The Falling (Brightest Stars, #1)(35)

His eyes were wide, his hands were gripping the sides of the table. “If you want to stop, it’s okay. I’m really sorry that—”

He shook his head and unwrapped his fingers, one by one, from the table’s edge. He let out a breath and closed his eyes.

Seconds later, I almost asked him what sounded good for dinner. I thought about telling him how I convinced Mali to let me choose my own music for the treatment room—and how much I loved the Beyoncé song that was playing. Should I ask him if he liked the smell of the caramel cake candle that filled the room? Something about him made me want to speak. All the time. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Only two minutes had gone by since I’d had him roll over. Fuck my life, time was going so slowly. It was unprofessional to talk a client’s ear off without them talking first. I repeated that to myself a few times.

“Everything good?” I asked finally. The words were practically bursting out of my mouth.

He nodded. “How’s your brother?” His question surprised me.

“I don’t know. I thought he’d come to my house as soon as he arrived to Benning, but I guess not,” I said. “He’s asleep at my dad’s now. My dad’s the one who told me that. I still haven’t gotten to talk to Austin alone. It’s so frustrating. He must have really fucked up. Otherwise, he would have called me by now. I can’t even believe he’s staying with our dad. Like what the hell?”

Kael kept his eyes closed. I was kneading my fists down his shoulders and arms. His eyes clenched shut.

“Sorry, that’s a longer answer than you probably wanted. I seem to do that a lot.” I laughed, but it sounded so fake. Probably because it was. I realized I had said too much, and really should be protecting my brother from a stranger’s judgment.

Kael’s eyes opened for a second and he leaned his head up, forcing eye contact. “It’s fine. I don’t mind it.”

I looked away and he laid his head back down. “Thanks, I think,” I teased, and my stomach flipped when his face broke into the biggest smile I had seen on him yet.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR




I walked into the lobby and only Mali was there. She wasn’t paying any attention to my arrival and was busy cleaning. I was waiting for Kael when I got Elodie’s text with the BuzzFeed link. She was the queen of “Is It Your Fault You’re Single?” quizzes, and “Are Women Taking Over the Self-Employment Industry?” articles. This one was “25 Things You Need to Know About Twilight.” Trust me, I already knew every detail of those books and films and enjoyed crushing all the “hardest” quizzes. Elodie didn’t share my love for vampires falling in love with humans, so she mostly took the “What Kind of Toast Are You?” or “Choose a Day of Meals and We’ll Tell You Where to Travel” ones.

I started scrolling through the list and wasn’t surprised by how basic these “facts” were. It was public knowledge that New Moon was Robert Pattinson’s favorite book in the series. I kept reading, smiling at the pictures. Twilight was my comfort series and had been since I was a teenager. I had all the merchandise and my mom let me see each of the movies at midnight the night they released. I cried in my room when Kristen and Rob broke up. As I zoomed in on a picture of them in the quiz, I caught something moving from the corner of my eye. My phone fell out of my hands and Kael reached for it. He looked at the screen and then at me. I was mortified. Kristen’s stunning face stared up at me, even more zoomed-in than it was when I’d dropped it.

“Sorry, I—” I started to say.

“Do you apologize every time you speak?” he interrupted me. My cheeks burned.

“Um, no. I just . . .” I paused. He was right. Sorry was probably the most overused word in my vocabulary.

“What are you apologizing for? Being a Twilight fan?” he was laughing at me, biting his lower lip as it curled.

I joined him, smiling even though I was still slightly embarrassed.

“My sister started reading the books last summer and read them all in one week.”

A sister! My brain created a spreadsheet of questions to ask him.

“How old is she?” I started with one question instead of twenty.

“Fifteen.”

I wondered what she was like. If he was a sweet, protective older brother, and if she was as beautiful as he was.

“Aw. Does she live close?”

He shook his head. “Yes and no. Closer than most soldiers are to their families. But her and my ma are in Riverdale. Here in Georgia.”

“Ah, like the show?”

He nodded, smiling a little. I really, really wanted to see him smile like he did on my table a few minutes ago. That big smile made me crave another.

A phone started to ring, and I pulled mine back out of my pocket. It wasn’t mine. Kael swiped his finger across his phone and put it back in his pocket.

“Well, I hope everything was okay with your treatment today.”

“Thanks,” he said, but didn’t answer my question.

I rang him up and handed over the credit card slip to sign. I’d never felt anxious seeing a client scribble his name across that little black line before, so this was new. And, of course, Kael wasn’t giving anything up, which left room for me to fill in the blanks. First, I wondered if he’d come back for another massage. Then it was What’s going to happen after he stops crashing on my couch?