My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) (21 page)

I nod, rubbing our skin together. His nose trails down my cheek. He drags his lips over to my ear, and his breath feathers the hair there. I slump against the door because his warm breath invading my ear turns my knees to putty. He pulls back just far enough so he can see my eyes. He reaches up to brush the hair off my face and rests his hand at the curve of my neck.

“Don’t go out with Dub.”

“He hasn’t asked me,” I whisper between our lips.

“But he will.” He studies me in the light of my apartment stoop. “I would. I did.”

“Rhyson, don’t.”

“I’ve heard all your reasons for keeping things platonic for now, and I’m cool with it. For now.” He levels his beautiful eyes at me, and I’m afraid he’ll finally voice all those things his eyes always say. “But it only works if you’re just friends with everyone else too. The thought of you seeing someone else . . .”

His words fade, but his eyes become more vibrant, intense. He just shakes his head.

“Are
you
?” I have no right to ask, but curiosity ignores the reasonable voice in my head.

He raises one dark brow, captures the length of my hair in one hand and tugs until I have to look into his eyes.

“Am I what?”

“Seeing anyone?”

“You mean am I fucking anyone?” This time both brows go up. “’Cause that’s kind of all I do.”

Is that all he wants from me? Yes, I’m attracted to Rhyson, but it goes so much deeper than the physical pull. The thought of him giving himself to someone else that way while I figure this out leeches my heart. It’s quiet while I wait for his answer.

“I haven’t been with anyone else since we met, Kai.”

My contrary heart—the same one that is afraid to trust him and need him and depend on him—is perversely happy. I even smile, which I regret because Rhyson wastes no time using that smile against me.

“You like that?” he demands. “You like that I don’t think about anyone but you? That I jerk off in the shower every morning because you won’t give us a chance and I don’t want anyone else?”

A quick death for my smile.

“Rhys, no, I . . . you can be with anyone you want. It’s none of my business.”

“Is that what you want me to say? That it’s none of my business if you see someone else? If you fuck someone else? ‘Cause I won’t say that, Pep.” He leans in closer until the world is no bigger than this patch of cement we share right now, and the only air is between our lips. “When you and Dub were dancing, I wanted to shoot him through the knee cap.”

“Rhys, we’re dancers. It was just dancing.”

“I get that, but seeing you with someone else, even knowing it was nothing, drove me crazy. Not to have a
right
to be jealous drove me crazy.”

I can’t answer. Anything I say will tell him too much.

“And I saw the relief on your face when you realized Bris was my sister,” he adds.

I don’t deny it, but just return his unblinking stare for a few seconds until I can’t any longer. My eyes drop to the cement between our feet.

“And while we’re being honest,” his voice sinks to a heated whisper, “I
was
awake that morning we drove to Pismo Beach, when you touched me. When I touched you.”

His words are hot, but they freeze me. I don’t move an inch. The implications of that paralyze me. My mind floods with the sensations, with the touches, we shared that morning. How I pressed my breast into his palm. How I gasped when he twisted my nipple between his fingers. How my hands caressed the smooth, muscled plane of his back.

“You want me as badly as I want you, Pep. I’m just waiting for you to do something about it.” He takes the key I’d forgotten I was holding from my limp fingers and opens the door behind me. “Until then, we’ll keep pretending we’re just friends.”

He squats to brand my mouth with a quick kiss before turning and walking away. I should be in the house by now with the door locked behind me, but I watch until he’s in his truck and drives away, leaving me alone with just my thoughts and what’s left of that kiss. I still feel his lips against mine, a swift, sweet press that marked me. If I lick my lips, will I taste him? I rush into the house and head straight for the bathroom to wash my face. To wash that kiss away because if I have one taste, I won’t be able to stop.

I DREAMT OF MAMA LAST NIGHT
. Not so much dreamt as remembered her while I was sleeping. I think my mind pulled out her memory to prepare me for what’s ahead—my first Thanksgiving without her. She was, in my mind, in my sleep, as vivid, as vibrant, as if she were still alive.

“Dammit!”

Mama swearing feels about as right as a nun in a whorehouse. I’m in my room rehearsing for Saturday’s dance competition when I hear Mama cuss for only the second time in my life.

She’s in the living room sitting on the floor, her back against the old saggy-cushioned couch she took from Grammy’s living room when she passed. Her head rests on the knees she has pulled up to her chest. Shards of glass litter the hardwood floor around her feet.

“Mama, you okay in here?”

Her head snaps up, and her beautiful dark eyes that I’ve always thought so mysterious brim with tears I know I’m not supposed to see. She runs her thumbs hurriedly over her cheeks, wiping the dampness on the one pair of jeans she always wears to clean the house.

“Kai Anne, I didn’t know you were here. Thought you and San were going to the movies.” She tries to smile, but it doesn’t take because her bottom lip trembles too badly. She pulls it between her small teeth and draws a long breath.

“We were, but I needed to practice. I was in my room going through some steps.” I gesture to the broken glass. “I can get that up, Mama. Let me just—”

“No.” Her response comes as sharp as the glass at her feet. “I’ll get it in a second.”

I settle beside her on the floor, pulling my knees up like hers. Even in the smallest things, I always find myself mirroring Mama. She’s the finest woman I know. It’s not just me who thinks so. The whole town does too. Daddy leaving and Mama staying so strong and true just about elevated her to sainthood in Glory Falls.

“I broke your ballerina.” It’s obvious the words don’t want to leave her mouth, but she pushes them out.

For the first time, I really study the pile of glass. Mama gave me that ballerina after I won my first dance contest. It’s tinted pink and so fragile she presented it to me wrapped in cotton. I’m disappointed, of course. I wanted to give that ballerina to my daughter one day, but considering what we’ve been dealing with since Mama was diagnosed, a broken ballerina isn’t such a big deal.

“Mama, it’s okay.” I lean my head against hers and loop our fingers together.

I have San, and Mama has Aunt Ruthie, but we mostly have each other. When Daddy left, it felt like Mama and me against the world. It sounds cliché, but to me, Mama has been everything. One by one, all the relationships that mattered to me have been stripped away. First Grammy, then Pops. Then Daddy. Mama’s the only blood I have left, and what we have goes beyond blood. It’s her choosing me and me choosing her over everything else all my life.

“I picked it up when I was dusting, and it . . .” There aren’t more words for long moments. Then she holds her hand out for me to see.

It trembles.

“You see that, Kai?”

“See what? Your hand?”

“The tremoring.” Mama pulls her hand into a fist and squeezes her eyes closed. “It’s getting worse. Sometimes I can’t control it.”

My fingers tighten around her hand I’m holding, and a vice tightens around my heart. I don’t want to hear this. I want to run back to my room and pick up where I left off with my dance routine. I shouldn’t have come in here. I could still be in there focusing on the movements. Focusing on my body, which never lets me down. Not like Mama’s body is betraying her now.

Heel, ball, toe.

“Kai, I know we haven’t talked about this much, but you know there’s only one direction with ALS.” Her small hand cups my chin and turns it toward her face, but I look down at the carpet so I don’t have to meet the painful candor of her eyes. “And that direction is down. It only gets worse.”

Ball, change, shuffle, ball.

I just nod and pull my chin gently out of her grasp. While the dance continues in my head, I give as little of myself to this conversation as possible, seeking shelter in the mental counts and motions that distract me.

“I think about Grammy and Pops a lot lately.” A limp chuckle escapes through the tight rosebud of Mama’s mouth. “How they’re probably looking down on us. Waiting for me.”

Shuffle, ball, heel, dig.

Mama turns her head to look straight at me. She’s the most exotic thing in Glory Falls. Those dark eyes, tilting and teasing. The black hair, usually braided and kept out of the way is loosened and wild and free, hanging to her waist. The pale gold honey of her skin. I never tire of looking at Mama. She’s delicate and fierce, and just the thought of losing her pounds my heart like a sledgehammer. I squeeze her hand because she’s right here. She’s real. I can touch her. Nothing’s taking her away from me. Not today.

Mama licks her lips and closes her eyes over a few tears that slip down her face. She swipes at her cheeks, but the tears persist. She finally drops my hand and wraps her arms around herself, a desperate clutch that shuts me out. An awful sound makes it past Mama’s clenched lips. It’s wrenched from a place so deep and low she’s only hit it once before in her life. A sound I haven’t heard in years. Not since the day Daddy left.

My body sets panic free like a runner. It sprints through my blood and pounds in my head and slicks my palms. My rock is crumbling before my eyes.

“I don’t want to die.” Mama’s words are crumbling too. Fragments, pieces, and syllables are broken behind her lips. “Baby, I don’t want to die. Not like this. Not this long, slow . . . I’m so scared of the day I won’t even know you. Won’t know I’m in the world.”

Pain clogs my throat like an old sink, but I flush the useless, worthless words out.

“Mama, I’m so sorry.”

“I keep . . .” Mama presses her forehead to her knees, the dark hair hiding her shoulders and arms. “I keep asking God why. Why me? Why now? I’m not old. I’ve been faithful. I’ve been good, and I just wake up every day asking Him, why?”

“And what does He say, Mama?”

Mama lost both parents within months of each other. Daddy, the man who was her husband and her pastor, skipped town with another woman, leaving only a note behind. She picked up the debris of her life and started over. She opened the diner with Aunt Ruthie to provide for me, to keep us clothed and fed and under a roof. I’ve seen her stand like a mountain, steadfast and immoveable, through it all. But today—in this moment—her faith, her hope, her strength are a landslide. I witness it all fall down.

She lifts her head, and even though she still breathes and she’s still here, something in her eyes seems already dead. Is it her faith? No, Mama’s faith isn’t dead, but it is weak from unanswered prayers and unanswered questions.

“Mama, what does God say?” I ask again.

“He doesn’t, baby.” She shakes her head, wipes away her last tear, and pulls herself to her knees to start gathering the shattered glass. “He doesn’t say a thing.”