The Falling (Brightest Stars, #1)(38)

I lay on my bed and grabbed my book again, but soon felt like I needed a change of scenery, so I went to the living room and flopped on the couch. I checked the time on my phone. Almost seven. I picked up where I’d left off on my last dog-eared page—I had never been a bookmark kind of girl—and let Hemingway’s brutal tale take me to the First World War. It wasn’t the distraction I had hoped for, though. The closer I got to sleep, the more Kael’s face appeared on multiple characters. He was a drill sergeant. A wounded soldier. An ambulance driver. And he looked at me like he recognized my eyes.

I woke up on the couch, the sun bright on my face. I looked around the living room, gathering my thoughts. Elodie was in the shower; I could hear the water running.

And Kael hadn’t come back.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN




It would be four days before I saw him again. When we finally crossed paths, I was sitting on my front porch, trying to get my feet into a new pair of shoes I had seen on Instagram. I knew that the IG model I followed had most likely been paid to wear them, but I still had to have them. Per the caption, they were “The Best!” and “SOO comfy!!! [heart-eye emoji].” Maybe for her. I could barely get the first one on. I mean, the damn thing wouldn’t go over my heel. I was tugging on the shoe, leaning back on the porch like some kind of idiot, when Kael pulled up in his gigantic jeep-truck thing. Nice timing.

He must have gone shopping, since he was head-to-toe in civilian clothes. Black jeans, a rip on one knee, and a white cotton shirt with gray sleeves that looked almost identical to one that I had. The only difference was that mine said Tomahawks on it and had a picture of an actual tomahawk.

A friend from Texas had given it to me; well, she left it at my house before she moved. It was from her old high school in Indiana somewhere. I wondered if her midwestern home had been like the place where my mom grew up, a little town that was hit hard by the advances of technology, causing factory after factory to close down completely. I also knew horror stories from the place, like when the hyper schoolchildren had gone on field trips to sacred Native American burial grounds—what they called “Indian Mounds”—and stomped all over them while being taught a false history of dangerous savages. No mention that these people were victims of genocide or that we had taken their land and forced them into poverty today.

Come to think of it, I didn’t really want to wear that shirt anymore.

Kael stopped short of my porch.

“Hey, stranger,” I said to him.

He tucked his lips in and shook his head, then nodded. I guess that was his way of saying hello.

“Looking for Elodie?”

Little Mama was spending her evening at the monthly family readiness group meeting for Phillip’s brigade. She was determined to make the other wives like her before the baby came. I didn’t blame her. She needed all the support she could get.

“I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

“No, actually. I just—” Kael paused. “I went to get a massage, but you weren’t working.” He looked in the direction of the alleyway toward the shop.

“Oh.” Now, that was a surprise.

I scooted over on the porch and made room next to me. Sort of. I had been blowing the seeds off dandelions in between my slightly manic thoughts, so Kael had to move a pile of bald weeds before he could sit down. He dropped them softly into the palm of my hand.

“I could use some wishes for sure,” he said.

“There’s more if you want.” I pointed to my weed garden. I hadn’t meant to harbor all those dandelions, wild daisies, and creeping something-or-other, but there they were by the corners of my concrete porch. Surrounded.

“I’m good,” he told me.

He looked so different in regular clothes.

“I see you went shopping?” He was obviously okay sitting in silence, but I wanted some conversation. Plus, I wanted to know where he’d disappeared to.

Kael pulled at his T-shirt. “Yeah, sorry about that. It’s been kind of a crazy few days.”

I had to ask. “Crazy? How?”

He sighed, picking up a dandelion stem from the steps. “Long story.”

I leaned back on my palms. “Yeah.”

“When do you work again?” he asked, a moment later.

A plane flew overhead right as I started to answer. “Tomorrow. I’m filling in for someone.”

“Do you have any openings?”

He was looking at me, his dark eyes hooded by his long lashes.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” He raised his brows and I laughed. He was soft today. I liked this relaxed version of him. Kael the civilian.

“I’m going to a party tonight,” I told him. “It’s at my dad’s house.”

He made a face.

“Yes. Exactly. Only worse, because my brother is being an idiot and throwing it while Dad and Estelle are off in Atlanta at the Marriott, eating lobster tails and boozing with expensive wine.” I rolled my eyes.

My dad never took my mom anywhere like that. They never had adult time without my brother and me. One of the many reasons their marriage didn’t work out. That and the fact that they were the two least compatible people on earth.

“Your dad doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who wants a party thrown at his house,” Kael observed. “Especially when he’s not there.”