Dust (12 page)

"End of hall, to the left," Jewel said as she jogged up beside me.

We walked faster.

"Can I help you?" a nurse asked as we passed a station. Jewel hung back to speak to her, but I kept going. I wouldn't be able to breathe comfortably until I could see Liv.

"Over here," Jewel said once she joined me again. She walked over to a curtain and opened it.

Liv looked up from the bed she was sitting on and I had to lock my knees to keep from falling. She looked at me but had her phone up to her ear.

"No, Mom. I promise I'm fine. They're releasing me now. There's no need to come down here. Yes, I'll pick up a new epinephrine pen. I'll have to see about that. Finals are coming up. I know...I know. Okay, I'll see if I can make it. Love you, too." She pulled her phone down and sighed. "My mom. She's freaking out and wants to come down here, but I told her not to worry about that. I had to bribe her with a weekend visit as soon as possible."

Our gazes held as I stepped toward her. I didn't stop until I’d pulled her into my arms and held her to me. "You scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry."

My hold became crushing, my emotions rioting inside me. Her being here was my fault. If I hadn't been so careless with the food, she wouldn't have been in danger.

"So what did the doctor say?" Jewel asked from beside me. I pulled away so she could hug Liv. I watched as she took her roommate's hug without flinching, and I felt a little at ease knowing Liv trusted her. But only a very little at ease. This was still all my fault.

"Nothing I didn't already know. Don't eat anything with peanuts."

"Why am I just now finding out about this?" Jewel said, putting her hands on her hips. "Do you know how much stuff is packaged around peanuts?"

"I know," Liv mumbled.

"You could get sick off something that was cross-contaminated," Jewel squeaked. "O-M-G, we need to go through all our food and products to make sure nothing could hurt you."

"Look, Jewel. I'm straight. I've lived with this my whole life. I know what to look for. I just slipped." Her eyes darted to me, but I didn't say anything. I was still coming to terms with everything myself.

When she focused on Liv again, she asked, "When do you get to leave?"

"As soon as they bring me my discharge papers."

"Okay. I need to call my dad." She looked at me. "Make sure she gets home safely. I need to start going through all our stuff and throw out anything that doesn't need to be around her."

"Jewel—"

"Oh no, girl. Don't you dare argue with me." She hugged her before heading to the door. "From this moment forward, peanuts are the work of the devil, and I'm not having them around us. Period. End of story."

I watched Jewel walk out and then slowly faced Liv. "How are you feeling?" I stroked her hair and tucked it behind her ear. She shivered, and I couldn't help myself. I pulled her back into an embrace and kissed the top of her head. "Are you hurting or anything?"

She wrapped her arms around me. "I'm fine, Kill. I promise."

I nodded against her head. I needed to ask her some questions, but couldn't let go long enough to face her. It was just too hard. "Why, firecracker? Why do you think you deserve this?"

She stiffened against me, but my arms were like steel. She wasn't getting out of this. I needed an explanation. I needed to understand. Because right now, I sure as hell didn't.

"I-I don't know if I can talk about it yet, Kill."

Was she ever going to if I let her avoid it now? I think I already knew the answer to that, and I didn't like it. "Please," I breathed against her.

She was quiet for a while, just let me hold her. Then she whispered, "I swore if I ever had another attack, I'd let it take me."

I shut my eyes, the pain too strong bear. "Why?"

"It was why I got free...and my sister didn't."

She didn't finish the thought, but I knew she meant when she and her sister had been kidnapped. We hadn't talked about that much, not because I wasn't dying to know the details, but because I wanted her to be the one to tell me when she was ready. I'd even considered Googling her to see if I could find anything out, but that felt too invasive. Especially when she was learning how to trust men in general and me specifically. We would do this on her time.

With me nudging her along, like now. "How?"

She sighed. "We were chained in a basement, but they made us eat something I had an allergic reaction to." She pulled away, and I let her, reluctantly, giving her the space she needed to get the words out. After looking around at everything but me, she finally looked into my eyes. "She didn't even want to go," she whispered. "It was my idea. We weren't allowed to leave the street, but there was a park a few blocks away and I was bored." She looked away then, talking slowly, without emotion. "A boy around our age walked toward us. He was cute and had on a catcher's mitt. He was sweaty and dirty like he'd been playing ball. He was smiling but seemed to be in a hurry. He stopped us and asked if we were headed to the park. I said yes. He said he was getting juice boxes for a bunch of the guys and asked if we could help." She shrugged and half-smiled at me. "It was innocent enough, but Sam didn't want to go into his house. I told her to go on, and I'd help him. She refused to leave me."

She stopped talking as she looked in the distance again. "The boy trapped you?" I asked, prompting her to continue. She shook her head.

"No. He really was in a hurry. We heard his mom and dad talking in the other room. His dad was drunk. His mom snatched him up and ran upstairs. We were left with his dad."

I swallowed the bile rising up. "So his dad...?"

She looked at me again. "Took us? Yes. He chained us up in his wine cellar and talked about what he was going to do to his new daughters," she sneered. She was embracing anger, and I felt rage building on her behalf. "He took his belt off and threatened to beat us to death if we didn't do what he said."

Fuck, I wasn't sure I could sit here and listen to more of this. "You don't have to say anymore." I got up and wrapped my arms around her.

"Don't you see, I lived because I had an attack. I wouldn't have been set free if I didn't have an allergic reaction. The boy's mom freaked after I started having trouble breathing. She unlocked my restraints and told me to wait upstairs. I'd been hopeful she was going to free us, but looking back, I think she didn't want me dying in her basement. When I got to the main floor, another kid walked into the house and left the front door wide open. We looked at each other, and he hissed for me to leave. I was so scared that I did. I was going to get help, but by the time I got home, it was too late. What should have killed me, saved me instead. And I walked right out of that house without my sister. I should have died that day with her. She'd dead because of me."

I grabbed her face and forced her to look at me. "No. You were kids. You can't blame yourself for some sick man kidnapping you and killing your sister."

"It's not that easy."

"Nobody said living is easy, Liv. You just do it. Now, I want you to promise me you'll never stop yourself from taking your meds if that ever happens again." When she started to shake her head, I held it still. "
Promise me
."

She shut her eyes on a sigh. "Fine."

I dropped my forehead to hers. "Jesus, woman. You're gonna be the death of me, you know that?"

She chuckled. "A sign of a true friendship."

I kissed the top of her head and leaned back to look at her. We still hadn't finished our conversation from the cafeteria earlier. I swallowed before beginning. "About that...even though we've been around each other as much as before, things have felt strained. I miss this. I miss you. That's why I asked about forgetting that kiss. I want our normal back."

She licked her lips before nodding slowly. "Well, that might be a fair trade for what I'm about to ask you."

Uh-oh. "What?"

"Well, my mom wants me to come up soon."

"And?" I said slowly.

"She wants to meet my new friend who I'm spending so much time with who also happens to be a guy who just saved my life." Her smile was all teeth.

"You want me to meet your mother?" I asked slowly. My heart was pounding, but I wasn't sure how to define the nerves—whether it was the thought of meeting her mom, or if it was because I wanted to make a good impression—something I never cared about before.

"It'll be a weekend of Killian interrogation. An occasion that calls for much popcorn."

"You're not doing your best to sell me on this idea," I muttered.

She shrugged with a hint of confidence. "You'll come. I mean, if you want me to pretend the kiss never happened."

I glared playfully at her. "That's blackmail."

"That's friendship," she said a little too cheerfully. God, meeting Liv's mother. That was going to be very interesting. Yeah, that and spending the weekend with Liv. The nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach got stronger, making me realize it probably had very little to do with meeting her mother after all.

"Fine. We'll leave after my last class on Friday."

And I was suddenly very excited for Friday to get here.

T
he road trip
to Arkansas had been fun so far. Killian and I had played games, fought over what music to listen to, and talked about nothing specific. I was still stunned he'd agreed so easily to come home with me for the weekend. Either he really did want me to forget about that kiss we'd shared, or he was willing to grasp any excuse to spend time with me. Those possibilities were contradictory. If he wanted to spend time with me, then logic would dictate he wouldn't want me to forget about the kiss. But nobody had said a word about things being logical. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything to compare to. Sometimes I really hated my lack of experience in the man department. But truth be told, I liked being with him, regardless if we acknowledged that stolen moment or not.

In fact, when he'd pretended it never happened, I'd been hurt. I'd waited for him to say something, anything, about it. When days passed without so much as a whisper of our lip-lock, I knew he wasn’t happy about it. That realization made me both embarrassed and mad. Embarrassed because I'd put myself out there and ultimately gotten rejected. Mad because he'd so easily screw practically any woman, so why wasn't I good enough for just a kiss? Of course, I didn't voice those feelings to him. I, too, pretended as if everything were okay. When he told me why he wanted to put the kiss behind us, I could see the sincerity in his eyes. He really did care about me. I might only be a friend to him, but I mattered. He did, too. More than any man in my life.

I knew anything beyond a great friendship was out of the question—as it should be—but that didn't mean I couldn't enjoy what we had together. So I did my best to put that night behind me. It hadn't been easy. Hell, after Jewel had witnessed the kiss, she'd gone on and on that night about how no one had ever seen Killian make out with a girl in public. Even quick kisses had been a rarity. Yeah, that hadn't helped my confusion at all. I'd known all along that we were friends, but I'd liked it better when things were undefined in my mind. After our kiss, Killian hadn't just labeled our relationship as strictly friends, he'd branded it with a fiery poker into that platonic category. When I told Jewel about this after getting out of the hospital, she still didn't believe it. She'd lamented about how his actions spoke louder than words, and that I should grab the bull by the horns. She'd pulled every clichéd metaphor out of her stash to try to prove to me he was hiding behind his feelings.

Though I saw the reasoning in her argument, I didn't tell her that. Regardless of how Killian acted, he didn't want to ruin what we had. I had to respect his wishes. But that didn't mean I had to pretend to myself I wasn't falling for him hard and fast. Because I was. It would only be a matter of time when I'd be head over heels in love with this man. My feelings were growing exponentially with each passing day. The thought of not being around him hurt, so I totally understood why I didn't want to do anything to damage what we had, either.

But oh how I'd fantasized about the possibilities. I'd had many a hot dream about him...and many a guilt-ridden morning for even considering embracing a happy life with anyone.

The monotone lady on the GPS announced another turn. "Jesus, when you said we were going to Arkansas, I assumed we'd still be around civilization. It is a state, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "Whine much? We're almost there, you big baby."

"Thank god, I've gotta piss like a racehorse."

"And you make fun of Arkansas talking like that? Pot...meet kettle."

He chuckled. "I never made fun of Arkansas."

"Ha! If I have to hear one more hillbilly joke, I'm gonna smack you."

"There's a difference between joking and genuine curiosity." He winked at me.

"But no difference between your genuine curiosity and sarcasm."

"Oh, score one for the firecracker." He nudged me, and I snickered.

"You'll take a left after we top the hill." No sooner had I said that then our digital guide uttered the same directions. "And you can turn her off now," I said, pointing to the GPS device.

"I don't like turning
off
women. Seems so unnatural." He shivered in mock disdain, but did as I'd said.

"Do you ever not think about sex?" I muttered, looking away. I didn't like thinking of him turning on any woman but me. I knew that would never see the light of day—well, not on purpose—but I hated thinking of him being intimate with other women. I knew that uncomfortable feeling would slowly turn into outright disgust one day. I needed to learn to deal with it now.

"You don't know how much I wish I didn't think about it sometimes," he mumbled. I looked at him but he was staring out the window, a slight glare on his face. What had he meant by that? Before I got a chance to ask, he cleared his throat. "This it up here?" He pointed to the right. I looked and couldn't help the smile that spread across my face, our immediate conversation all but forgotten.

"Yeah," I breathed. "I didn't realize how much I'd missed home."

He pulled into the driveway, but before he could turn off the truck, my mom came running out the front door, clapping and bouncing.

"Hmm, you'd think she could muster up just a little excitement to see you," he said dryly.

I snorted. "Smartass."

"You know it."

I got out of the truck just as my mom reached the passenger door. She pulled me into a tight hug.

"Oh, honey! I'm so glad you came home this weekend. I've missed you so much. How was your trip? You weren't speeding, were you? Are you guys hungry? Where's your friend? I want to meet him."

And I thought Killian talked too much.

As I pulled away from her, I looked to the side and saw Killian was standing at the front of the truck, watching us with an amused expression. I pointed to him. "Mom, this is Killian Ashley. Killian, this is my mom, Amy Torrence."

She walked over to him, and he stepped toward her with his hand out. "Oh no you don't." She knocked it away and hugged him. I bit my lip not to laugh out loud at his dumbfounded look. It was totally priceless. She could've told him we were having boiled kittens for dinner and he wouldn't have look more shocked. "It's so nice to meet you, Killian."

He gently untangled himself from my mother. "You, too, Ms. Torrence."

"Call me Amy." She shrugged, stealing a glance at me. "Or Mom. If you and Liv are
that
close."

"Mom!" My face was suddenly hot. I wanted to die right then. Or hide. But there was never a hole in the ground when it was needed.

"What?" she blinked innocently at me.

He chuckled. "How about we stick to Amy." He glanced at me and winked. "For now."

I glared daggers at him for egging my mom on, and he smirked, the bastard.

"C'mon, kids. Get your bags. It's too hot to be standing out here. We can chat inside."

Killian pulled our bags from behind the seats of his truck while my mom starting fussing over me. Apparently, I looked really good. I stood there and accepted her compliments and returned a few when she'd let me get a word in. When Kill had our things, we walked into the house.

"I wasn't sure how you'd want the sleeping arrangements to be," she started, darting looks between the two of us. "I have the bed made in the guest room, but you're adults. Y'all can both sleep in Liv's room if that's what you want."

"Mother."
I was going to kill her!

"The guest room will be fine, Amy."

Before my mom could argue with him and plot ways to strap him to my bed, I grabbed his arm. "I'll show you where it is."

"I made meatloaf," Mom called from behind us as I tried to get away. "Should be ready in an hour." Thankfully she didn't add suggestions on how we could use that hour.

After opening the guest room door, I pulled him in.

"Well,
Amy
is sweet," he said with a chuckle.

"
Amy
will be lucky to survive the weekend if she keeps this up."

He pulled me into a hug, and I went willingly. "She means well, firecracker. I can tell how much she loves you. Be happy your mom's around to annoy you."

And just like that I felt like the biggest jerk. He'd watched his mother get killed, and I was mad that mine was embarrassing me in front of a guy I cared about. There was no comparison, not that he was making one...just putting things into perspective. "You're right."

"I'm always right." I pulled away and snorted at him.

"I'm not sure if there's enough room in here for you
and
your ego. You have a pretty big one."

"That's what she said," he muttered, wagging his eyebrows.

"God, I can't take you anywhere," I said playfully. "Anyway, this is the guest
slash
workout
slash
junk room. See all those lovely boxes in the corner? There's a treadmill hidden over there."

"Hell, it'd be a workout just to clear all of those off to get to it."

"Yeah, her get-fit phase didn't last long." I headed to the door and then looked over my shoulder at him. "I'll show you the rest of the house."

He dropped his bag but left mine on his shoulder, and he followed me out into the hall. I pointed out where the bathroom was, and he popped his head in to take a peek. Then we reached my bedroom. I was a little nervous all of a sudden. Instead of announcing the obvious, I just opened the door, turned on the light, and walked in.

"You can put my bag in the corner over there." I pointed to the area beside my closet.

He slowly walked over there and dropped it, but instead of turning back around, he was fixated on my walls. I hadn't thought about my decor ahead of time, so I hadn't prepared for this. Now the slight butterflies in my tummy waged a full-on attack. I shut my eyes and tried to breathe through it as quietly as I could.

"You make all these?" he asks without turning to face me.

"Yes," I breathed.

He walked over to one of my walls and gently traced the paper. "Isn't the idea to give them away? They're cards." He started pointing some of the more obvious ones out. "Birthday...get well...graduation."

I fell to my bed, sitting on the edge, looking into the room but not seeing anything. "They're for Sam. Some of them I gave her when we were little, but after she died, I never stopped making them for her."

He turned to me then. "Why?" he asked softly.

I blinked and looked into his eyes. "Because she deserves to have them. To have her birthdays celebrated. To acknowledge when she would have graduated. Just because she's not alive doesn't mean I have to let her go."

Killian walked over to my bed and sat beside me. "I can see that." He nodded. "But get well?"

I half-smiled. "She used to get strep throat every year. If she hadn't died, I figured it was a safe bet that she'd keep getting it. We later found out mom was a carrier of it."

He pulled my hands into his and my heart raced. I had to force my hands not to shake. I couldn't do anything about the suddenly sweaty palms. "You are such a beautiful person, you know that?"

Beautiful? "I—"

"Do you want to write greeting cards for a living?" he asked suddenly.

Okay, what? From beautiful to my career choice. "Yeah, why?"

"No, Liv. I'm not asking if you want to write them because you feel like you owe it to your sister. Or even because you want to feel closer to her. Do you, Olivia Musgrave, want to turn your personal connection with your sister into a means of financial survival?"

I yanked my hands away and stood up. "I'm not trying to profit from her at all!"

"I didn't say that, firecracker," he said calmly, staring up at me from his perch.

"You implied it."

"No, baby, I didn't. I just mean that maybe you're so fixated on what you must do for her in some effort to validate her life that you could lose yours in the process. If writing greeting cards is your passion and what you want to do for the rest of your life, then great. Follow your dream." He stood up, and I felt small with him towering over me. "But you should spend your life doing what
you
want."

"I like making cards." But the words came out weak. Why? All I'd ever planned on doing with my life was writing cards.

"Did you make one for Sam on her birthday this year? That day I came over to your dorm?"

I nodded. Why wouldn't I?

"Do you make them for your mom?"

"Sure." I started shaking.

He nodded. "Do you always make your mom a card on every special occasion?"

"No," I breathed. I'd only focused on making them for my sister. I had made some for my mom, but not always. Oh god. What did this mean?

He wrapped his arms around me and nuzzled my hair. "Maybe making cards is your way to deal with your sister's death. That's okay. Keep making her cards. But maybe you should take a look at your life and decide what career would make you happy."

He'd just turned my world upside down, making the connection to the greeting cards that no therapist had ever made. I knew I felt guilty for living when Sam didn't. These cards were my way of apologizing to her over and over.

"My happiness doesn't matter," I muttered into his chest.

Killian grasped my cheeks and pulled my face away to stare into my eyes. "It matters to me."

The intensity of his gaze could not be denied. He truly felt that way. I mattered to him. Only, "I'm not sure what I want to do."

His lips lifted into his breathtakingly gorgeous smile. "You have plenty of time to decide, and I'll help you every step of the way."

I nodded slowly. I wasn't sure how I'd be able to let go of the career I'd always assumed I'd pursue, but with Killian beside me, I could at least acknowledge the need to find something that pleased me. Killian cared enough about me to want to see me live my life for myself and not for anyone else. I could try. For me. For him. He was the best friend I never had. Jewel was one to me, too, but Killian was different. Our friendship was on a completely different level. Not better, just different.

But not altogether good for my sanity because my feelings for him kept getting stronger.

I was falling in love with him.