Stupid Boy

I’d been missing out. On a lot. I suddenly felt free. Free to possibly be me. It was a breathtaking notion.

It took ten minutes to reach Brax’s apartment because of the Friday night traffic, and when I did, Kane was outside waiting on me when I pulled up. Leaning casually against his truck, his smile broke the darkness as I killed the engine. When I climbed out of the Lexus, the smile grew.

“Wow,” he said under his breath. Almost not for me to hear. Slowly, his eyes moved from my head to my feet, and back up. “Casual looks good on you.”

“Feels good, too,” I said, then shivered. He pulled me close, grabbed my hand and led me inside. The lights were out; the candle was lit on the square coffee table. Wordlessly, he led me to the sofa, then followed me down when I sat.

His large, warm hand enveloped mine. “I want to tell you something, Harper,” he said in that mesmerizing, quiet voice. Tinged with that unique Boston accent, it intrigued me, and I listened closely. I knew what was coming; things he didn’t want to explain. Things I didn’t want to hear.

Necessary, both.

“I know Brax told you a little the other night, after,” he started. “I’m not going to replay it for you. First, I want you to know something.” He breathed, his eyes holding mine. “I’d never put you in danger, Harper. I hope you know that.” Fury passed over his face. “When I saw that guy head your way I nearly lost my mind. “

My throat went dry at the storm in his eyes. “I know, Kane. I know what Cory found out. “

He nodded, and that profound gaze bore into me. “But there’s something Brax doesn’t even know,” he shook his head, rubbed his jaw with his free hand. “Man.” He struggled; I could tell that. I sat silent, though. Waiting.

“My sister. Katy.” A sad smile touched his mouth. “She was my only light back then. So sweet. So small. So helpless.” His face grew stormy. “Our father was a big man with a big gut, bigger mouth and an endless temper. Especially when he had a six-pack in him. Which was every day.” He turned my hand loose, and rubbed the sockets of his eyes, then looked at me. “I usually took all of Katy’s beatings. But one got by me.” He closed his eyes, breathed, opened them again. “When I got home he’d beaten my little sister unconscious. He was passed out in the recliner in the dump we lived in.” He shook his head, and I knew he was reliving a nightmare. I’d done it before myself. He continued. “I found her on the floor in a heap.” His voice caught, tight, cracked, and painful, and it made my insides hurt to hear it. “She wouldn’t wake up. She just lay there, her little bony knees and ankles crossed and lying in an odd way on the floor.” He cleared his throat. “I knew she was alive, though. So I called 9-1-1. Then I beat my father’s drunken, pathetic ass until the paramedics pulled me off.” He cleared his voice again, and I eased my hand into his, and he sagged against me. “I didn’t beat him hard enough, because the bastard came out of it later that week. He’s in prison now, though, and he won’t get out in my lifetime.” His gaze stayed on our hands for a moment, then he raised his head, and the pain I saw there made me almost gasp.

“My little sister never woke up,” he confessed. “She was in a state nursing home at first.” He sighed. “They were overbooked, understaffed for the most part, and her care was—I hated going to that place. Hated knowing she was in there.” His gaze cleared now, and it was fathomless and fiery and full of shadows. “I quit school during my senior year and ran away from yet another foster home when I got a job running numbers and made a few big checks. The opportunities were endless and I was good at it.” He looked away now, and I knew he wondered if I judged him. “I spent every dime I had on a run-down little apartment for myself, and the monthly fee for my sister’s care in a decent, private facility up the coast. Out of the city. Harbor Breeze. She gets good care there, and is treated with respect. Even though they say she can’t see it, her room really does overlook the harbor. I think she can see it. And I think she hears me when I talk to her. And I’ve been paying for my little sister that way ever since I was eighteen years old.”

My insides sank like a weight had been dropped down my mouth.

His little sister was alive but beaten into a vegetative state by her own father. And Kane had been paying for her care ever since. Words wouldn’t come; I could barely swallow my own saliva.

Kane’s knuckle lifted my chin, and our eyes held. Tears rolled from mine. His were deep, wet, glassy. “And so you see, Harper, that’s why I run numbers. It’s why I can’t stop. Ever. Not for a second.” His mouth lifted, somber, sweet. “My little sister is my heart. And she deserves only the best.”

When Kane’s voice cracked again, I fell against his chest, slid my arms gently around him but didn’t squeeze, and nestled into his lap. He rested his chin on top of my head, silent, cautious. “I’ve only told you,” he admitted. “Just you.”

I looked up, into his eyes, those eyes that spoke every emotion. “You’re safe with me,” I said softly, and I ran my fingers through his tousled hair. “You can trust me.”

In his eyes I saw gratitude. Desire. And something else I was unfamiliar with. “I can, yeah?” he asked. His thumb found my bottom lip.

“Yes,” I answered, and the sensation of his roughened thumb against the sensitive skin of my lip sent tingles across my spine.