The Falling (Brightest Stars, #1)(11)

Yes, the “mayor” measured.

No, she didn’t have anything better to do.

That’s why Elodie preferred to spend her nights on my couch, or next to me in my bed, depending on where she fell asleep. I got the feeling she liked the couch the most. She didn’t wake up asking for her mom or Phillip when she was on the couch.

I planned on asking Elodie about the guy, Kael, I had met earlier. Obviously, she knew him—but how? She didn’t have many friends, as far as I was aware, and she didn’t spend much time socializing.

While I was looking at my phone for a text from my brother, hoping for one—not surprisingly, there was nothing from him—Elodie walked to the couch, sat down, and tucked her feet under her. Her petite body was changing, her belly starting to swell. I wondered where the baby would sleep in my little house. The thought made me equal parts excited and terrified.

Elodie’s favorite American show at the moment was Scandal. She was binge-watching it for the first time, and while it was on, she was completely checked out. I wished I could find something that I loved as much, to distract my mind from its constant flow of thought.

“What season are you on now?” I asked, watching her spring up again.

“Two,” she said softly, as she moved toward the kitchen.

She was being so quiet. I pulled my shoes off, and it wasn’t until I dropped one on the floor and something moved in my peripheral vision that I realized another person was in my house.

A noise, a little like a shriek, flew from my mouth when I saw him. He was staring at me, the one-syllable client. He was sitting in my chair—the dark pink, used-to-be-red one that my nana gave my mom before I was born. I always loved it, and because it had sat in my dad’s storage unit after my mom left, I decided it was mine to take. She left it, and us, and the chair was a tiny victory for me.

“Um, hey?” I said when my heart stopped doing little flips from the aftershock of surprise. How did I not see a whole human in my living room?

“How was work?” Elodie asked, looking at the TV while her fingers picked at the fabric on her frayed shorts, and then back at me.

“Good . . .”

I stared at this Kael guy and he stared back at me. When I would recall this later, the first time he was inside my house, the memory would linger in my thoughts, changing from a burning pain to pure bliss and back—again and again and again. But when it happened in real life, it happened fast. Before he was anything to me—before he was everything—he was just a quiet stranger with a blank face and distant eyes. There was something inscrutable about him, something so closed that I couldn’t even begin to read him. He hated peppermint oil and hadn’t wanted me to touch his legs during his treatment—those were the only clues I had about who he was. He stared at me for a few seconds, then looked away and stared at the wall for so long that I almost wanted to count the seconds until he blinked.

I smelled the popcorn right before the popping sound started. “I’m making popcorn,” Elodie announced. She was nervous. What was going on here? Were they having a movie night? Netflix and chill? The whole situation was weird. He was fucking weird.

“Okay . . .” I excused myself. “I’m going to take a shower. Have to be at my dad’s at seven.”

I walked down the hallway. Elodie followed, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Well?” I asked.

“He arrived home last night. He was with my Phillip.” Her voice was low, and I could tell she was gearing herself up to ask me something. My mom was like this, too, when she wanted something.

“Can he stay here for a day until he can get a hold of his . . .” She trailed off, stopping for a second. “Until he can get into his place. Sorry to ask like this, I—”

I held up my hand. “How do you know this guy?”

“Oh—I met him right before they left. He’s a good guy, Karina. Honest. He’s Phillip’s closest friend over there.”

“What’s he doing back?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “I didn’t ask. Should I ask?” She peered into the living room.

“I wouldn’t now,” I told her. “He can stay here, but if he ends up being a problem, he’s out. So are you,” I teased her.

She smiled at that and touched my arm. She was always so affectionate. Me, not so much.

“Thank you. You’re the—”

“I know, I know. I’m the best. Now I have to shower so I’m not late to my dad’s.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you should thank me.”

We both laughed and I shut the bathroom door in her face and sank against the wall. I’m not the kind of person to let a stranger, especially a man, stay in my house, but there I was, muddying my judgment for the first of many times when it came to Kael.





CHAPTER TWELVE




My house was in dire need of a few-ish repairs. It’d been that way since I’d moved in nearly a year ago. Every day it was the same dance, bouncing from foot to foot, completely naked, waiting for the water to heat up. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Once the water got hot, it didn’t stay that way—not for long, anyway.

The water went from hot, to cold, to hot again. I could barely stand it. I loved my slightly shabby house, but there were a lot of things that needed fixing and it was going to take a while to get through them all. I tried to do some of the smaller renovations myself. Like the shower tiles I bought during an overly adventurous Saturday afternoon at the hardware store. I bought cans of paint, little tubes of white gunk to patch the holes in the hallway walls, some knobs to replace the ones on the kitchen cabinets, and some tiles for the bathroom. The knobs found their way onto the cabinets. I had to admit they really did update the cabinetry like HGTV told me they would. I wasn’t necessarily good at home demo, but I really loved doing it with the little bit of money I had.