“And that it broke...”
He cringed again. “It might not have broken that much.”
“Kota!”
He held onto my foot, cupping around the top and smoothing his fingers over it. He turned partially to look back at my face. “You looked like you were running away.”
I darted my eyes away to avoid his. I didn’t like the term running away, even if it was probably accurate. “How did you know I was out there? I mean, it was dark.”
“I’d just gotten back from some Academy work and I noticed you standing there in your drive. I thought you were going to change your mind and run back into your house like you usually did. But then I saw the book bag you were carrying. So I grabbed Max...”
“Wait, wait,” I said, holding out a hand onto his shoulder. “What do you mean, ‘like I usually did’?”
His cheeks brightened. One hand released my leg to hook into the collar of his shirt and tugged. “Um...”
“Kota?”
He ducked his head a bit. “I might have seen you around the neighborhood a few times before that night.”
I tilted my head back, surprised. “You knew who I was? You were watching me?”
He spun around until he was on his knees in front of me. He planted his hands on either side of my hips and his eyes locked with mine. “Yes,” he said quickly. I sensed he was done tiptoeing around the subject. “I did. I saw your family move in, your parents, you and your sister. Your sister basically disappeared into that house and never came back out again, as did your mom. You would creep out the back door and race off into the woods like you didn’t want anyone to notice. I didn’t understand at the time why you made it look like you were trying to avoid being seen.”
My cheeks were on fire. I didn’t know how to respond. He’d noticed me, when I thought I was still the invisible girl. “So you had your dog run me over?”
“I’d tried to approach you before,” he said. His fingers stretched toward my face, capturing a lock of my hair, tucking it behind my ear. His fingertips slid down my cheek. “I tried to approach you when you walked through the woods. I thought it’d be easier if I just happened to cross your path and said hello. You’d change direction before I got close. If I tried to cut you off, you’d dart through a patch to avoid me and race back to your house again. You were impossible to approach. You never just walked out in the open.”
My mind flickered to the memory of hearing rustling in the woods when I used to go for walks. While I hadn’t seen who it was, I never waited to find out who, either. I knew I wasn’t alone on the street, and that other people probably used those paths, and I’d done my best never to run into anyone. I was too shy. “I just... it’s what I was used to.”
“I didn’t want to run after you and scare you,” he said. He sat back on his heels. “When I saw you out that night, I just pieced a plan together. I didn’t mean for Max to hurt you like he did.”
I sat back, pushing a palm against my forehead. “I can’t believe you knew...”
Kota’s palms slid over until his hands were warming my outer thighs. “Sang? You’re not mad, are you?”
“Why?” I asked.
Kota blinked at me. “Why what?”
“Why me? Why did you bother?” Maybe it was stupid to ask, but I really didn’t understand. I was no one to him at the time. I was being an idiot that night and he’d stopped me from doing something unbelievably foolish.
Kota’s eyes fell until he was gazing at my knee. His palm slid over the top of my thigh, warming the skin. “I’ve told you. You were this little haunted girl. You snuck out alone, and spent hours walking, or sitting in a tree staring off and watching the street. All I had to do was look at you and I knew. Something was wrong. I saw someone like us. Beautiful girls like you don’t hide themselves in trees all day like that.”
It was true. Back then, I’d climb a tree and spend the day dreaming about a normal life. My heart strangely warmed at the idea that not too far away had been Kota. I could imagine him sitting under some tree, just out of sight, trying to figure out a way to talk to the invisible girl. It was like something out of a book I’d read. And I couldn’t totally blame him if he was trying to talk to me and I was the one making it difficult, and I had been.
“Maybe it wasn’t the best way to approach you,” he said, “but when I saw you that night, I really thought you were running away for forever. I didn’t want you to just disappear. I thought I could just talk you out of it. Then I met you.” He lifted his eyes, meeting mine again. “And you were smart and sweet.” His hands gripped my legs tighter. “The next thing I knew, I was inviting you to spend the night. I was surprised you agreed to stay.”
Heat rose in my cheeks. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
He looked down at my knee, and traced a couple of fingers across my skin, following the outside of my leg. A small smile played across his lips. “I probably should scold you for spending the night in the bedroom with a guy you don’t know.”
“Then I should scold you for inviting strange girls into your bedroom in the middle of the night.”
He rocked back on his heels, laughing. “Okay. I guess we were both a bit reckless that night.” His smile caught fully this time. “So you’re not mad at me?”
“For what?”
“For practically stalking you when you first showed up. And for Max. I didn’t realize he’d hurt you that badly. That was my fault.”
Angry? Kota had flipped my entire world upside down. Before him, there weren’t people like Hendricks to tell me what to do, or McCoy who haunted me still, or people like Jade or any mysterious Academy secrets.
But there also wouldn’t have been any of the guys. Despite my own messed up and confused feelings for them, they were there for me, in the only way they knew how. Maybe it wasn’t the best, but it was who we were now. And being who I was, the haunted girl with a broken family, where else did I belong?
I could only offer Kota a small smile. “I can’t be mad about something I don’t regret. Unless you wish you hadn’t.”
Kota did a small eye roll and popped me on the thigh playfully. “Sorry, sweetie. Too late to change your mind now. You’re one of us.”
I giggled. “Yeah well, joke’s on you. Mean’s you're stuck with me.”
Kota chuckled. He slipped back down until he was on the floor. He caught up my legs, holding onto one of my feet. He smoothed his palms over one, massaging my toes. He picked up one of the polish bottles, a clear coat, and opened the top. He stuck his nose close to the top, sniffed and recoiled. “This stuff is worse than Gabriel’s shampoos.”
Kota swiped at my toes with the polish, and while he was painting, he directed me on how to play the game. He told me the rules, taught me more about drifting, when and how to use the speed bonuses.
When the clear polish dried, he picked up the other polish bottle. This one was a deep hunter green.
“Where’d you get that stuff, anyway?” I asked.
“I’ve borrowed some of this from my mom before,” he said. “The clear polish was for red bug bites. The nail polish remover I’d gotten when you painted our nails so I could get this green color off.”
“Did you take the green color from Gabriel?”
Kota nodded. “I don’t know why. I picked it up and just brought it home.” He opened the top and wiped the brush against the lip. “Sorry it’s not pink.”
“I don’t need pink all the time. I
like other colors, too.”
Kota smiled. He held my foot against his thigh, and aimed the color at my toes.
He managed to finish the first coat of color and was halfway done with the second when the sound of keys in the door rattled through the house.
“Dakota?” Erica called from the door.
I stiffened, dropping the controller in my lap and turning slightly.
“Hi mom,” Kota said, unflinching. He held on to my foot and continued to focus on one of my toes. “You’re back early.”
Erica groaned from the hallway beyond where I could see. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe it. There’s a new manager and she has completely muddled the schedule. Why does every new manager think they have to redo the entire system when they arrive?” Erica appeared from the hallway, her dark hair down and wearing light blue nurse scrubs. She dropped her purse, jacket and nurse’s badge on the table. She turned, her face lighting up when she spotted me. “You’re not Kota.”
“Down here,” Kota said, applying polish to the brush and aiming the tip at one of my smaller toes. He hovered the brush as he did it, trying to position it just right.
Erica crossed the room until she stood over us. She planted her hands on her hips. Her lips parted for a moment and then broke into a crazy smile. “This is adorable.”
Kota looked up, lifting an eyebrow. “What is?”
“Stay right there,” Erica said. She went back for her purse, fished out her cell phone, and came back. She held it up, poked at some buttons and snapped a picture of the two of us.
Kota dodged his head, blinking and holding a hand up in front of his face. “What are you doing?”
“You guys look so cute together.” She tapped at her phone again and snapped another picture, then turned it to show me. “Kota, you’re so sweet on her, it’s ridiculous.”
“I’m just fixing her toes. They were chipping.”
“I’d expect that of Gabriel. From you, it’s romantic.” She dropped a palm over her heart and sighed loud. “None of my high school boyfriends did that. What have you two been doing alone in the house?”
“We were playing games and then I painted her toenails,” Kota said. “We’ve been downstairs the whole time.”