Documentary (27 page)

Kai’s head whipped toward her, and she saw rage suddenly build in his face. “He touched you?” he asked with clenched teeth. “Did he put his hands on you?”

Before she could respond, Chase said, “I didn’t touch that bitch.”

There was a pause, or maybe Dylan just made it up in her head, where Kai’s eyes went wild like instinct,
and not reason, had taken over. As he swung around, one of Chase’s friends slugged Xavier in the chest, and then the entire place went nuclear as the fight spread outward. People scattered like broken glass, and the crush at the bar suddenly became embroiled in a brawl. Kai wrapped his arms around her, she felt his body absorb violent hits from the melee, and he pushed a path through the crowd, but something suddenly pulled him back into the madness, causing him to lose his grip on her. When she turned, the space between them was already filled with people.

“Go! Get out, Dyl!” Kai shouted
. She screamed when Chase punched Kai in the chin. Kai recovered and smiled in what looked like satisfaction, before he smashed his fist into Chase’s mouth twice, drawing an ocean of blood. As she was thrown to the ground by a shove, she saw Kai slam Chase down on top of the bar, sending everything on it flying. Dylan landed palms down, thankfully avoiding beer bottle glass, and she scrambled to the side of the wooden bar for fear she would be trampled. She felt warmth in her ears and she trembled in horror, watching tables flip over and people toss each other across the room.

Someone was screaming her name, but it sounded too far off and she wasn’t moving until there was actually a way to get out. A guy collapsed near her feet, taking a chair down with him. Dylan offered him a hand and helped him slide out of the way. A sea of frenzied bodies rolled out of the exits, some of them falling in the process. As if in a song canon, glass shattered repeatedly, one after the other. It wasn’t until she heard the echo of sirens that she finally decided to get to her feet and help the guy out the door. She turned back once, and the scene behind her was an absolute mess of liquid, glass and broken furniture.

Some of the police officers entered the club to scope the inside while others were securing a boundary around it with caution tape as they instructed attendees that they couldn’t leave without giving a statement. Paramedics were already administering aid to anyone needing it, so Dylan walked the man over to an ambulance, squinting against the camera flashes from the people outside the police-established boundary.

Dylan looked around for Kai and the others, but there were just so many people in front of the club. It reminded her of a school of minnows darting around behind an aquarium glass. Thankfully, no one was on a stretcher, but tonight’s events would be all over the media. Even though sh
e was dreading the criticism of her video, she hoped the video would overshadow whatever damage Kai’s image would sustain.

As an officer was taking her statement nearly twenty minutes later, Kai called out to her from near one of the tour buses. “Dylan! Dylan! Are you okay?” Another officer was preventing him from walking over to her, and Kai struggled a bit in his grip.

“Yes, I’m okay!” she shouted, feeling relief wash over her because he was all right, too, but the cop shoved him onto the bus, refusing to let him come any closer. Once the crowd thinned around her, the faces of the people in their group were starting to take shape finally.
At least none of them got arrested.
Chase and his friends were sitting, handcuffed and bloodied, and lined up along a sidewalk.  The officer gave her his card and told her to call if she decided to press charges against Chase, before she hurried to get to the bus.

“Excuse me! Hey!” A guy was approaching her and he looked really concerned so she diverted her path toward him. “You’re about to get on that bus with Kai White, aren’t you?” he asked, his face suddenly clearing of the worry. He pulled out his wallet. “I’ve got $500. Can you get a picture of his injuries or something really quick? I’ll give you $50 now
, and my email and the rest after.” He pushed money into her hands. Scorching anger twisted in her chest, and she pressed her lips together in a bitter smile.
Feeding the monster.
This guy probably wasn’t interested in how Kai had tried to diffuse the situation or that he hadn’t made the first strike. Dylan balled up the bills and tossed them into the darkness, past the caution tape.

“What the fuck? You’re a psycho, bitch!” he growled before he dashed to where she had launched it.

“Twice in one night. That’s a record,” she said as she continued her walk, but she realized in that moment, if she went behind Kai’s back in exchange for the web series, she was no better than that guy. She would be letting the monster nibble crumbs right out of her hand, using him, and ignoring his preferences like he wasn’t entitled to some manner of privacy as a human being. She definitely wanted to help him fix his career, but she had never wanted to do it at the expense of exposing something he intended to keep private. She also wanted to excel at this job and have Nina Sanchez as a reference down the road and, dammit, she still wanted the videos. There had to be a way to do all of it without any damage or losses for anybody. She cared about him and knew that eventually she would have to come clean about Nina’s offer.

Dylan flashed her pass to the driver of the tour bus before s
he got on. She found Kai in his bedroom and he was on the phone, but he looked happy to see her. He threw his arm around her while he completed the call. It always felt so good to be next to him like this. Being in his arms had a way of lessening the craziness of the night.

“I’m so glad you’re okay.” Kai slammed a kiss against her forehead
and put his cell down. “Police said I was causing too much of a distraction; they wouldn’t let me go to you.”

“I’m okay...is everyone else fine? You got hurt.” She touched the two diagonal Band-Aids above his left eye when they pulled away.
There was a bruise on his cheek, and his knuckles were wrapped too.

“I’m fine. When Zave said Chase fucking grabbed you…” Kai spoke between clenched teeth before he kissed her forehead twice. “…Something inside of me snapped. I hate that fucking family. I’m so sorry. What a fucking mess. I was just on the phone with my lawyer.” They
walked out to the lounge and sat at the table. “The guidelines of my probation state that I can’t get into fights, but Francine thinks because I wasn’t arrested or the initial aggressor or whatever, and I was defending myself, it should be fine. The witnesses told the cops the same thing. They still might want to talk to me, but at least they let me go. Otherwise, my probation would’ve been revoked immediately.”

“Well, that’s good.” Dylan rubbed her shoulder and grim
aced. The pain was finally setting in, and Kai’s face hardened as he watched.

“Your arm hurts, doesn’t it?” he said, his tone caustic as he leaned across the table. “Chase is in luck. When I go out there and
punch his eyes to the back of his skull, at least he’ll be able to get immediate medical attention.”

Dylan
leaped from her chair to his lap, but not before closing the separation curtains. “Hey, I’m okay! I am! I’m so glad you’re okay too.” She nuzzled against his neck. “So glad. And everyone else?”

“Everyone else is fine. Mostly just a few scratches from what I saw. Nina’s going to have my ass in the morning though. This is a fucking mess, Dyl.” Kai pressed his cheek against her forehead. “I don’t want Ashley to catch us like this.”
He tapped her hip, a signal that he wanted her to get up. “You should go.” There was a pang of sadness in her chest at his sudden desire to have her leave. “I’m sorry that went down like it did. Are you mad?”

Dylan stood up and touched his arm. “No—”

“I told you our tour wasn’t like this. Fuck!” He slammed his palm against the wall after he stood. He was taking the whole thing really hard.

Dylan folded her arms across her chest, and with some exasperation, said, “Kai, you didn’t do anything!”

Kai shook his head, disagreeing. “I messed up and people could’ve gotten seriously hurt…
you
could’ve seriously gotten hurt. Things could’ve gone a lot worse.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “I let Chase push my buttons. He knows I fucking hate him.” Kai walked by her, and she followed him out to the kitchenette where he pulled out one of the bottles of
Grey Goose
from the fridge.

“Kai, can we talk tomorrow? It’s important.” Admitting her deal with Nina right now seemed like a terrible idea when he was content with spending th
e rest of his night with vodka. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Not really, but this should help…” He turned back once before he disappeared behind the separation curtain
, and she followed but went to her bunk upstairs. After another hour and a half at the scene, the police officers officially cleared them to leave, and the caravan of tour buses pulled away to a hotel in New Jersey. When the bus was finally quiet from all of Xavier and Heath’s chatter and discussion of the night’s events, she followed the sound of light music to Kai’s bedroom, knocking softly on the door before she entered. She had thought Kai was playing one of his guitars, but it was coming out of his laptop. He was sitting on the couch with his laptop on his knees. He looked up but didn’t seem happy to see her and that hurt her feelings. It was actually a pretty mean look, like he had wanted anyone there but her.

“I can go,” she blurted out.

“Please don’t…” Kai swung his legs to the floor and patted the space on the couch next to him as an invite for her to sit. He smelled faintly of alcohol, but the bottle of
Grey Goose
was still mostly full, and he looked calmer than before.

“You probably want to go home, huh? I wouldn’t blame you,” he whispered, his eyes filling with sorrow. Dylan shook her head.

“
All
the Evernight shirts haven’t driven me away yet, so I don’t think anything can,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder. On the laptop screen were pictures from his childhood, seemingly from the same set as the one on his desktop of him and his mom. “Who are they?” she asked, pointing to the group of small children in one of the pictures. “Oh my God. Is that you? You were so adorable.” As she snuggled up tighter against him, he put his arm around her. Ashley was on one of the other buses, but she never seemed far enough for Dylan to be comfortable.

Kai scoffed. “You saying I’m not
now
?”

“
Present day
Kai has nothing on little you,” she teased. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Kai
shut the laptop and set it on a table before reaching over and tickling her side. He pulled her into his lap, and she didn’t protest, even though she kept her eyes nailed to the door. Soon she couldn’t concentrate beyond the rise and fall of Kai’s chest against her. One of his hands was gripping her outer thigh, and his breathing pattern changed slightly when she lowered her head to the curve of his neck. Maybe she wasn’t the only one whose body went into frisson when they were together. She really enjoyed being able to do that to him, and it took every ounce of strength not to put her lips on his skin.

“Did you ever picture this life when you were that young?” she asked.

              “You mean beating the shit out of the Bunyan brothers in the same year?” Kai asked, laughing. “Actually, I never thought I’d get any farther than Butch did in his career.” He stroked her thigh absently. “Now though, I wonder what my life would’ve been like if my mom had just moved us to Lake Lure instead of going to Oahu with my dad. I would never have met the guys, but I loved her hometown a lot, which is weird because now I never tour in North Carolina.”

“You miss it though, I can tell.”

“I do...I really do. But sometimes it feels like things that scare the shit out of me haunt it. Things I’m really, really afraid of.” Dylan lifted her head and stared at him. It was one of those tragic Kai lines that always yanked at her core so hard, like she might be turned inside out.

“Oh, well, I guess…you won’t like your gift much then,” she said, laughing awkwardly. “I feel like an idiot.”

“You got me a gift?” he asked, surprised. “When? What? I wanna see.”

“You’re sure?” Dylan climbed off him and walked
up to her bunk. She returned with a framed photo. She had ordered a professional drawing of part of the actual lake in Lake Lure with the mountains in the background. “I found a place in D.C. that does these. Picked it up when I went home for the cookies. We have this tradition in my family that whenever we go somewhere we’re going to be for a bit—moving to a new house, college,
a tour bus
—we put up something that we love or that has a lot of meaning. I wanted this to be
your thing,
but
I guess I knew those good memories at Lake Lure had some bad parts too, because of your family. I’m sorry.” She passed it to him, and Kai was silent as he held the frame in his hands. He looked back and forth between it and her, keeping his brow furrowed. Dylan’s heart was slamming into her ribs in suspense. She breathed out in relief when he smiled as he studied the detail of the drawing.

“Dylan… this is…
I don’t even know what to say.” Kai shook his head and looked up at her. “It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. Ghosts or not, estranged family or not, I do miss it. It has a lot of good memories, Dyl, and the fact that you were even thoughtful enough to do this…” Kai set it on the table with the laptop. He pulled her back to his lap and mashed a kiss against her temple. “Thank you.”