Page 32 of Fighting For Light
“It’s not a question,” I quip.
“I hate being in the truck for this long,” he grumbles.
I shrug and take a sip of water. “I figured as much.”
“Distract me,” he says. My face gets hot, and I glance up at him. There’s a Cheshire smirk on his face. “I have known you for more than thirteen years, yet I’m still learning things about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you have a dirty mind, Cordelia, and I don’t think it’s the pregnancy hormones.” The corner of his mouth is tipped up as he stares at the road ahead.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I grumble.
He hums. “Are you sure about that?”
“You just like messing with me.” I shift in my seat, trying to get comfortable. I need to get out and stretch my legs.
He shrugs and chuckles. “I asked for a distraction,” he says.
I lean over the armrest and grab his zipper. “How’s this for a distraction, Kai?”
His jaw ticks, and I can feel the restraint in his taut body. “Gem, move your hand, please,” he grunts.
“Why?” I ask, feigning confusion. I don’t know where all this confidence came from. I would never do this to anyone else, but he was pissing me off. It’s the pregnancy hormones it has to be.
“Because if you don’t, I’m going to embarrass myself, and we will crash,” he says roughly, and I wish we weren’t driving with a sixty-foot trailer behind us right now.
Smiling smugly at Kai, I wiggle my fingers, making him grunt, before lifting my hand one finger at a time. He relaxes a little and slumps back in his seat, now way more uncomfortable than he was before. “How much longer?” I ask him.
“You asked that an hour ago. The GPS is literally up on the screen, Cordi. Are youtryingto be annoying? Because it’s working.”
I gasp and slap his arm. “That was rude. You shouldn’t speak to your fiancée that way,” I say, pretending to be offended.
He chuckles, and his expression sobers quickly. “Speaking of fiancée. When do you want to get married?”
My heart flips in my chest. “I don’t know. I’m still trying to get my feet back under me. It’s been a wild few months.”
He reaches over and takes my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “You’re not alone in this. I’m here now.”
“Sometimes I can’t figure out if I’m in a dream or a nightmare,” I tell him and look out the window as the sun begins to set. The pinks, blues, oranges, and purples create a tapestry of summer.
When I came to live with Dad, I didn’t mind moving around so much. I liked seeing all the new places with different landscapes across the country. It still doesn’t bother me, but now it’s not only me anymore.
“I don’t know how to respond to that,” Kai says.
I look over at him and back down at our hands. “You know how you create a picture in your mind of how you want something to go, and then it doesn’t happen at all? And you have to mourn what you couldn’t have and never will have?”
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
I struggle to string the words together. It is teenage Cordelia’s dream come true that my best friend wants to marry me. But it’s adult Cordelia’s, now expecting mother’s nightmare that my best friend wants to marry me because I’m pregnant. He’s a man of pure gold, but is his love the kind of love that can last until death do us part, or is it love that stems from his need to save me from my own predicament? I put myself in this position and opened the door the moment I kissed Rafe.
“I wanted to look you in the eye and tell you this, but we’re here. So, no time like the present.” I take a deep breath and look at his profile since he can’t exactly take his focus off the road. “I have thought about how you and I could be together in a million different ways. I’ve loved you for a long time. But it’s not only me you are claiming to love anymore. So all these pretty dreams feel like they have turned into nightmares.” He doesn’t respond right away, and embarrassment floods my chest. Sometimes, I need to learn when to keep my mouth shut.
“You are not a nightmare, and neither is this, gem,” he says, gesturing to our linked hands between us. “I already have your ring. It just has to get here.”
“So that’s the end of the conversation?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “There’s nothing else to say. There are some things I want to talk to you about, but not when I feel like I’m about to leap out of this moving truck. I need to look at you when I tell you because I’ll be honest. It might make you right.”
