“It’s fine, Bert.” I lean down to kiss her cheek and realize I’ve actually missed at least one person from this house. “I’ll take a look.”
“I’m gonna check the perimeter. Hit me up if you need me.” Gep leaves the way we just came.
“I’ll go get lunch started.” Bertie gestures up the steps. “I’m sure you remember the way, Rhys, and the guest room is ready if you want to lie down, Kai.”
She bustles off toward the kitchen, leaving Kai and me standing in the foyer and looking at each other carefully, like if we do or say the wrong thing, the fragile peace between us will shatter.
“Tree house?” Kai offers a small smile. “Somehow I didn’t envision the young Beethoven climbing trees.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t get to spend much time in it.” I hesitate. I’d love to show her the place that held some significance for me years ago, but if she’s tired, I won’t. “You wanna see it? I mean, if you need to sleep now—”
“Lead the way.”
We walk in silence through the kitchen to the rear of the house. I open the door to the backyard, and immediately the sight of the well-manicured lawn, an almost unnaturally vibrant green in the dead of winter thanks to our gardener, transports me to the lonely afternoons I spent out here. At the far end of the yard, a hundred-year-old tree holds the one place I felt at home here. I grab Kai’s hand and walk her across the yard, my heart growing heavier instead of lighter with every step.
I take the first rung and then the next, glad to see Kai right behind me when I look down. She doesn’t break the silence, but her eyes show her concern.
It hasn’t changed. Other than Bertie’s sweeping, it’s like no one has been here since the last time I was at sixteen years old. Grady found me up here that Christmas, sick and shaking, fiending for Xanax. Trying to quit on my own, but having little success. That night set into motion all the events that saved me, but ruined my relationship, and Grady’s, with my parents.
Even with my father in the hospital, still fighting for his life, and even with a possible second chance to restore our relationship, I can’t hold back the bitterness that almost chokes me. The small space at the top of the tree is empty except for a few music books, a composition notebook, and a sleeping bag. So bare, but it was all I needed. With that beautifully decorated house just yards away, I preferred it out here because it was my only escape from my parents. From their agenda. From the demands of a career I never asked for.
I sink to the sleeping bag, my back to the wall and my legs stretched out in front of me, and can’t help but remember all the nights I spent here alone in the dark.
“What’s going on in there?” Kai taps my temple with one finger.
I grab her hand and press my lips to her knuckles. She’s so sweet. She’s everything I never thought I would deserve. I don’t deserve her, but the idea that I might not ultimately have her turns a knife in my chest.
“Rhyson, talk to me.” She settles beside me, not pulling her hand away, but linking our fingers on her thigh. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me about this place and what it means to you.”
I don’t want to. I don’t want her to know how pathetic and weak I was. How I allowed them to control me with music and medication. How they withheld their approval to keep me coming back for more. But it’s Kai, and she is my irresistible force.
“When I was twelve, I told my dad that I wanted to go to school.” A half smile twists itself on my face. “Not like tutors, but like school with other kids my age. He said I’d be on the road too much for that but promised to consider it later. He got me this tree house as some kind of compromise. I guess to make me feel like I had something other kids had. I was already too old for it, but I wanted it. I loved it because they never bothered me here.”
I squeeze her small hand in mine.
“I used to pretend I had friends coming over. I used to imagine how we’d roast s’mores down in the yard and then sleep up here at night.”
“Sounds like fun,” she says, her voice small, her head resting on my shoulder. “Where was Bristol in all this?”
I frown, struggling to place Bristol in my life all those years ago.
“We weren’t your typical twins. We weren’t close at all in anything but looks. She wanted my life, or at least she thought she did. The supposed glamour of being on the road, earning money, having my picture taken, and being respected by adults.” A short laugh ruptures my words. “But I wanted what she had. She went to school. She had friends. She had a life.”
“And every time we’d come home off the road, I’d come out here, hoping my dad would come looking for me, but he never did. He just bribed me with it and forgot it was even here. Once we were off the road, he forgot I was even here.”
The tears burning my throat make me so angry. I’m not some punk ass kid with no friends falling asleep in this dumb tree house anymore. What the hell do I have to cry about? I escaped this glittering prison. I made my own way. I made my own money. I even made real friends. Does remembering the cold past hurt that badly? Is it the uncertainty of my father’s health? The relief that he pulled through surgery? I’m not sure where this flood of emotions comes from, but I don’t want it. I fight it.
“It’s okay,” Kai whispers, reaching one hand up to cup my jaw. She crawls onto my lap, straddling one knee on either side of my legs. She presses our foreheads together, her breath cool on my lips. “It’s okay if it still hurts. It’s over, but it still hurts, and that’s normal. Don’t bottle it up, Rhys. Whatever it is, you can let it out with me.”
I know that. I believe that. As I bury my head in her neck, my whole body relaxes into her. My arms wrap around her, squeezing at her back. She doesn’t complain. She just squeezes me in return. The hurt is draining away with every second I have with her. I’m sure it’s not gone completely. I know it doesn’t work like that, but she is a balm to my wounds and makes everything feel better.
A snapping sound startles us. I look over her shoulder just in time to see the lens of a camera as someone backs down the ladder of the tree house. A flash makes us both squint and throw our hands over our faces, but too late.
“Fuck!” My head falls back to bang against the wall. “Photographer.”
I know I should chase them, but I don’t have the energy. So they got a picture of me collapsing all over a dark-haired girl. I just hope they didn’t see Kai’s face. I don’t care anymore what they say about me.
“A photographer?” Kai’s eyes go wide, and she springs off my lap and out the tree house door before I can stop her.
“Kai, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” she yells back up. “How dare they invade your privacy at a time like this.”
I rush to the door and almost fall out of the tree house with shock. Really, with laughter.
My girl, no bigger than a minute, all five feet two inches of her, has caught that poor, unsuspecting pap. She is on his fucking back! I should go help, but this is just too entertaining, and she seems to have it under complete control.
“Get off me!” the photographer screams, shaking his back like Kai is a pesky spider monkey he can’t get rid of.
“Give me that camera!” Her legs clench him, and her slim arms have his neck in a death grip. She finally grasps the camera strap and tugs until the camera hits the ground, breaking into pieces. She’s immediately off his back, scooping up a chunk of it and sprinting back toward the tree house. He grabs Kai around her waist, lifting her off the ground so her feet dangle and kick.
Motherfucker just crossed the line.
I’m down the ladder so fast I almost lose my shoe.
I grab Kai’s waist, pulling her from the ballsack who is by now red in the face and sweating.
“Keep your hands off her,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Little bitch broke my camera.”
My fist is halfway to his face when Kai grabs my elbow, stepping between me and this lowlife.