Jess’s perfectly arched left eyebrow rose in silent question.
“Come on,” Ali threaded her arm through Jess’s, “help me get some chips.”
Ali had been dying to talk to her best friend all day, but she’d known that Saturday was Jess’s busiest day of the week. And Ali had been busy with the barbeque, anyway. But now that it was in full swing, it was the perfect time to sneak away to download everything that had transpired since she’d left Jess sixteen hours ago.
The sliding glass door off the deck that always stuck, now glided easily when Ali gently tugged at the handle, taking her by surprise.
Kade.
He must’ve fixed it while she’d been taking a shower. He’d seen her fighting with it all morning. It seemed like every time she turned around she discovered something else he’d fixed. First it was the dryer, then the loose railing on the stairs, the light in the pantry, and now the back door.
It was unnerving and amazing at the same time.
I never touch anything I don’t know I can fix,she heard Kade’s voice in her head and her hormones did a jig.
Damn. It got her every time.
As soon as the girls were inside and the door shut behind them, Jess turned to her friend.
“Talk,” she demanded.
“When I got home last night, Kade was waiting up for me. He said we needed to talk.”
Ali did a quick glance around, even though she was fairly certain that no one else was in the house. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He told me that after Patrick’s funeral he went on a three-month bender and then checked himself into rehab. He said that once he got out, he wanted to have at least one full year sober before he came back. He didn’t want to be like his dad or my mom and put the boys through the same things we’d gone through. He wanted to make sure that he could be the man that Patrick thought he was and that I deserved.”
Jess’s jaw was hanging like it was on a hinge and her eyes were wide as saucers. “He said that? The man that Patrick thought he was and the man that you deserved?”
“Yep.”
“Damn.” Jess looked just as shocked as Ali had been.
“I know.”
“You know what this means?” Her friend asked somberly.
“What?” Ali’s breath caught as she waited to hear what this meant, cause she sure as shit didn’t know.
“Looks like Kade is well on his way to earning his title back. McKnight-in-Shining-Armor rides again!”
They both devolved into laughter but in the back of Ali’s mind there was a little nagging voice telling her that there was no such thing as a knight in shining armor. Kade might be riding in on a white horse now, but everyone left. Even if they didn’t want to. First her granddad when she was a little girl, her mom when she was a pre-teen, and then Patrick.
Her granddad’s death had been hard on her because she loved him so much. Her mom’s death had been scary because she was placed in foster care. Her brother’s death had devastated her because he’d been her whole life. She wasn’t sure she could survive losing someone else she loved and depended on. Which meant, she couldn’t love or depend on Kade…no matter how tempting it was.