Redemption and Regrets (Chastity Falls, #4) (10 page)

Not even Cara.

I’d spotted her walking from one building to another. Her short blond waves bounced with each step as she laughed and chatted with her friends. Jason was nowhere to be found, or he was better at being invisible than I was. Either way, I didn’t care. If he had a problem with me, he could go to hell. I might not have been willing to pull Cara into my world, but it didn’t mean I was quite ready to leave hers.

Cara’s group headed in my direction, and I backed up forcing myself between a tree and a wall. To the unassuming eye, I looked like I was stretching or taking a breather from a jog. As they moved past me, I pulled the bill of my cap lower, holding my breath. If she saw me, Cara would freak. This wasn’t normal,
I
wasn’t normal—I was a twenty-six-year-old guy hiding in the shadows and following around a college chick. But I couldn’t shut her out of my thoughts. She’d confided in me last night at the stadium—the first time a girl had ever tried to have a real conversation with me. Cara didn’t know who I was. She didn’t know my history. She only knew Braiden Kelly.

And she liked him. Felt safe enough with him to open up about her life.

It was right there in her eyes whenever she saw me. The way she’d kissed me as if I was her air.
Fuck
. I dragged a hand over my face. If I wasn’t careful, this girl was going to ruin me.
Or you’ll ruin her.

Cara and her friend’s laughter grew quieter as they continued on, moving away from me. Unable to torture myself any longer, I stepped out from my cover and hit the path. But I couldn’t resist one last look, and just as my eyes found her, she reached out and grabbed her friend’s arm, saying something to her. Cara turned around and our eyes connected. Surprise registered on her face, replaced quickly with intrigue and what looked a lot like delight.

“Well, this is a surprise.” Cara approached me and stopped a few feet in front of me.

“I, hmm.”
Shit.
“Hi.”

I’d reigned over high school, ruled college, and survived prison, yet this girl had my fucking balls in the palm of her hands.

“Hi.” Her smile grew into a smirk. She knew exactly what was going on, and I wouldn’t have blamed her for running a mile. Instead, she said, “Come on, Braiden Kelly. I’m buying.”

We walked in silence as Cara led us away from the hustle and bustle of campus to a quieter street littered with the odd store. Pausing outside of a little coffee shop, Cara checked her wristwatch and opened the door. “Find a table.”

I did as she instructed, finding an empty table near the back of the shop. Dropping into one of the chairs, I pulled off my cap and ran a hand through my hair. Cara was being served and I watched her smile and joke with the server. It was hard to believe she was the same girl that had sounded so frustrated and pissed when she’d been telling me about her father, and it made me wonder just how good she was at schooling her true feelings.

“Here we go. I left out the sugar, but there’s some on the tray.” Cara set the tray down and took the seat opposite me.

“Thanks.” I added cream and sugar to the mug and rubbed my thumbs around the rim, focusing on the heat.

“So were you just passing through?”

“I was ...”
Think, Braiden. THINK
. “Jogging. Yeah, I was out jogging.”

“Jogging, riiiight,” she drawled, a hint of laughter in her voice. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have too much time on your hands. What was it you said you’re in town for? Apartment sitting?” Cara sipped her coffee looking up at me through her lashes.

“Yeah, for a friend.”

“Friend, got it.”

“So no Jason today?” I shot back not liking where the conversation was headed ... or the feelings she provoked in me.

Cara laughed. “No, he has classes. But we only have an hour then he’ll be around no doubt.”

Jealousy bubbled under the surface and my grip on the mug tightened.

“Down, boy. We’re safe, for now.”

We drank the remainder of our coffee in silence. I’d never met anyone like Cara before. She wasn’t like the dumbed down college bimbos I’d known back in CFA, who were more interested in landing themselves a football player than an education. Something told me Cara didn’t fit into that category. She liked to push the boundaries, had a mouth that had no doubt gotten her into trouble more than once, and she didn’t look at me and see a trophy.

“What?” I asked catching her watching me, her eyes glittering with mischief.

“Nothing, it’s not a good idea. Forget it.” Short blond waves fell over her eyes creating a curtain, and I found myself wanting to reach out and brush them out of her face. But she beat me to it, pushing the hair out of her view. “It’s juvenile.”

“You can’t look at me like that and then refuse to tell me what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.”

“Ahhh, be still my beating heart. Blue thinks I’m pretty. Call the news station, Braiden Kelly has a heart after all.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I barked, probably a little too loudly for a small coffee shop, and a couple of heads turned in our direction.

“Do you talk to all the girls like that? Or just the ones you think are pretty?” Cara tilted her head and cocked her eyebrow. I clenched my fist under the table, smoothing it over my jeans. She certainly brought out the best ... and worst in me.

I didn’t want to hurt her, but I did want to pound the shit out of something just to expel some of the tension pumping through me. Her cute little smirk was not helping things—my dick literally twitched every damn time her lip tugged up to one side. Being around her was getting increasingly more difficult.

“Cara ...”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop.” She held up her hands and shook her head, laughing softly. “You should see your face right now. Anyway, as I was not saying, I think we should go on a dat-”

“No fucking way.”

I didn’t date.

Not happening.

Never in a million years.

Hurt flashed across her face and for a split second, I felt guilty for putting it there. “You didn’t even hear me out,” she protested.

“I don’t date.”

“You don’t date like you had a bad break up and now you don’t date, or you don’t date like you’re opposed to hanging out with a pretty girl? Wait, are you gay?”

“I don’t date,” I repeated. It wasn’t that difficult to understand.

“He doesn’t date. Of course, he doesn’t.”

“Are you talking to yourself?”

Cara’s eyes snapped to mine and widened. “Ah-ha. You don’t date, but you
do
do coincidental meetings that are completely random.”

Where is she going with this?

“So, for example, if I were to be at the theater at, oh say, ten, and you just happened to be there, it’d be silly for us not to watch the film together. Don’t you think?”

I had to give it to her—she was good. Because I had nothing. No smartass comeback.

Nothing.

“I’ll take your silence as cooperation. Oh, would you look at that.” Her eyes dropped to her wrist, and she shrugged. “Time’s up. I guess I won’t be seeing you tonight.”

Cara stood from the table and winked. She had actually fucking winked right at me before exiting the shop and disappearing into the steady stream of passersby. Leaving me with my mouth hanging open. I’d survived being on the wrong end of Levi Shaughnessy’s shank, but I just got my ass handed to me by a college chick six years my junior.

I guess there was a first time for everything.

F
orest Grove theater was a small old place. In fact, it looked ancient with its original sign; the kind where someone had to change the letters by hand. But I liked that it was low key. Other than my one night at the student bar, I preferred to move in the shadows and avoid the crowds. It wasn’t as if I’d forgotten how to act, but it was different now. I had no group of friends to feed off of or reputation to get me by. All I had was me, myself, and I ... and a shitload of memories I’d rather forget.

I crossed the street, hands shoved deep in my pockets and head low.

“You came.” Cara’s face lit up when she saw me cross the street.

“Like I said, I keep my word.”

Her smile beamed, and I felt that weird pang again in my chest. This girl was doing something to me, something that scared the shit out of me, and although I knew the right thing to do was end it before anything got started, I couldn’t seem to stay away.

But if she found out the truth ... I didn’t want to think about that.

“It’ll be empty, I bet.” Cara’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “The late showing always is.”

“You do this a lot?” I asked following her inside. There was one ticket booth and a small counter with an attendant selling popcorn and soda.

“I come here sometimes when I need space, ya know?” Cara blew a bubble, popped it, and slurped it back into her mouth.

My eyebrows arched and she smiled clearly amused by how much I hated that fucking bubble gum habit of hers. “So you have two places?” I said ignoring her.

“More like three.” She turned to me and threw me a knowing look. “The stadium, here, and sometimes, I go over to the museum.”

I wanted to ask why, to find out more about why she needed three places to run to, but we all had baggage. I knew that better than anyone did. So I stayed quiet, handing over twenty bucks for the tickets. Cara had been right about it being empty and part of me was relieved. It was hard enough being around her on our own.

“Come on.” Cara smiled with a box of popcorn in hand. “I’ve heard it’s terrifying. I hope you don’t get scared, Blue.”

At that moment, I was pretty sure the only thing that could scare me was the blonde staring up at me like I held all the answers to the universe.

I let Cara pick our seats. The screen was small and a couple of rows already had people seated in them. Cara chose a row near the back and I joined her, fighting the urge to bolt. I didn’t do
this.
Late-night showings at the theater. Did she expect me to walk her back to her dorm and give her a chaste good night kiss, too? I thought I’d made myself pretty clear that we couldn’t be anything more than friends.
So what the fuck am I doing here?

Cara noticed my hesitation and whispered, “Everything okay?”

Suck it up, Braiden.
I nodded tersely and dropped into the seat beside her. Cara tipped the box toward me, and I took a handful of popcorn. At least, if I was chewing on something, I could try to ignore her. Ignore the effect she had on me.

The film started and I watched the images almost without blinking. It was like an out of body experience, and I could see myself sitting there like a fucking robot, unmoving, unbreathing. And then something jumped out from behind the tree and the whole place screamed. Cara jumped beside me, gripping my arm as it rested between us. I swallowed hard at her touch. Even through my hoodie, I could feel the electricity flowing between us.

What the fuck was it about her?

She was hot, sure, but so were a lot of other girls. I liked her sass, the way she tried to give as good as she got, but that wasn’t it either. There was just
something
about her. Something that had me pinned in my seat while she gripped my arm and had my heart pounding in my chest until I could no longer hear anything the actors on the screen were saying.

Minutes ticked by. Each more painful than the one before. From the reaction of the handful of people around, I guessed the film was pretty scary, and before long, Cara was cuddled up to my arm, hiding her face in my bicep and peeking out from my hoodie. But I had no fucking clue what the movie was about, I was too bent out of shape over the girl pressed to my side. She was an enigma, all right, a mystery I had yet to solve. Sometimes, like right now, she gave off an air of vulnerability and I was reminded she was just a young girl in college learning how to live in the big wide world. But I’d seen the fighter in her too—the girl who didn’t take shit from anyone. And I wanted to know how she’d ended up being such a contradiction. I wanted to know everything about her. But it was a bad idea—one I knew would only end one way. Badly. So why was only one thought running through my mind?
Let her in.

I needed to tell her. Not everything, but she deserved to know what kind of guy I was. Just enough so she could make a decision about what she really wanted because I could no longer deny this thing growing between us.

I wanted her. More than I’d ever wanted any girl before. Everything about Cara called to me—her sass, her attitude, even her annoying as fuck bubble gum habit. Somehow, she eased the storm in me and made me forget all of the bad shit in my life.

She made me want to be better.

Even if it was only for a couple of weeks, I wanted to experience normal—and I wanted it with her. There were still decisions ahead—hard choices to make—but they all paled in comparison to the thought of never tasting Cara’s lips again. Now, I just had to hope she didn’t run when I told her the truth. I didn’t think she would. She was keeping secrets of her own, that much I knew, but was she really ready to walk in my world?