Reckless Mind (13 page)

Then there was Cole, who seemingly claimed he was a bad boy sex god, but that he was changing. How did I know that was true though? The only logical thing to do in both situations was walk away or continue as their friend. Sometimes all someone needed was a person who believed in them, believed they could be better than what they were, and that would be enough. I wanted to be that for both of them.

I knew I walked a thin line that could easily be crossed or blurred. I was attracted to both of them, physically they were both gorgeous. Brandon I had more of a raw connection to, I felt he and I had both been through though, life altering circumstances, and because of that he could understand me. With Cole, I wanted so desperately to be for him whoever he saw that he believed was good enough to give up sleeping around and using women, but I knew he wanted me. All of me.

I would try to be their friend. That's all I could attempt to give them right now, and I wasn't sure I could even pull that off anymore.

Chapter 10

The morning came too quickly. I fought with my alarm to shut it up, it won. Stretching myself out over my bed, my muscles protested at the thought of carrying me around all day, but I pulled myself up and slipped out of bed. Heat from the shower began to clear my cloudy mind, and by the time I got out I was running late.

Quickly I pulled on some blue ombre shorts and a white tank top that had a blue exposed zipper running down the back I only zipped up enough to cover my bra. Super cute outfit compliments of Emma's closet. Pouring some coffee in my thermos cup, another alarm yelled at me that I should be walking out the door.

My bag sat by the front door, and I locked the door from the inside and shut it. Looking down in my bag double checking I didn't forget anything as I walked toward the stairs, his hands gently stopped me. Brandon was a couple steps below where I stood and we were eye to eye with each other. He took my bag from me slinging it over his shoulder, and laced my fingers with his as he began walking to the parking lot.

Ripping my hand out of his grasp, and grabbing my bag back from him, I stood with my arms crossed at the bottom of the stairs leading to the lot from my apartment. He turned and kept walking to his car without saying a word, leaving the passenger door to his car ajar, stopping at his door. “Please, Kahlen.”

Even after everything yesterday, knowing how much it must have hurt me to see him with another girl, he just thought he'd show up here like it didn't matter. Well I wasn't in the mood to deal with his shit right now, trying to be friend or not.

“Shit,” I swore under my breath because my car was still over at the community center. As I went past his car I slammed the passenger door, then started walking to class. Brandon followed me, then parked outside of the building my first class was in. Hurrying from his car, he tried taking my hand again.

“I seriously want to punch you right now.” I yelled in his face, “You have some nerve, Brandon. I don't want a ride, I don't want you to hold my hand, and I don't want you to pretend like you want something more with me. I think you've made it pretty clear
more
than enough that a relationship is more than you can give. Honestly, I think friendship may be more than you are capable of.”

As I walked to class he walked beside me, and I kept glancing at him out of the corner of my eye waiting for him to say something, but he never did. Right outside of my classroom door he took a deep breath, “Kahlen, I need you to talk to me. Find me when you're ready.” And then he turned and walked away.

I thought about what he said to me for the rest of the day. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I had three classes all with a small break in between. Every second, of every minute of those breaks was spent thinking about Brandon and what he thought
I
needed to talk to
him
about. Luckily I was able to focus in my classes though. When my political science class ended, my classes were officially done for the day. Gathering my things I remembered I didn't drive myself so I'd be walking again and was glad I lived close.

“Kahlen!” Emma yelled from somewhere in the hall I was walking down. Turning, I saw her running toward me. “What the hell happened to Brandon's face? He won't tell me or Jax, but Jax saw Cole at work and said his face was busted up a little too.” I nodded at her and told her how they got in a fight, but not going into the details of what I'd overheard. “Well, shit. Wonder if that means the band is done for good this time.”

I didn't know specifically what she was referring to, but could put two and two together to assume there was a time when the band almost, or did for a period of time, break up. Emma asked what I was doing tonight, and I told her just staying in but she should come over and I could cook dinner if she wanted.

She had the mischievous gleam in her eye. “Actually, I'm going out for dinner.” I raised my eyebrows in question, and she told me how some guy in her first class asked her out for dinner tonight and she'd said yes. Soon I was going to sit her down and figure out how she really felt about Jax. In the mean time, I congratulated her and told her to call me and let me know how it went. Emma wasn't one to wake up early, so her classes started when my last class of the day started, which sucked because I wasn't seeing her as much. She only had classes three days a week though to my five, and I still had weekends off, so I told myself we would have to get together this weekend.

Making my way over to where I'd cross the street to head back to my place, I heard my name again. His voice was ingraining itself into my memory, and every time I heard it, it was more and more familiar. Brandon came up to me as I stood on the sidewalk staring in his direction. “Thought you might need a ride home.” He was so serious today, his mood definitely down.

“And I thought I was supposed to find you when I was ready.” He nodded, but then asked again if he could give me a ride home. I really didn't want to walk in the heat so I nodded, following him back to his car.

When I got out of the car and headed to go up the stairs, he asked if I was hungry, and before waiting for me to answer he took my hand in his and started toward his apartment instead of mine. I really wasn't sure I wanted to walk in there and have to look at the pool table and have the visual memory of what I saw yesterday, but it seemed like he really wanted me to come with him to talk so I didn't resist.

He tossed my bag on one of the couches and I pulled my hand out of his. Stepping out of my view of the rest of the room, Brandon went into the kitchen. There was only an empty space where the pool table sat. My head whipped around to look at Brandon, but his back was to me and he pulled things out of the fridge.

I made my way into the kitchen and ducked under his arm so I stood in front of him. Brandon shut the door and looked at me. “Thank you for taking it out, but it doesn't solve everything between us.” I didn't need to say any more.

“No, I'm sorry, baby,” he leaned in and whispered in my ear. My body reacted when he called me baby but I was taking everything, even friendship, slower with him now. Hopefully this was a good start to building a friendship that could last, but I wasn't sure. 

Brandon fed me and then tried to pull my feet onto his lap to rub them as we watched this hilarious show about these physicists that were crazy smart with a cute blonde living across the hall from them, but I pulled my feet away and wouldn't let him. I hadn't laughed so hard, maybe in my entire life, as I did at this show, and a couple times I caught Brandon watching me, his gaze moving from my laughing mouth, to my eyes, and back down.

I pushed him playfully on the arm each time I caught him, and he'd just shrug as if it should be totally obvious he would stare at me and I should just get over it. The last time I swatted at him he caught my hand and didn't let it go, but I withdrew my hand again. Brandon sat in the middle of the couch, so shifting, I tucked my legs up underneath me looking at him long and hard. He wanted to talk? We were going to talk.

“Brandon, tell me something that you don't want to tell me.” He licked his bottom lip then trapped it between his teeth. I wasn't going to back down, we needed to talk to each other.

“I dropped out of school.” I knew that couldn't be all of it, so I sat quietly. He let go of my hand and ran it through his hair. I'd noticed he did this, along with dragging his teeth across his bottom lip, when he was uncomfortable. This wasn't about forcing him to tell me something, it was about him telling me something he didn't want to, but would anyway because he trusted me enough to go to that place.

“I moved across the country the day after I graduated high school.” It wasn't fair if only he was playing this game, so I thought if I told him things about me it would make it easier. “Your turn.” I nudged him with my shoulder.

“Sometimes when you look at me,” he finally took his eyes off his hands to look at me. “I feel like I see the darkest parts of myself mirrored back at me in your eyes. And that scares me. I don't know if you've gone through things, or if it's my own shit I can see that will eventually break you down.” Brandon coughed a little, and I could tell it had gotten harder for him to talk because of the emotion behind what he was telling me.

He thought there was a possibility all his demons would drag me down and he didn't want that to happen. “Is that why you keep pushing me away?” He nodded, eyes still locked on mine. “Brandon,” his name left my lips on a whisper and I took his hands in mine.

“I don't want to ruin you, baby. I've done it before, and I didn't even care about the girl in the moment. What I feel for you, Kahlen, if I took you down with me, if I was reckless with you I'd ruin you for the guy who you will ultimately end up with. I'd never forgive myself. I'm not
that
guy. I don't get a happy ending.”

His eyes were tortured, his voice low. I couldn't help the tears that fell down my cheeks for him, because I knew deep in my soul exactly what he felt. I knew what it meant to be told I was nothing to the point I believed it, and that's also when I started believing I deserved nothing but misery because how could someone like me deserve anything better.

I was trying though, trying to move past what they had told me all my life. Something better had to be waiting for me, and that was why I left. It seemed Brandon was past the point of thinking anything better could come for him.

“Hey,” I cupped the side of his face with my hand. “Don't say that. You do get the happy ending, Brandon, you get whatever you want yourself to have. You just have to believe you deserve it, just like I do. Please don't give up. Maybe I'm not your forever, but I want to be your friend. Let me in, please, let me in.”

His hand slid around my neck, his warm whiskey eyes dropped to my lips then back to my eyes. Leaning in, he paused just before touching my lips. I felt his breath on my mouth, his hand on my neck, the heat from his body radiated off him, I was surrounded by him. And then he backed away from me, just barely, and locked eyes with me.

My heart beat picked up, and I threaded my fingers through the hair at the base of his neck. His tongue licked what I knew would be a scorching path across his bottom lip, and for a brief moment I wanted him.

I wanted to open my mouth to him, to feel his tongue brushing across mine. He would pull gently on my hair around his fingers, tilting my head and claiming my mouth with his. I'd want him to move his lips to my neck as his hands found my waist, and I would move so I was straddling him. Pushing gently down on my hips while he lifted his, I would feel him straining against his shorts, but even with the clothes between us he would set my body on fire.

Brandon's voice snapped me out of my daydream. “Kahlen, if I start,” his lips were nothing more than a shadow, not touching my skin but making their presence known across my collar bones. I imagined him unhooking the middle clasp of my bra, quickly pushing one side away and letting his thumb trail back over me. “It'll be so hard to stop. You mean more than this to me, but I want you so bad, Kahlen. Push me away, tell me to stop.”

I did need to tell him, but I wasn't sure I wanted to. I thought about bringin his mouth to mine, opening for him and tasting him again. This time when he let out a deep almost growl in his chest, I would push myself into his hand, begging him to tease my nipple between his finger and thumb, and I'd push myself down on him, moving slowly.

Looking into his eyes, trying to focus completely instead of being pulled into the erotic thoughts of him. Brandon's eyes weren't empty pools like when I saw him with the girl on the pool table, they were full of emotion, and because of that I knew I would stop him. None of my well thought out daydreams would come to fruition.

I was right before when I thought he was someone I would lose myself in if I wasn't careful, for the simple fact that when I was with Brandon all I wanted to do was find out what put that look of loss in his eyes. My mind was quiet around him because it worked overtime to figure him out, it didn't give me enough time to get thrown into my past. Even though I welcomed the silence, I wasn't sure this was the right way to go about getting it.

He didn't break the hold my eyes had on his while I moved back to his side, and he put his arm around me pulling me into him. “I don't want you to leave, Kahlen.” Shaking my head I told him I wouldn't leave yet.

As I sat, his arm around me, thinking we might actually be able to be friends, I thought back to what he said and wondered about the girl, or girls, he was referring to. Would Brandon end up ruining me like he thought even if we were nothing more that friends? I didn't think so; I thought I was strong enough now to be able to walk away from a situation that was destructive to me, but still I wondered.