Documentary (35 page)

“What the hell? What is he doing?”

              “Is that Wes talking to the guy you were with? I have no idea.” There was no heightened inflection in his tone as he feigned ignorance. He hadn’t even bothered to muster up a believable reaction, either. His smile was unapologetic when she turned to look at him.

Then Dylan watched as Tim turned away from Wes and disappeared into the oscillating abyss of bodies. Wes locked conspiratorial eyes with Kai and shot a half smile at Dylan before he clutched some unknown woman’s hand and vanished
, too.

“Wow, you just sent him away,” she accused Kai with annoyance. She drove her index finger into his chest. “In fact, you sent your friend to do it. You guys are the worst. I’m starting to think this night must have been personally approved by Hell.”

              “How do you know I had something to do with that?” Kai asked, nearly bursting as he tried not to laugh. “Aw, you liked him?” he added, almost mockingly, bumping her arm.

             
“I didn’t really get the chance to find out,” she said sharply, rolling her eyes. Not that she had been truly interested in doing so.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Kai said as laughter weaved through his words. “He seems lame. If it were me, I would’ve thrown him through a wall
for doing what I did.”

              Dylan sighed. “You’re really un-
fucking-
believable.”

             
“Haha. You put
fucking
in the
middle
of words,” Kai said, doubling over.

“Kai, you meet girls
all the time.
” Gripping the railing, she shook her head, unsure of what to feel. She wavered between amusement and infuriation. It was funny that he was jealous, but how dare he claim her while he messed around with other women? “Yet, you have
no
problem interfering, apparently, when I meet guys. I thought you wanted to forget me?”

             
“Fine, go after him. Go. Ggg—
fucking—
o,” he said, gesturing with his hand.

             
“You’re an idiot,” she remarked after shaking her head again. She tried her best to look mad, but his words made her want to laugh.

“Chill out. I won’t stop you. You’re right. I have no right,” Kai said. He was serious this time. “Wes only told him you’d meet him outside in a few. Have a good night…if you’re going. Just be safe. Wes and I both have our phones on.”
The sadness washing over his eyes betrayed his words. It looked like it was killing him to say what he’d just said.

             
“That was mean, what you did down there…”

             
“Childish,” he added. “Wes’ word before I told him he owed me one.”

             
“Were you really gonna hit him?”

             
“Of course not, unless he had done something you didn’t want him to do. Then I would’ve done it…with pleasure.” Kai plucked off his Lava hat and absently squeezed the bill into a tighter curve. “I haven’t slept with anyone since you joined the project,” he admitted.  “Just so you know.”

“Congrats. Congratu-
fucking-
lations, Kai. Would you like for me to start slow clapping?” she said sarcastically. “Anyway, I won’t be saying the same after tonight.”

Kai flinched befor
e a hurt expression flashed on his face. She hadn’t meant it, but the stress and the anger about everything she’d been feeling the past few days needed to come out. Dylan swung her jacket over her shoulders, but she knew immediately she would want him to stop her when she left. And she was too scared to find out if he would or not.

“You know,
just ‘cause you're the one with a camera doesn't mean you're the only one who sees,” Kai said suddenly, placing his hand on top of hers. “You know what I see? It drives me crazy when you bite your lip. You do it when you’re in a really, really deep thought. Or when you’re nervous. It drives me crazy because I always want to know what it is you’re thinking. You do it when you’re filming too. You always play with your hair, and when I see you do it, I always want to touch it, too. You laugh at that stupid story of Zave’s no matter how many times he tells you. You laugh until your eyes water, and you’re laughing and crying at the same time, which always makes you laugh harder.

“This is the stuff I remember when I’m trying so fucking hard not to.
And don’t worry I stopped drinking a while ago. I only had one drink here. Didn’t even finish it. It wasn’t helping, anyway. I’ve been drinking water ever since. I wanted to tell you all of this while I was relatively sober.” Turning toward her completely, Kai stroked her cheek. He traced the curve of her ear and down the side of her neck until his fingers took a delicate hold at the nape while his thumb brushed her jaw. “I love the smell of your hair when I hug you…and how soft your skin is. And I think about those things and they make me happy. They make me want you so badly. So fucking badly. I don’t know if it was ever real for you, but it’s only ever been real for me
.”

Truth
– Chapter 18

              Kai was right to place his faith in words, Dylan thought. They were too powerful. They could be like a knife to the soul, lacerating something that perhaps could never be fixed. Like when a doctor tells your parents that tonight will be the last night of your brother's life. They could destroy.

But they could also make you feel like you could fly, a butterfly freed from a jar, going up and up, until you suddenly wanted to fall back to Earth just so you could hear them again. He had just done that.

Dylan sucked in a short breath and put her hand on top of his as his other hand moved to her waist. Her heart seized in gratitude, relieved that he didn’t
really
hate her. She knew he didn’t but it was nice to hear, and she wanted to tell him that she wanted him, too. And that she really missed hanging out with him and talking to him and hearing him laugh. “Kai…”

He shook his head and pressed an unblinking stare into her. “Let me finish. It might not mean much, but I haven’t slept with anybody.
Sometimes, I just want someone else there, just
present
, so I don’t have to think about you for five fucking seconds, and it didn’t work, anyway. I miss the shit out of you, Dylan.” Not the most romantic thing to say, but her heart was on the verge of exploding. Kai looking at her like that almost made her want to be reckless right there in the club and just kiss him.

But a
camera flashed to her left. She jumped back from him and reality stole the moment away. It was a bunch of girls photographing themselves, but she suddenly remembered that they were in public where a tender instant like that could land her in a lot of trouble. Dylan shook her head, feeling flustered, not knowing what to say.

“I know…you can’t. I guess I just had to
tell you how I felt,” Kai said. He sounded defeated and battle worn. He simply turned and walked out of VIP.

Yes, it was about work, but there was more going on. Winslow was right about her. She was actively fighting against her own happiness. It was a strange punishment to impose on herself, but it had become second nature lately. She could’ve stopped Kai and told him she cared. They could’ve talked about what would happen after her assignment ended. But she hadn’t
said a thing.

He didn’t look back
, but she trailed him with her gaze to the dance floor. A shrill of thrilled screams rose up from a group of women when he introduced himself to them. Dylan swallowed down the awful feeling tightening her throat.
One step forward, two steps back into the arms of someone else.
But how much could she fault him? She never went after him, and she never gave him a reason to stay.
Dylan made a beeline for outside, ignoring Tim’s calls after her, and took a cab back to the hotel. She sent Wes a text telling him she was leaving, citing that she was really tired.

Once she was in her PJs with makeup scrubbed off, she hopped on Skype with Kate for a while before falling asleep. Dylan awoke in confusion to the sound of knocking a short time later. She assumed it was part of her forgotten dream, but it continued as she stared off in the dark. Scrambling off the bed, she trudged to the door. She gasped at the sight of Kai White waiting on the other side of the peephole.

“Do you know what time it is?” she said groggily after she switched on a light.

“2
:27…A.M.,” Kai said with a smile as he leaned in to the peephole. “Can you open the door? Promise I’ll be nice. Swear it on Sable.”

Cautiously drawing the door open, she said, “Hi.” Kai walked in without saying a word.
He sat in the desk chair with a drawn out sigh and spun toward the center of the room.

“My first Lava commercial ran today, and the only person I wanted to tell about it isn’t even really my friend. I knew that, and I still only wanted to tell you. After everything that happened tonight, including my label telling m
e they’re pretty much not interested in renewing my contract, I still came here. I’m still chasing you. You know how fucked up that is?” It didn’t even sound like he was talking to her anymore.

That stung. She had seen the commercial on Lava’s YouTube channel, and her heart hurt for him that his label was going to let him go. “Kai, I
am
your friend.” Dylan strode hurriedly across the room and stopped in front of him, casting a shadow over his face in the dim lighting.

“Then why are you still pursuing the Jeremy thing? Lek thinks you want to help me because you really give a shit. Do you? Is that true? Or is this about
your job?
” He scrunched his nose as he said the last two words.

“Don’t disregard how important this is. It pisses me off when you do that. This opportunity means a lot to me. It’s the reason I came here.”

Kai jumped to his feet, his face getting tense. “But
I
don’t mean anything to you…” he said as he cradled her face. “…And that hurts.” He sat back down hard. “That’s why it drives me up the fucking wall when you say I’m ‘work.’ I don’t get to know you like everyone else in your life. I’m nothing but the fucking job.”

Dylan sighed heavily before she leaned in to his face with her hands on his knees. “Look, Nina promised me that I could have the web series if I figured out how to save your ass from the fight backlash. And I care so much that I’m working
my
ass
off to prove that I deserve it without whatever your secret is. It never really felt right to get the web series that way. When I put the pieces together about Lek and the cell phone video, I panicked because I was worried about you.” Dylan moved to sit cross-legged on top of the desk, and Kai pivoted the chair to look up at her. “I should’ve dropped it, and I’m sorry, but you’re struggling with something, and I don’t know how to help other than to get to the bottom of it because you’re doing it alone—or Erica’s helping you—and I don’t know what to do.”

Kai’s face softened
, and he smiled a little. “Erica told me to go after you that day in the room, but I had just talked to Lek about you calling him about the fight, and it really fucked me up. I felt like shit after everything…I felt like I had lost who I thought you were…” Kai came closer and put his hands on her bare thighs. As expected, electricity fired off all over her.

“If I hadn’t been so mad, I would’ve clarified about Erica. She’s my friend. That’s all she’s
ever
been. She has on an engagement ring. You probably didn’t see it. She’s family to me. The hotel room door must not have closed all the way when she got back from getting ice while I was in the shower. She was icing my face and hands, like a mom would, and we were actually talking about you when you walked in. She lives in NYC and she heard about what happened at the show. She used to work in public relations so she always knows what’s going on, and she came over early that morning to check on me. She absolutely means the world to me. I’m helping her with something private. Nothing else.”

Erica was his friend. She had heard it a million times but it felt final coming from him. It was time to let it go. Something else was still bothering her though. It was silly and petty but she wanted to know.

“Did you mean what you said at
Velvet
?”

Kai’s eyes brightened and he nodded rapidly. “Every word.” He probably thought she wanted to talk about all the things he had said about her, but she wasn’t ready to do that.

Dylan slid off the desk and went to sit on her bed. “That morning at your house with Tiffany. If you guys
didn’t
, then how come she was just in that shirt?”

Kai trailed her. He stretched out on the bed next to her and put his head on the pillow with his fingers linked be
neath it. “It’s kind of an embarrassing story, Dyl,” he said, laughing.

Dylan slinked across the bed and took the opposite pillow. “Well?” Her eyebrows inched up.

“
Well
, the night got
real
weird,” Kai said, laughing awkwardly.