The Falling (Brightest Stars, #1)(45)

Austin crossed his arms. “All over. Fort Bragg, Texas, and a couple others. You know, Army brat.”

Kael nodded. “Yeah. I can’t imagine, man.”

The doorbell rang. “Pizza? I hope so. I haven’t eaten all day,” Austin said, disappearing from the kitchen.

“Are you hungry?” I asked Kael.

“Kind of. You?”

I nodded.

“Shall we?” I gestured toward the living room.

He nodded, smiled at me, and tossed his beer into the trash.

“Do you want another one?” I asked, looking into my almost empty cup and debating a refill.

“I’m good. One of us has to drive,” he said.

“Ah,” I said, biting my lower lip. Kael’s shoulder brushed against mine. He was standing so close to me. “I can stay here.”

His eyes widened a little.

“You can, too. There’s plenty of room.”

We had stopped walking, but I couldn’t remember when. He was looking down at me and I was looking up at him. The curve of his lashes shaded his brown eyes. The way he smelled like cinnamon. For the first time, the scent didn’t remind me of anything except him. My brain was short-circuiting, not connecting thought with my tongue.

“I mean, you don’t have to stay here. You can use my car, or an Uber. Whatever. I was just suggesting because I’m obviously not driving, and your car—” Kael leaned toward me. I had to work hard to catch my breath.

“I’ll get another beer,” he told me in a whisper. He paused there, so close to my mouth, that the bottom of my stomach ached.

He moved away, casually, and grabbed for another beer. I swallowed, blinking.

Did I think he was going to kiss me?

I so did.

That had to be why I was breathing like I had run up a flight of stairs.

I gathered myself as quickly as I could.

“Uh, yeah. Me too,” I said, voice hoarse and audibly awkward. I pulled open the freezer door to grab some ice. The cold air felt so good against my hot face. I let it roll over me for a few seconds before I filled up my cup.

Kael was waiting for me by the wall, sipping his new beer. My insides wouldn’t settle. Gah, he made me feel on edge one second, yet so calm the next.

We were both quiet as we walked into the living room. There seemed to be the same number of people in the house—minus the two assholes—but the crowd felt dense now that everyone was crammed into the living room. It didn’t help that my heart was pounding in its cage, no matter how hard I tried to calm myself.

Austin was talking to the pizza delivery man. I watched as he handed over some cash, shoving a wad back into his pocket. As far as I knew, Austin had been working only a few hours a week at Kmart, which he supplemented by asking my dad for money here and there. My brother was never good with money. Even when he worked summer jobs, he’d spend his check the day he got it. I wasn’t much better, so I wasn’t judging, but where did that cash come from? It didn’t make sense.

“Kare! Grab some plates?” Austin yelled to me, passing out pizza boxes to the group.

I didn’t know what was going on, but my brain couldn’t handle any more tonight. I wanted to have fun, to not worry about things that I couldn’t control. I had been trying that for years—maybe tonight would be the night that I actually followed through with it?


Black jeans were a girl’s best friend. They stood out from the usual indigo. They made your legs look longer. And that dark wash was great when you were out on a date and needed to do something about greasy pizza fingers. Not that I was on a date. Was I on a date?

There was just this way that Kael was looking at me that made me wonder. The fact that he’d agreed to come to the party at all made me wonder. But as with everything with this man, I couldn’t be sure.

We were still sitting next to each other on the couch. Kael’s empty plate rested on a napkin on his lap. The plate was clean and the napkin was spotless. My plate had a splinter of hard crust on it and a bit of stray pepperoni. My white paper napkin was splotched with pizza sauce. My black jeans didn’t show my greasy handprints, though. Small mercies. I wasn’t neat and tidy. Not like Kael. And certainly not like Estelle, the perfect housewife, whose picture was hanging in a thick black frame above us. A black cloud was more like it. I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel her bearing down on me. I knew that picture well—it had been taken on one of their many vacations. My dad was next to her, wearing a big smile and a Florida tan. A beachfront American Gothic.

Kael leaned up to grab a pizza box. “Can you hand me a napkin?” I asked.

Another guy might have made a crack about the red sauce massacre I had going on, but he didn’t say anything, just grabbed some pizza and napkins, then leaned back into the couch cushion. I could feel the heat rising off him. My imagination was playing with that. My body, too.

“Want some?” he asked. He offered his plate, which had two thick slices, glistening with cheese.

I shook my head, thanking him.

“I see you have a new twin.” Austin pointed to Kael and mostly everyone looked at him, then me. His shirt and jeans were practically identical to mine, only my shirt was plain gray. I thought back to the photograph of my dad and Estelle, standing side by side in their matching Hawaiian shirts from Old Navy, and burned with embarrassment. Kael cracked a smile. A very small smile, but it was there, all right.