Her eyes rake over my body, putting two and two together. “Is that who did this?” I sigh, not really wanting to get into it with her. “Maybe you need a few kickboxing classes,” she scoffs.
“And maybe you need to forgive me for having stupid feelings for your brother? It’s not like I could help it. He’s pretty cool, you know?”
She groans. “I know, he’s the best,” she tells me. “You don’t still…you know? Want to have his babies?”
“No,” I laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure his babies are going to be gorgeous, but they won’t be crawling out of me. It took me a little while, but I realized what I felt for him wasn’t the real deal. And to be honest, I had the shits with you both too much to even consider it.”
“How’d you know it wasn’t the real deal?” she asks, ignoring my last comment.
“Because what I feel for Noah is.”
“Noah?” she grunts. “Noah Cage? Like King of Haven Falls? Pack leader? Most intimidating guy on the face of the earth?”
My cheeks flame as I suddenly become sheepish. “Yeah.”
“Well… shit,” she says, giving herself a moment to get used to the idea. “So, Spencer?”
“Was supposed to be fun.”
She scrunches up her face. “Doubt it,” she grumbles before giving me a small smile. “I’m happy for you,” she says before she starts biting her bottom lip. Kaylah is quiet for a moment as she looks down at her hands. “I’ve missed you,” she admits. “It been pretty shitty not having you around. I had to make new friends at Broken Hill and it wasn’t easy.”
“I know,” I sigh. “I’ve missed you too, but you could have called me or come by.”
She lets out a sigh. “Do you think…?” she cuts herself off, unable to word whatever she’s thinking.
“Yeah,” I tell her, being able to read her like a map. “We can.”
“Slowly?”
I shake my head and give her a grin. “No way in hell. You’re not getting one foot through the door just to hover in the damn thing. If you’re in, you’re all in. None of this taking it slowly bullshit. We’ve been friends for too long for that crap.”
Kaylah lets out a relieved sigh. “Oh, thank God,” she rushes out before throwing herself forward and crashing into me with wide arms. “I’ve hated being angry with you.”
“Fuck,” I curse, cringing in agony. “Get off me, skank.”
She gasps. “Shit.”
She hurries off me and checks me over before scrunching up her face. ‘I think you need a shower. All your blood is matted in your hair.”
“Great.”
She helps me up off the couch and slides her arm around my waist as we walk slowly towards the bathroom. She quickly strips off my clothes and orders me into the shower where I’m finally able to feel somewhat human again, despite the way my body screams with every touch.
Afterward, I wrap a towel around myself and sit down on the closed toilet and watch as she darts across to my bedroom, thankful that she knows her way around my house almost better than I do. Kaylah searches through my closet and pulls out a pair of sweatpants and grabs a shirt from the clean washing pile.
I smother a smile as I realize she’s grabbed the shirt Noah had given me after he threw me in the cold shower. Kaylah pulls it over my head and it takes all of three seconds for her to glance down at my body. “Is that a boy’s shirt?”
“Nope,” I say, which technically isn’t a lie. I’ve definitely claimed it as my own so as of now, it’s my shirt.
Kaylah rolls her eyes. “Alright,” she says. “Are you good? Do you need pain killers?”
“I should be fine,” I grumble. “I just want to eat something and go to bed.”
“K,” she murmurs, walking forward and slipping her arm around my body. She walks me back out to the living room where we find Jackson sitting on the couch with no sign of the bloodied tissues and bandages.
I give him a grateful smile and go to crash down on the couch, only he stops me with a shake of his head. “You’re not staying here by yourself tonight. Do you want to stay at our place?”
My back straightens as I think it over before shaking my head. I have too much shit to work out with Noah. “Can you take me to Noah’s place?”
His eyes narrow, clearly not liking the idea of me and Noah, but there’s not much he can do about it. He doesn’t know him the way I do and he’s taking the fact that he’s into shady shit and using that to judge his character. Not fair.
Jackson all but carries me out of the house and helps me into his car before Kaylah climbs into the back. The movement of bending down into his car is nearly enough to kill me. It’s excruciating and I can happily say that I never want to get jumped by a bunch of cheerleaders again.