Page 80 of Perfect Chemistry

“How have you been?” he asked quietly, staring down at his own drink.

“Ok,” was all that I could manage. I was alive. That was ok, right?

“Um, I didn’t mean to call you last night. I’m sorry if I disturbed you and your husband,” he apologized.

Kai apologized for disturbing me and my hus- I started laughing. He had heard Jonas and I yesterday afternoon, and really thought Jonas was my husband. The more I thought about it, the more I found the irony of it funnier and laughed harder.

“You are apologizing for calling and disturbing me and my husband, when your girlfriend was taking care of you last night?” I asked him, my voice clipped with bubbling rage.

His head shot up and his eyes locked with mine. “Katie, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

My building anger crumbled with those words, “What?”

He looked at me honestly, “I said that I am not seeing anyone. There is no one in my life except for the people in this house and Bradley’s family. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Now I was confused. If he didn’t have a girlfriend who the hell was answering his phone at one o’clock in the morning? “Then who answered your phone?” I asked before realizing that I had just admitted to calling him back.

I watched his eyes, and knew that he was piecing things together.

“That was the bartender at Stone Balloon. Bradley was trying to get me out to his car and I left my phone on the bar. She was pissed that I wasn’t interested in her and smashed my phone,” he admitted to me.

Wait. Why was I sitting here listening to this?

“What do you want from me, Kai?” I asked him without any mixed messages or coy wording. Straight to the point.

“I want to take my friend out to dinner. That is if we are still friends?” he asked, looking at me like I could crush his heart at any second.

“I wasn’t the one to break our friendship,” I whispered. I could feel every single emotion in me bubbling up. Nervousness, anger, joy, curiosity, butterflies, and hope. No hope. I took a deep breath and tamped the hope out. There would be none of that.

“You can bring your husband,” he offered and all thoughts in my head stopped.

I cleared my throat as I felt it getting tight. I willed myself not to cry. “Um, that won’t be possible-” but he cut me off.

“Oh, yeah. You’re right. Your husband would probably be pissed that I am asking to take you out to dinner. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” he apologized again.

“He can’t come because he passed away,” I whispered out. There. I said it. Out loud to someone else. I admitted that Ty was gone.

Kai’s face paled and then flushed a bit when I said those words. I must have looked like I was about to crumble, because the next thing I knew he was sitting next to me and pulling me into his arms. There was nothing sexual about the hug, he just caressed my back and held me while I cried quietly.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Kat. I didn’t know,” he whispered quietly against my hair.

I don’t know how long we sat there, but I must have cried myself to sleep in his arms. I heard quiet whispers around me, but I had nothing left. I was thoroughly exhausted, and just let myself drift off again with my head leaned against a shoulder.

* * *

Kai’s POV

I pulled Katie onto my lap and held her while she cried. I don’t know what happened in the time we were apart, but whatever it was destroyed her. She was pure sunshine in school, so happy about life and everything that the future held. This woman in my arms was broken in ways that I couldn’t understand yet. But I would hold her if she let me. I would hold her every night if she let me have the chance.

I listened to her breathing even out and realized that she had cried herself to sleep in my arms. I tucked the hair in her face behind her ear, and just looked at her. She looked so tired. Is this why she was so thin? I readjusted us so that she was cradled in my lap with her head resting against my shoulder. Her hands grabbed onto my shirt when I shifted our positions, but I shushed and soothed her until she relaxed against me again.

“Katie?” Andie’s voice called through the house before she came around the corner and saw me with my finger against my lips indicating to be quiet.

She came around the sofa and knelt in front of us, smoothing Katie’s hair down in a motherly caress.

“She didn’t want you to see her like this,” Andie whispered to me, still staring at the woman asleep in my arms. “Do you want me to take her home with me?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to let go. Not yet. Not ever if I was being honest. “No, I’ll take care of her tonight. I’ll bring her to yours tomorrow. Nothing funny, I promise,” I whispered as I stared down at Katie. “I won’t let anything happen to her, Andie. I swear on my life.”

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