The Year of Kai & Isa Read online

  "Took you long enough," he teases. "I thought maybe you'd fallen in or something."

  I give him a hardy har har look. "I wasn't really going to the bathroom. I was just washing my face and stuff."

  His gaze sweeps across my face, and the edges of his lips curve downward. He hurriedly plasters a smile on as he meets my gaze. "Washing your face and stuff, huh?" He rubs his scruffy jawline. "Do I even want to know what the stuff part was?"

  I roll my eyes. "I wasn't doing anything weird."

  "Sure you weren't," he teases. "You were in there for a long time, and then you come out saying you were doing stuff. That seems a bit weird, which makes you a weirdo. But I think everyone already knows that about you."

  "I'm the weirdo?" I question, elevating my brows. "You're the one who's standing here, being all obsessed with what I was doing in the bathroom."

  That gets him to grin.

  "Yeah, I guess we're both weirdoes, huh?" When I nod, his smile expands. "I guess we must be perfect for each other, then."

  "I don't know about that." I aim for a flirty, teasing tone like he almost always uses on me, but I'm not sure if I hit the mark or not. "I think you might be a little too weird for me."

  "Is that so?" He's all sorts of amused now.

  I dazzle him with a cheeky grin. "Yep."

  He shakes his head, grinning, then steps toward me and wraps his arm around my waist, placing his palm against the small of my back. "Come here," he whispers in the gentlest tone I've ever heard a guy use toward me.

  "Why?" I smirk, trying to latch on to the easiness of the conversation we were just having, because I need easy right now. Otherwise, my mind is going to go back to that room where the walls are melting, smoke is circling in the air, and death is heading straight for me. "Are you going to try to rub some of your weirdness on me?"

  He shakes his head as he wets his lips with his tongue, his gaze turning intense. "No, I'm going to kiss you."

  My lips form an O, but not for very long as his lips touch mine.

  "You always taste sugar-y," he murmurs, tangling his fingers through my hair. Then he presses me closer to him, parting my lips with his tongue.

  I suck a shaky inhale through my nose then throw my arms around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. The movement causes him to stumble into me, and I lose my balance, tripping backward. He tries to steady us but fails, and we end up bumping into the wall, his body pressed against mine. I accidentally bite his bottom lip, and I'm about to apologize when he makes this noise I've never heard a guy make before, like a soft, desperate groan. Then he deepens the kiss, keeping one hand on my back while the other molds against my cheek.

  He tilts my head back, kissing me so deeply that I can barely breathe. But, honestly, I don't care at the moment as I hold on to him, sliding my hands down his back and gripping the bottom of his shirt. When my knuckles graze his flesh, a shudder ripples through his body. Then he pulls back, but only to rest his forehead against mine, his chest rising and crashing as he breathes.

  "Jesus," he whispers. "This is … I don't even have words for it."

  Before I can ask if that's a good or bad thing, he seals his lips to mine again, so I assume it's a good thing. And for me it is, too. Like my favorite flavor of ice cream or like eating brownie batter right out of the bowl.

  The longer he kisses me, the more intense things become, to the point where I feel completely out of my element. It makes me realize how inexperienced I am and makes me wonder just how experienced he is. I mean, sure, Kai and I are close, and we know a lot about each other, including some secrets. But I don't have a clue as to how many girls he's dated, how many times he's kissed someone, how far he's gone. Has he … had sex?

  Probably.

  But how many times? And with who?

  "Why are you blushing like that?" he asks.

  I become aware that he's stopped kissing me and is now studying me with a curiously confused look on his face.

  Yeah, Isa, why do you have that look on your face?

  Because you're a freak who thinks about how experienced your boyfriend is while he's kissing you.

  What is wrong with me?

  "It's nothing." My cheeks flame.

  "It's not nothing." His gaze sweeps across his face. "That blush on your cheeks is adorable, though."

  I roll my eyes then pinch his stomach.

  He flinches, a laugh sputtering from his lips. "Vicious. I like it." He grins. "But it does mean I get to pay you back."

  Without warning, he pinches my side.

  I flinch, tucking my arm in protectively.

  "Oh, no, you don't." Holding my waist, he tucks his fingers between my arm and side and starts tickling the gummy bears out of me.

  Laughter burst from my lips. "Don't you dare tickle me."

  "You say that like I'm not already tickling you," he teases as he continues to tickle me while pinning me against the wall.

  I squirm, trying to get free, but he barely budges, lightly grazing his fingers up and down my sides.

  Seeing no other choice, I tickle him back and am reward as he giggles.

  "Don't you dare," he warns.

  "No way. This is totally fair." I continue tickling him.

  And he does the same to me.

  And, for a moment, everything is perfect, just like he said.

  But then my lungs tighten as I laugh too hard and a cough sputters from my lips.

  The doctors warned me this might happen on and off for a few days if I breathed too hard, or in this case, laughed.

  He immediately stops tickling me. "Shit. I'm so sorry. I didn't even think." He moves his hand to my back then smooths his palm up my spine as I struggle to get oxygen into my lungs. "Deep breaths, okay? You're gonna be fine."

  I do what he says and breathe in and out. About thirty seconds later, the coughing stops, but my chest aches and my eyes are all watery.

  Kai releases a stressed breath. "I think we should go lie down and watch that movie."

  I rub my aching chest and nod.

  He gently brushes his lips against mine one more time then tangles his fingers through mine and leads me to my bedroom. I feel weirdly tired as I climb into bed. After lying in a hospital bed for days, I thought I'd finally be ready to run a marathon. Or, well, run around the block.

  "What movie do you want to watch?" Kai asks as he picks up the remote from off the television stand.

  "Hmm … You pick. Just as long as it has zombies in it." I get situated, fluffing the pillow and resting my head on it. Then I tell myself to wake the hell up, that this is my first day home, the first real day I get to spend with him as boyfriend and girlfriend. I need to be awake for this. But my eyelids grow heavy almost the instant I get comfortable, and I end up falling asleep before I even see what movie he turned on.

  "Do you want to see what you're going to be when you grow up?" she whispers in my ear.

  I try to close my eyes, wanting to be Invisible Girl at the moment, but she smacks me upside the head. My eyes pop open, and I blink against the darkness, straining to see.

  "You see that over in the corner, you little shit?" She smacks me upside the head again. "That's what you're going to become if you don't obey me."

  I blink several times, trying to see what she's talking about, but darkness is everywhere, and I can't see anything. I don't even know where I am or how I got here.

  "I'm sorry, but I don't see anything," I whisper in a trembling tone.

  She slaps me against the head so hard that I stumble forward, landing on my hands and knees, my teeth clanking together, the cold cement scrapping my skin.

  "Ow," I whimper, my bottom lip quivering.

  "You're so stupid," she hisses, grabbing a fistful of my hair and forcing my head in a specific direction. "Do you see it now? Or am I going to have to make you see it?"

  I shiver, scared she's going to hit me again, so I nod. "I can see it." It's a lie. I can't see anything.

  But I can hear someth
ing …

  It sounds like a hurt animal. A whimpering, in pain animal.

  I scan the darkness, searching for it, but she yanks me up by the hair. This time, I bite my lip instead of whimpering, wanting to be strong, wanting her to not hurt me.

  "Good. Now, remember this. Remember what you're going turn out like." She starts to drag me out of the darkness. "And if you tell anyone about this, you'll be stuck down here forever. Do you understand?"

  I nod, even though I don't really understand, since I couldn't see anything in the darkness. But seeing the dark everywhere is enough for me to know I don't want to be stuck down here, so I won't ever tell anyone about this. Even though I don't know what this is.

  As she drags me from the darkness and into the light, I hear that hurt noise again, but I'm too afraid to look back, too afraid to see what she thinks I'll turn out like. So, I keep walking forward, toward the light, until the darkness begins to melt away, shifting to smoke and flames. Flames so bright they scald me, melting me away with the darkness, stealing the air from my lungs.

  I gasp for air—

  My eyelids snap open as I gasp. Darkness is everywhere, surrounding me, stealing the air from my lungs.

  I'm going to die.

  I'm dead.

  This is my tomb.

  I died in that fire.

  I am dead.

  "Shhh …" Kai's voice floats through the darkness as he smooths his hands up and down my back. "It's okay. Take a deep breath."

  Air in. Air out.

  Breathe, Isa.

  Just breathe.

  It was just a dream.

  You're in your room at your grandma Stephy's home.

  Aren't I?

  I blink several times until my eyes get used to the darkness and I can make out Kai's silhouette sitting beside me on the bed. His face is just a shadow, but I can almost visualize the concern in his eyes.

  "I'm sorry," I say once I've gotten my breathing under control.

  "You don't need to apologize for anything," he assures me, brushing a strand of hair away from my face.

  "Even if I ate all the middles out of your Oreos?" I attempt to joke, but my voice is strained with stress.

  He wavers as a small smile pulls at my lips. Kai and the middle of the Oreos. I've learned over the last handful of weeks that we've spent together that he gets really protective of that frosting goodness. Lucky for him, my favorite part is the cookie. Seriously, it's like we were meant for each other or something.

  "Okay, you don't need to apologize for anything," he tells me with a hint of amusement, "unless it has to do with you being an Oreo frosting thief."

  I laugh, my chest aching slightly with the movement.

  "Feeling better?" he asks, and I nod. He pulls me against him and grazes his lips against my forehead. "What were you dreaming about before you woke up?" he asks cautiously.

  I close my eyes and rest my head against his chest, breathing in his scent—cologne mixed with soap and something else that only belongs to him. "I'm not really sure what was going on. It was a really weird dream."

  "About what?" When I don't answer right away, he adds, "It's just that you were whimpering in your sleep … I was actually about to try to wake you up, but then you did yourself."

  "You were awake already?" I pull back to look up at him, and he nods. Then I glance at the clock on the nightstand. 12:51 in the morning? I look at him again. "Why were you still awake? And how did you convince my grandma to let you stay in here with me?"

  "I was working on some stuff," he replies vaguely. "And your grandma's okay with me being in here because she knows I'll protect you if something happens, which is what's most important right now. All the time, if you ask me." He pauses. "I gotta be honest with you, though."

  Worry stirs inside me. "What's up?"

  "Well …" He hesitates then reaches over and flips the lamp on.

  As light shines through the room, I blink a few times until my vision adjusts to the change. Then I take him in, his messy hair and bloodshot eyes.

  What has he been doing while he sat in my dark room?

  Before I can ask, he says, "Something happened while you were sleeping."

  My worry amplifies. "What?"

  He chews on his bottom lip. "Well, I guess it's not necessarily bad. At least for me. You, on the other hand, are probably going to freak out." He grows quiet, dragging out the silence.

  "Kai," I gripe, scooting toward him. "Just tell me, or I'm going to buy, like, fifty packages of Oreos, lick all the frosting off all of them, and then leave you all the cookie parts."

  He narrows his eyes at me. "You wouldn't dare."

  "I totally would," I quip.

  "All right, I'll tell you, but don't say I didn't warn you." A smirk kicks up on his lips, and suddenly, I'm worried, but for an entirely different reason. "Before your grandma would agree to let me stay the night in here, she gave me this." He digs something out of his pocket and shows it to me. And I nearly die when I realize what it is.

  A condom.

  "She did not give you that," I deny, but deep down, I know there's a chance she did.

  "Oh, she totally did," he assures me, tossing the packet down on the bed between us. "She also made sure that I understood that, when something happens between us, I make sure to be careful with you and treat you with respect."

  When something happens between us?

  But then I get sidetracked by the bigger picture.

  "Oh my God, I love my grandma more than I love cupcakes, but she seriously needs to stop with this whole … sex thing," I mumble, scratching my arm, trying to keep myself from blushing. "I mean, it's not like we were going to have sex, especially because I was asleep."

  He rubs his lips together as he observes me. "Well, I don't think she thought we were going to have sex tonight. I think she just gave it to me for the future. Not that I didn't have condoms already." He quickly clears his throat. "But yeah … anyway …" He clears his throat again and scratches the side of his nose, seeming squirmy.

  And me? My mind drifts back to those thoughts I had earlier when we were kissing, the ones that pondered if Kai is a virgin, and if not, how experienced he is. If I were like Indigo, I'd just ask him. But I'm not like her. I'm a virgin who's only kissed a few guys and who still blushes at the sight of a condom. Because, yeah, I'm that awesome.

  "So, what were you dreaming about?" Kai asks, changing the subject, something I'm super grateful for.

  "I already told you that I'm not really sure what it was about." I shrug, picking at a loose thread sticking out of the comforter.

  He lowers his head to catch my gaze. "Can you at least try to explain it to me?" When I say nothing, he juts out his lip. "Please, please, pretty please with frosting, and sprinkles, and sugar—lots and lots of sugar—on top."

  He looks so adorable that I find my lips parting.

  "It was really dark, and there was this woman there … She was hitting me, and she kept telling me to look in the corner of the room so I could see what I was going to become. But it was too dark for me to see anything. She wouldn't accept that for an answer, though, so I lied and said I could see it, and then she dragged me out of the darkness." I press my lips together for a sprinkle-of-a-sugar beat. "I thought I heard something make a noise, like a hurt animal, but I never saw what it was … not that it matters." I recline against the headboard. "It was just a dream, so …" I shrug.

  He nods, but his brows furrow. "You don't know who the woman was?"

  I shake my head. "No. She didn't sound familiar."

  He rubs his lips together, drifting off into deep thought. I wonder if he's thinking it could have been Lynn, that I'm having nightmares about her. It wasn't Lynn, though. Unless she was disguising her voice. Not that it matters since it was just a nightmare.

  "You never told me what you were doing while I was sleeping," I divert, sliding down the bed and resting my head on a pillow.

  He blinks from his daze, and his gaze flicks
to the nightstand beside the bed. "I was actually messing around on the computer."

  Weird, since the room was dark when I woke up from the nightmare.

  I push up on my elbows and look over at the nightstand. Sure enough, his computer is right there and open, but the screen is blank.

  "It actually went to sleep right before you woke up," he explains, as if reading my thoughts. "I was thinking about something … and then you started gasping …" Worry floods his eyes. "I know the doctors said that was going to happen, but it's terrifying to hear you breathe like that." He angles his body toward me and rests his hand on my hip. "I just want you to be okay."

  "I will be. But the doctors said it'll take some time before my lungs are one-hundred percent better and ready to start laughing my butt off again." I aim for a smile but don't quite get there.

  He traces circles on my hipbone, brushing his fingers underneath the hem of my shirt and along my skin, causing a shiver to spin through me like spun sugar. "I'm not just talking about your lungs … I can see it in your eyes … everything that's happened … it's affecting you."

  How he can read me so well is beyond me, but it warms my heart like melted caramel.

  "I'll get over it eventually." Will I, though? Can you just get over something like that? "It'll probably be easier once Lynn and my dad are behind bars where they can never, ever escape again."

  "I'm sure it will be," he says, continuing to trace those lovely circles on my hip. "I want you to promise me, though, that you'll talk to me about what's going on with you. From my experience …" He trails off then shakes his head. "With this kind of stuff, with people you care about hurting you, holding it in makes it worse."

  My chest aches, but not in the same way it does whenever I lose my breath. No, this ache resides deep in my heart and is connected to him.

  While Kai hasn't flat-out told me everything that his dad has done to him, I've seen and heard enough to know his father has at least smacked him around a handful of times. He's never really talked about it, just gave me bits and pieces here and there, and only when I kind of pressured him into it.

  "I'll talk about it if you talk about it," I say.