on any underwear before I hopped onto the bed and drafted a text to him. “You left your stuff.”
For ten minutes I sat bare-assed on my bed, shaking my foot nervously, chewing at the skin on the edge of my thumb, clicking the tips of my fingernails against my teeth. I was like a junkie waiting for a fix. I waited and waited, but no answering text came. The longer I waited, the more nervous I got, and the heavier my heart felt in my chest. He was probably just asleep. Surely after all we’d been through together he wouldn’t just ignore me. It wasn’t like I was trying to beg him back or anything, I was just telling him he’d forgotten his things.
I finally dragged the suitcase onto the bed and rummaged through it, selecting a pair of my boxer briefs, a comfortable t-shirt, and my black skinny jeans. Then I traded the jeans for a pair of loose shorts, reminding myself that it was going to be a long day of being stuck in a hospital. I walked over to the full-length mirror on my closet door and got a good look at myself. It was shocking.
There was a long scratch on my cheek, not deep at all, but pink and slightly swollen. When my face had been pressed against the ground the night before, it hadn’t occurred to me that there would be visible damage. Worse than that, there was a huge purple mark on my shoulder where Kage had bitten me. I repositioned the neckline of my t-shirt, praying it would stay put, remembering the ache as Kage sucked the blood to the surface. The memory made my stomach tighten, and I tried to forget how hard I’d gotten off on making Kage lose control like that. Because no matter what he might say or how he might try to play it off, I knew he had lost it. It was in the way he touched me and in the tone of his voice.
The big, bad fighter had lost his shit, and it was all because of me. I smiled to myself.
The smile turned to a frown when I noticed my knees. Jesus, they were scraped up and bruised. I sighed and returned to the suitcase, reluctantly pulling my black jeans out again and putting them on. I already had enough strikes against me without having to explain to my dad how my knees had somehow gotten banged up in the few hours since he’d gone to bed. Somehow I didn’t think he’d buy that I’d been sleepwalking on my knees in the yard.
Jennifer stayed with Paul while Mom, Dad, Layla and I went to the hospital. I checked my text messages on the way there, hoping for an answer from Kage concerning his forgotten luggage, but there was nothing. It was still early, though.
The next hours passed like sand through my fingers. Mom was having the operation done at Grady Memorial, the same hospital where she worked as a nurse, so she got fast tracked in through the check-in process. They already had most of her information on file, and her friends worked to make things as painless as possible for her. She even knew the surgeon who would be performing her operation.
“It’s going to be weird seeing Dr. Fisher in the halls after he operates on me,” she told the nurse who helped her into the wheelchair and took her back to get prepped for surgery. “I think I’ll feel almost embarrassed.”
“Those doctors have seen everything. They’re used to it,” the nurse told her with a chuckle and she wheeled her through a set of double doors and down the hall. Mom didn’t look back at us, but we’d already been told we’d get to see her again just before she went in. Sure enough, about an hour later Dad and I were ushered through a maze of halls and into a curtained area, leaving Layla behind in the waiting room because she wasn’t immediate family.
Mom was leaned back on a hospital bed, looking surprisingly calm in a well-worn hospital gown, her arms lying limply at her sides. She’d already been drugged with something to relax her, and boy did it ever work. She was smiling contentedly and slurring about what a nice man Dr. Fisher was, and how great the Grady nurses were, and how she appreciated how everyone was so supportive of her. Later on in the operating room, she’d be anesthetized, intubated and put on a ventilator. The thought of that made me nervous, but I wasn’t about to share it with anyone. We all needed to stay positive.
“I love you,” she told first dad, then me, her slur becoming more and more pronounced as she talked. Her eyelids kept slamming shut, and it was clear she wouldn’t be conscious for much longer. “They say you talk crazy when they sedate you. Tell all of your secrets. Don’t let me tell my secrets, Jamie. If I start talking crazy, you just hush me up, okay?”
“You’ll be fine, Mom.” I smiled and held her hand, not wanting to look down at the IV in her arm. It made it too real. “You won’t say anything embarrassing.”
“I hope not.” She pulled her hand free of mine and tried to pat my cheek. Instead, her hand crumpled against my chest and slid back down to the bed. “Such a good boy. Where’s Layla? I’m so glad she’s not pregnant. You two be safe, okay? You need to finish school before you start a family.”
That made me blush like mad. “Mom, Layla and I are just friends. We’re not together anymore.”
“I thought you got back together. She called to see about me when she found out I was sick.”
Something inside me, some perverse and reckless thing, decided to test the boundaries of my tiny life, and I found myself saying something stupid just to see what would happen.
“I’m seeing someone else now.” It may not have been exactly true, but I wanted it to be true.
I averted my gaze from her and accidentally found Dad, who was watching me suspiciously. His eyes were so narrow I had to question whether he could see out of them, and he was biting the inside of his lip. “Jamie, do you really think this is the right time to discuss your love life? Your mother is about to go into surgery.”
“Sorry.” I cleared my throat. “She brought it up. I just didn’t want her to think—”
“I said shut up,” Dad barked, and I snapped my mouth closed.
Thank goodness Mom was nodding off. Her head lolled over onto one shoulder, and she seemed unable to think coherently anymore, which I thought was a blessing. I didn’t want her to have even one more second of worry. Dad’s outburst had been shocking, to say the least. The man was opinionated and didn’t usually agree with the choices I made, but yelling for me to shut up was harsh, even for him. I supposed he was just on edge because of worrying about Mom.
After they wheeled her into surgery, we returned to the waiting room, and I sat between Layla and Dad. All three of us were engrossed in our phones for the duration of the wait. Dad played Candy Crush, Layla texted incessantly with her friends, and I answered messages on Kage’s website and social media profiles. There weren’t a ton of them, but I drafted careful responses to each one, making sure I didn’t say anything that could be misconstrued. Every now and then, I’d click over to make sure a text from Kage hadn’t slipped in while I wasn’t looking. Of course, it hadn’t.
There was a TV monitor in the waiting room that listed all of the patients who were in surgery and their current status. Over the course of the morning, we watched Mom’s status change from Prep, to In Surgery, and finally to In Recovery. When the last status popped up, I took a deep breath, and only then did I realize just how tense and frightened I’d been. After a while, a nurse came and fetched us to the ICU where Mom would stay until they felt it was safe to put her in a regular room, where she would recuperate for several days before going home. Again, Layla wasn’t allowed in. Mom spoke first to Dad and then to me. I can’t remember what she said exactly. All I can remember was thinking how glad I was to be hearing her voice again.
Once it was announced that she would be fine, I took Dad’s car and drove Layla back to get her VW. It was as awkward a drive as I could ever remember having. I stared straight ahead like I had blinders on, tapping my thumbs on the steering wheel in time to the music on the radio.
Finally, Layla turned to look at me. “You know, you don’t have to try so hard to pretend nothing is wrong, Jamie. Your mom is in the hospital, and you broke up with—” She couldn’t say his name. “That guy.”
Hey, at least she had chilled with the Spanish slurs.
“I’m not pretending,” I lied, working to keep my tone even. Was that how normal people sounded? I couldn’t quite remember. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”
Layla huffed and turned to face forward again. When I chanced a quick glance in her direction, her delicate features were drawn tight, and I realized that I wasn’t the only one who was hurting.
“Hey, Layla…” I didn’t know what I was going to say to her, but words rolled out anyway. “I appreciate you being cool about all of this, for being good to me when you don’t have to be. I know it can’t be easy for you to see me like this, but I promise you one thing: I was into you while we were dating, okay?”
I saw her cut her eyes over at me skeptically, so I pressed on, needing her to understand.
“You’re the coolest and hottest girl I know, and I care about you. But this thing with Kage? It’s the first time I’ve ever felt like I was in a grown-up relationship. Does that make sense? Like you date a bunch of people, and you care about them all, and then all of a sudden you realize that this new person might be different.” I glanced sideways at her and laughed for the first time in what felt like forever. “Hell, I don’t know what I’m saying. I suck at this relationship stuff.”
“Actually, I hate to say this, but I think maybe you’re pretty good at it for once. You did kinda suck at it when we were together. It makes me think.” She bit her lip and stared thoughtfully out the window. “I think maybe I haven’t fallen in love yet. Not true love. I thought I was in love with you and we would get married someday, but when it didn’t seem like you were moving in that direction fast enough, I was ready to find someone else. That couldn’t be true love, right? Being ready to throw it all away that fast?”
I didn’t answer. She had just admitted that what we’d had together wasn’t love, and I agreed, so it was settled. End of discussion. I definitely did not want to keep that particular can of worms open. The best thing to do was just shut it and back away slowly.
When we got to the house, I didn’t even bother going inside. Instead, I rounded the side of the house and made a beeline straight for the gazebo, silently cursing it. Gazebos were supposed to be romantic, but this one would forever remind me of the worst moments of my life.
I figured Layla would just grab her shit and get in her car and go, but instead she followed me. Honestly, I think she was scared I was going to do something crazy.
“Go home, Layla,” I said.
“Not until I know you’re okay. Where are you going?”
“Gotta find my necklace.” I went to the other side of the gazebo and stepped into the woods, unconsciously rubbing at the rope burn on the back of my neck. “Kage tore it off and threw it out here, and I’ve got to find it.”
I started rooting around for it, praying it hadn’t slid beneath the thick carpet of dead leaves on the floor of the woods. I heard the crunch of Layla’s steps behind me.
“Don’t move anything,” I growled.
“I’m not stupid,” she growled right back. “I know how to search the woods. Remember, I’ve seen every episode of CSI. We need to do it like in a grid pattern so we don’t miss anything.”
I sighed. “Fine. But I don’t want to talk, okay?”
“Fine.”
She and I followed a makeshift grid pattern for at least a half hour, walking with our heads down, seeing nothing but leaves and twigs and the occasional skittering spider or beetle. The monotonous crunching of our feet in the leaves did little to occupy my thoughts, leaving me too much time to think, and the longer the search went on, the more anxious I felt. Right about the time I was thinking my eyes couldn’t take it anymore, when everything started looking even more the same than it had before and I wondered if I was descending into madness, Layla shouted, “I found it!”
A more vindictive ex might have kicked it even deeper into the leaves, or stuck it into her pocket to burn later. But not Layla.
She bounced on the balls of her feet and waved the broken necklace in the air, doing one of her cheerleader high-kicks and sending leaves flying. I couldn’t help laughing at the absurdity of it as she danced around, shaking her ass and making celebratory hoots out into the woods, probably spooking every animal in the vicinity. I just stared, charmed by her audacity, remembering for a moment exactly why I’d started dating her in the first place.
When she finally stopped twerking and came over to drop the necklace into my palm, I looked down at it with a mixture of relief and regret. “Thanks. I don’t know what I wanted it back for, though. Doesn’t mean anything now.” I shoved it into the pocket of my jeans.
I walked Layla to the house to get her overnight bag, then to her car. After I opened the door of the VW for her, she reached up to put a hand on my shoulder. “Stop being such a downer, Jamie. The culero will be back. Trust me.”
“His name is Kage,” I corrected sternly. “Or Michael if you prefer. Anything but that awful word.”
“Whatever.” She smiled and climbed into the driver’s seat.”
I didn’t wait around to watch her drive away. I went back inside where Jennifer and Paul were on the sofa watching Cartoon Network.
“Mom’s still okay, right?” Jennifer asked apprehensively. “No change from when she got out of surgery? Dad called and said she was doing great.”
“Yeah, they said she’s doing really well, but they’re keeping her in ICU for a little while. No big deal. They do that with everyone, just to make sure they don’t start bleeding or something. In a few hours when she’s out of the woods— their words, not mine— they said they’ll move her to the floor.”
“When can we see her?” Paul asked, his eyes vulnerable and scared. He was so young, and he’d never been without his mother.
“Soon,” I assured him. “But don’t worry, she’s doing really great. And Dad’s there taking care of her. She’ll be home in three days, okay, buddy?” I wondered if I sounded like was talking down to Paul, as if he was a toddler instead of ten years old, but the tension drained from his shoulders and he grinned, so I figured I must have done alright.
“Okay, Jamie.” He snuggled into Jennifer’s side and turned his attention back to the television. “Do you like Johnny Bravo?” he asked.
I bounced onto the sofa beside him, squeezing him between Jennifer and me. “Are you kidding? I love Johnny Bravo!”
We watched TV for a while, and both Jennifer and I ignored the fact that she was the most annoying bitch on the planet and had effectively ruined my fucking life. There would be time for revenge when Mom was better, and when my feelings weren’t so raw.
I checked my text messages at least twenty times, totally cognizant of the fact that doing so was borderline insanity. Miraculously, my text notification sounded while I wasn’t looking, and I fumbled my phone trying to get to it. It was from Kage.
“Keep the shit. I don’t need it,” the text read, and I flushed with embarrassment. After waiting for hours for a reply, this is what I got— a big, fat fuck you.
It hurt that he was so done with me that he’d rather not get his stuff back than to have to see me again. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I would have retrieved anything at all— a worthless scrap of paper or a half-eaten candy bar— just as an excuse to see him.
Apparently, he did not feel the same about me.
I slipped off to my room and headed straight for Kage’s bag. I planned on digging through it and seeing what treasures of his were now mine. Keepsakes that would do little to fill the gaping hole he had just blown in my heart. What I found made me catch my breath.
Kage had left his tablet. It was one of those laptop hybrids that were more powerful than my computer and cost close to three grand. I’d never actually seen him working on it, but a couple of times I’d caught him shutting it down as I approached. I remembered him asking me on my first day of work if I had embarrassing things on my laptop, and telling me he’d be disappointed if I didn’t. What I now held in my hand was a window into his soul.
What secrets are you hiding in here, Kage?
I hit the power button and watched it fire up, letting out a shaky breath when I saw the inevitable password screen. I knew I shouldn’t try to break in, but I also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would try. He was gone and it was all I had left of him, so how could I not?
If I’d realized what a hard lesson I was about to learn, I would have slipped that tablet right back into the suitcase and shipped the whole shebang back to Vegas where it belonged. Because no matter how tempting a prospect it may be, stealing an unbuffered glimpse into a person’s soul is never a good thing.