Chapter 10

If I speak up, I’m going to cuss.

Parker

“Oh my God!”

I sat up in my Lay-Z-Boy chair and stared at the wall.

“Jesus Christ!”

I stood up.

“It burns!”

I walked out of my apartment, pulled out my keys, and then walked into hers.

On day four of my breaking and entering, she’d handed me a key as I’d left for my run the next morning.

Now I just walked in as I pleased during the night—which was almost every night over the last two weeks since she still had nightmares, and I couldn’t let her go through those alone.

I hustled to the bathroom only to see Kayla half wearing a pair of sweatpants.

She had a tube of something red in one hand, and a mini-lipstick wand looking thing she was using to smooth the lip shit on.

I’d seen my sister use it so many times that having it so near me right now brought back memories of my sister.

Until Kayla started to curse up a blue streak.

“Oh my God. I can’t feel my lips!”

I frowned and looked at her. “Why can’t you?”

“Because this Lipsense shit is burning them off!” she whined. “They feel like they’re bleeding. Are they bleeding?”

I looked at her lips. “No.”

At this point, my heart had slowed back down to manageable levels, and I finally took in the fact that her sweatpants weren’t her sweatpants…but mine.

“Where did you get those?” I asked.

She didn’t answer because she was busy trying to blow off her lips with her hairdryer.

“I would think if you’re wanting something to stop being hot, you wouldn’t want to blow it off with a hairdryer that blows out hot air,” I drawled.

She turned the blow dryer around and shot me right in the face with it.

I blinked, my eyes automatically watering at the feel of the air being forced into my eyes.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “But Jesus Christ. I feel like something is burning them. Like I smeared a hot jalapeno pepper onto my lips.”

“How do you even think of these things?” I questioned.

She shrugged, then sighed. “It’s stopping. My God. It feels so bad. I’m never putting that on again.”

“What’s so special about it?” I wondered.

“The fact that it never rubs off,” she tilted her face “And that apparently it’s the cool thing to have right now.”

I grunted. “Cool thing to have my ass. What’s so special about it?”

“It’s Lipsense!” she cried. “Are you sure my lips aren’t bleeding?”

I looked at her lips. “No, should they be?”

“No!” she cried out, then frowned.

“Why are you still putting it on then?” I continued to push.

“Because I got it from Cheyenne, Janie’s aunt, for my birthday yesterday. I didn’t want to be rude and not put it on, so I thought that I’d try it on right before I took a shower. Then I’d take a picture and send it her way to make it look like I actually cared…which I don’t. But she doesn’t need to know that,” Kayla rambled.

I just shook my head. “If I don’t like a gift I’m given, I don’t use it. Simple as that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell me, what gift have you been given that you’ve hated?”

I thought about not telling her what it was but then shrugged. It didn’t matter whether she knew or not. I didn’t need to pretend with her.

I’d seen her at her most vulnerable—in the middle of the night trying to fight back her nightmares—she wouldn’t condemn me for a stupid gift that I refused to take.

I watched as her happy, upbeat attitude deteriorated almost before my eyes.

“It was a shirt my mother made me. It was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen in my life, and I refused to wear it or even look at it,” I admitted, remembering how bad I’d felt and how her face had fallen. “But, sometimes the truth hurts.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes, like around the holidays, it sucks. That’s all. My grandmother used to make me feel like I wasn’t all alone but…then she died, too. Leaving me with nobody.”

“You have James and Janie,” I pointed out.

She turned to me. “It’s not the same.”

No. I agreed. It sure the hell wasn’t the same.

And never would be, not until you had a family of your own again.

Right now, the only person I had in this world who was truly mine was Gunner. Gunner, whom I hadn’t gotten to attend anything with me holiday-wise since Jett’s passing.

Not that I could blame him.

It’d already sucked balls before without his mother and mine. Then, Jett was born, and we all went through the pretense of giving Jett something normal.

But then Jett passed, and our normal was not so normal anymore.

“On that, I agree with you.” I paused. “But it’s still nice to spend time with people for the holidays.”

“Usually, I do.” She paused. “When my grandmother was still alive, I’d spend them with her. But after she died, I moved into Janie’s house and spent Christmases with them. And have ever since…it’s just…I feel like I’m on the outside looking in. Like I’m there, but as a friend, not part of the family. And I know they always try to include me…but I’m the only odd duck there.”

“What do you mean?” I questioned.

She put the last little dab of lipstick on her mouth, then shoved the applicator back into the tube as hard as she could.

“I mean,” she paused. “I mean that I feel like I’m on the front porch, in the cold, while they’re all inside next to the fire. They still give me presents, but I have to open them over there, not over here.”

She gestured to the two sides of the bathroom, and I finally understood.

“Do they ask you to be separate like that?” I asked hesitantly.

I was really hoping that she disagreed and told me that a good man hadn’t done that to this girl.

“No, of course not…but I still feel like that.” She sighed. “Never mind.”

She walked out of the bathroom, pushing past me delicately, and I was left wondering what was going on with the sudden change in attitude.

I frowned. “Are you okay?”

She touched a bear that was on her bed—one that I had a feeling had been made out of one of her father’s old shirts like I’d been seeing people do lately—and seemed to blank out for a long moment.

When she turned her eyes toward me, I saw all the pain and confusion there.

“You want to go grab some dinner?” I questioned.

She pressed her fingers to her lips. “I don’t know…”

I decided to take the option off the table.

“Come on,” I gestured to the door. “Let’s go lock up my place, and then we’ll run by the Taco Shop.”

“It’s a few weeks away from Christmas, and a Wednesday. We can’t be going out like that. It’ll be busy as balls,” she commented.

“I’m not sure ‘busy as balls’ is a good euphemism. Balls don’t really do all that much,” I pointed out.

She waved it away. “Why are you here again?”

“Because I heard you screaming about your burning lips,” I told her. “And before I knew it, my body was already standing in your apartment door.”

Her lips twitched. “Did you try knocking?”

“I did the first few seconds, but then you didn’t answer and I got in using the keys you gave me.”

She was pissed then. “Well, that was just rude.”

“What, did you want me to leave you over here when there could be a possibility of something really bad happening?”

Then another look passed over her face, one that let me know just how haunted she still was—even when she tried to hide it.

“I really don’t want to go…”

I pulled her hand and guided her out of the apartment.

Once it was closed and locked behind us, I guided her over to my place and pushed inside.

Carmen met us at the door and stared, unsurprised that I’d gone and gotten her kind-of-maybe new friend. Carmen hadn’t totally decided yet. However, I was sure that she was getting to the point where she was becoming curious. She wanted to be touched by my pretty neighbor, and one of these days I was going to give her the extra push she needed…just not today.

Today, I was going to take Kayla to get tacos. Today, I wasn’t going to sit idly while also seeing those nightmares in her eyes. I just wouldn’t, and couldn’t, do it. I had to make her feel better…and I didn’t know why.