The Falling (Brightest Stars, #1)(78)

He pouted for a second before nodding. “I know, I know. Let me order food. I have fifty bucks. We can get pizza.”

I shook my head. I definitely didn’t feel like cooking, but my brother needed to eat. I wasn’t going to let Austin leave here without him telling me what the hell happened last night.

“I have dinner plans and you need to save your money. Let’s make you something,” I suggested.

I stood up and waited for him to follow me into the kitchen. The sunlight pouring through the windows made that room at least ten degrees warmer.

“I have pasta and a few things in the fridge that are going to go bad soon. Let’s use up what I have.” I winked at him. “You should save your money for a haircut.” I pointed to his uncharacteristically long hair. I sort of loved when his hair was long, the opposite of a soldier, away from danger. Or was he?

“How did you get here, anyway?” I opened the cabinet and pulled out a pot. I knew I had pasta in my pantry and tomatoes on the counter that were nearly too ripe.

“Martin dropped me off.”

The pot slipped from my hands and fell into the sink. Water splashed up at me. “Martin?”

I turned the water off and looked at my brother. “How?”

My brother rolled his eyes and looked at me like I was making a mountain out of a molehill by asking him that. I had every reason to, especially after last night.

“I called him to say sorry for being a shitbag last night.” Austin was that way. He would put you in a crappy situation but not entirely on purpose, and he would always actually feel bad about it.

“How did you get his number?”

“Mendoza gave it to me.”

I sighed. My small circle was becoming more and more tangled.

“Are you and Mendoza close? I knew you were friends before, but have you stayed in touch?”

Austin nodded and the screen door creaked. Elodie’s voice chirped through the house, cutting the conversation off before my brother could respond.

“Karina?”

“In here!” I answered, as she came in, her face looking more tired than usual.

“I got home just in time, it’s about to pour!” She sat down at the table next to Austin and he gave her a big smile.

“We’re making dinner. You hungry?” he asked her.

I laughed, turning around to them. “Correction, I am making dinner. For Austin. Pasta with . . . well, random stuff, but it’ll be good.”

I turned the stove on to boil the water and started to dig through the fridge to see what random vegetables I had to throw into the pasta sauce. Carrots. Even though Austin was like a child when it came to food, if I chopped them up small enough he wouldn’t notice them. Hell, even if he saw me chopping them, he probably wouldn’t notice.

Austin and Elodie started basic small talk, how unpredictable the rain was and how the weather people never got the forecast right, that Austin had a headache and that Elodie’s hands were starting to ache each day after work. The pain was increasing quickly, and she was a little worried. Austin touched the tips of her fingers and she winced.

“Sorry.” He let go, looking like a puppy who’d chewed apart a favorite shoe.

“It’s okay,” she assured him, verbally petting his head. “I have about ten minutes until I have to meet Martin; he’s with Julien and Gloria.”

I turned around faster than I meant to, coming comically close to chopping the tip of my finger off. I set the knife toward the back of the cutting board, facing away from me.

“Martin, Kael Martin?” I asked her, somewhat puzzled. He told me he had meetings on post until five, but he was with Austin maybe an hour ago; now he’s somewhere with Mendoza’s wife and baby, and Elodie is going to meet up with them?

Elodie nodded. “He picked them up from home and dropped them off at the doctor. Kael’s been spending all his time on post for his discharge stuff. I offered to take them home since Mendoza’s on twenty-four-hour duty. I haven’t met Gloria, but I’m hoping to make mom friends.” Elodie’s voice became more and more exhausted as she finished her sentence.

“Oh. Yeah. Gloria seems cool.” I turned back around and continued chopping the carrot, noticing that the water in the pot was beginning to boil. My mind drifted to Kael as Elodie and Austin started talking about some park she saw on Instagram. So Kael must have driven back and forth to help them out. Of course he did. I felt the little nudge between my lungs as I thought of how much I liked the softness of his actions and how they spoke infinitely louder than his words.

I realized that Kael and I don’t talk much about his military life day to day. It’s more about the big picture of his life, but even then, the conversation is mostly focused on me. Elodie seemed to talk to Kael every day, and I wondered what he might have told her about us. I thought about mentioning to Elodie how often I’m hanging out with him.“Hey, Elodie, Kael and I are. . . friends . . . and we kissed more than once. I kinda want to kiss him again, but we’re just friends . . . okay, thanks? But since I can’t even explain what the hell we’re doing, there was really nothing to say to her.

Elodie’s loud laugh suddenly interrupted my thoughts. Clearly, I had missed one of Austin’s jokes, but I noticed how he had managed to charm her. The banter between the two of them was a pleasant distraction.