Kait’s tears intensified so that she was sobbing. Her shoulders shook as she tried to focus on the movie, but instead all she could think about was Jasper, how he’d be wonderful to her one moment and brutal the next. Why would she even want to be in a relationship with someone like that?
“Because of caramel kisses,” Kait mumbled forlornly to herself. She’d decided after their second night together that Jasper’s kisses were like caramel because they were ridiculously sweet and no matter how many you had you always wanted more.
She swallowed down another spoonful of ice cream when her phone began to softly chirp. Groaning Kait picked it up and answered the incoming call which she could see was from Anna.
“Hey,” Kait mumbled in greeting.
“Hey, you! Are you feeling better?”
Kait looked down at her lap where she was cradling the tub of ice cream.
“Not really, no.”
“So you don’t feel up to coming out tonight?”
“Absolutely not.” The last thing Kait needed that night was alcohol. She needed to just go to bed and hide beneath the covers and not think about Jasper and his precious big fight. A fight that was more important to him than she was.
“Things didn’t work out with that guy, did they?” Anna inquired knowingly.
“What makes you say that?” Kait wondered suspiciously, glancing around her apartment as if her friend had someone bugged the place without her knowing.
“Just a hunch,” Anna declared brightly. “Am I wrong?”
“Umm…”
“Are you currently sat in those gross red flannel pyjamas eating chocolate ice cream?”
Kait stiffened on the sofa.
“Are you watching me?”
On the other end of the line, Anna started laughing.
“I don’t need to watch you to know what you’re doing. You’re my best friend, Kaitie Kins, I know your post break up routine better than my own.”
Kait dropped her spoon in to the bowl of ice cream. This was her post break up routine. She hadn’t even realized she was doing it.
“So the guy is history, so what? Let’s move on!” Anna urged.
“Not yet.” Kait wasn’t ready to face the world. She wanted to remain locked up in her apartment with her old movies for company.
“Take off those nasty old pyjamas and come out with me.”
“Another time.” Kait picked her spoon up again. The stress of the conversation was making her need more ice cream.
“You’re coming out tonight, I insist,” Anna told her.
“Anna - ”
Knock knock. The second after Anna had said the words, two brisk knocks landed on Kait’s apartment door. She raised the remote and paused the DVD she was watching.
“Anna, are you here?” She asked slowly.
“You bet your ass I am!” Anna enthused excitedly. “I’m here to pull you out of your post break up slump and remind you what a fabulous, beautiful woman you are!”
Kait glanced hesitantly in the direction of her front door.
“Either you open this door or I’m kicking it in! When your landlord gives you grief for damaged property, don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
Kait hurried to her feet and went to let her friend in.
Chapter 24
Two hours later, and Kait was wearing her favourite leather skirt and a sheer white blouse and clutching a large glass of wine.
“See, isn’t this better than moping around your apartment?” Anna asked from beside her, raising her voice to be heard over the steady throb of the music.
“Yeah,” Kait nodded in agreement. “It is.”
Within the sea of dancing bodies, it was easy to get lost. Easy to forget about the gaping hole in her heart which Jasper had left.
The music became faster, and Kait allowed herself to relax to the beat. She swayed as she stood beside her friend and even attracted some admiring glances from nearby men. She was starting to slowly feel better again. She was glad that her friend had managed to peel her away from her sofa and the half eaten tub of ice cream. If Anna hadn’t showed up, she’d still be crying in front of the television.
“So many guys are checking you out,” Anna edged closer to her friend so that she could whisper the comment in to her ear. “You could totally find a rebound guy in here.”
Kait smiled, but the comment stung her more than she thought it would. She didn’t need a rebound guy. She needed Jasper. How was she supposed to contemplate getting over him when a part of her was still falling for him?
“I need another drink,” Kait declared before promptly finishing off the remainder of her wine.
“That’s the spirit!” Anna giggled as she followed her friend to the bar.
Chapter 25
After finishing her fourth glass of wine, Kait was starting to feel decidedly drunk. She and Anna were sat at a booth in the club away from the loud music of the dance floor. Here they could at least hear themselves think.
“So are you having a good night?” Anna asked, her eyes glassy thanks to all the white wine in her system.
“Yeah,” Kait nodded. “I always have a good night with you.”
It was true. Anna was like the medication every heartbroken person needed. She had a vibrancy which was contagious no matter how dark you were feeling. She’d managed to lure Kait out of her shell. Together they had danced and flirted with men on the dance floor. Inch by inch, Kait felt her confidence growing again. But then the alcohol which had made her so bold and confident started to have an adverse effect. She was sinking back in to despair. The hold Jasper had over her was strengthening once again.
Checking her phone, Kait saw that it was ten in the evening. Jasper’s big fight would have long since concluded. She desperately wanted to see if he’d won. Her interest in the outcome annoyed her. She cared too much when he’d been so quick to dismiss her and cast her aside.
“You don’t look like you’re having a good night,” Anna noted with concern.
“I am, really. It’s just…” Kait lowered her gaze, and her shoulders sagged.
“You’re thinking about him? About the guy you were seeing?”
“Yeah,” Kait admitted softly.
“So what happened between you two? Or do you not want to talk about it?”
“It’s okay, I can talk about it,” Kait straightened and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Perhaps talking about would ease some of the pain which pressed down heavily on her chest making her sometimes struggle to breathe.
“So, the guy I was seeing was like a professional fighter.”
Anna’s eyes widened with surprise.
“That’s why he so easily came to my aid in the parking lot when I was attacked. He’s a pretty successful fighter too.”
“Okay,” Anna nodded thoughtfully and sipped her wine.
“But his career means everything to him. He’s so dedicated, and I truly admire that. I mean, he came up from nothing, and now he’s huge in his profession.”
“Sounds like quite the success story,” Anna said dryly.
“It is! He is! He just…” Kait sighed and looked down at her half empty glass. “He doesn’t have time for a relationship. He doesn’t have time for me.”
Saying the words aloud made them seem more real, more weighted. Kait could feel her lower lip trembling.
“That’s great about all his success and his dedication, but you need someone who values you,” Anna told her sternly. “I’m not saying he has to choose between you, but he sure has hell needs to realize your worth. You deserve his time, Kait. And if he can’t give that to you, for whatever reason, it’s time to cut your losses and move on.”
Kait wiped away a tear which had fallen down her cheek, causing her mascara to smudge.
“You’re right, I know that you’re right,” she nodded emphatically at her friend. “It’s just…it’s so hard when I care about him so much.”
Kait remembered how she’d traced the line of h
is scars. How Jasper had opened up to her about his past. The flowers he’d bought her, though starting to wilt, were still in a vase in her apartment. Each time she saw them, her heart tightened in her chest. He had to care about her. There had been dinner, kind words, and insane chemistry between them.
“With guys, time is currency,” Anna explained.
“What do you mean?” Kait blinked uncertainly at her.
“The more time he gives you, the more valuable you are to him.”
Kait pondered on this. Jasper gave her very little time. He dedicated most of his hours to training for the next fight. But he had to do that. He was still striving to make a point, to prove that he was more than the boy who’d had a troubled upbringing. He was aspiring to be a champion. She couldn’t begrudge him such ideals, could she?
“Stop looking like that,” Anna clicked her fingers in front of her friend’s face. She was scowling angrily.
“Like what?” Kait asked innocently. She hadn’t realized she’d been looking like anything.
“Stop looking like you’re thinking it’s okay that he doesn’t spend his time on you. That it’s okay because he’s chasing some big dream.”
Kait stared at her friend with her mouth agape. “You’re starting to scare me, get out of my head!”
This made Anna throw back her head and laugh. “I’ve known you since like, forever. We’ve grown up together Kait. How many times have we drank wine and dissed on guys who aren’t treating us fairly? I’ll tell you how many times – too many! We’re in our twenties now. We can’t keep letting guys treat us like play things no matter how handsome or impressively muscular they are.”
Anna was smirking now.
Kait waved a dismissive hand through the space between them. “Yes, he’s very handsome and most impressively muscular, but it’s more than that.”
“Oh really?” Anna raised a dubious eyebrow.
“We had a connection.”
“In the bedroom?”
“Anna!” Kait’s cheeks were burning.
“Ah, okay, now it makes more sense. He rocked your world, and now you can’t stop thinking about him,” Anna was giggling to herself as she spoke.
“Look, wait, it’s more than that, it’s a connection,” Kait was starting to slur her words. Fatigue was creeping up on her thanks to the wine. When she thought of her bed, she suddenly desperately wanted to crash against it and just sleep.
“Never confuse sex with love,” Anna said sternly, the smile falling from her glossed lips.
“That’s rookie error, Kait. And we’re not rookies anymore.”
Kait let her friend’s words sink in. Had she been confusing sex with love? She kept telling herself that there was something genuine between her and Jasper, but what if she was wrong? What if it was just a physical connection? As amazing as that was, there could be no future in it.
“Forget about him,” Anna insisted, catching the eye of a passing waiter and ordering more drinks. “Forget about him and move on. You deserve someone who sees you for the amazing, talented woman you are.”
“What about you?” Kait wondered, realizing that these wine fuelled conversations about men were usually centred about Anna’s latest drama with the opposite sex.
“I think I’m too busy nursing old wounds,” Anna announced sadly. Kait thought of the wannabe fighter her friend had once loved. Almost a decade had passed since then. He had a family and a life, and yet Anna still held a torch for him. Kait didn’t want to be like that over Jasper, sat missing him whilst he was busy living his life without giving her a second thought.
“I think we both need to move on,” Kait told her friend confidently.
“Too right!” Anna agreed, her bright smile returning. “And I say there’s no time like the present!”
Together the girls returned to the dance floor, clutching their new drinks. They danced until the small hours, until the lights around them became blurred and their throats ached from laughing so much and singing along loudly to the songs that they knew.
Chapter 26
Kait’s head started pounding the second she woke up. Groaning, she sat up and pushed a hand through her tangled hair. She was still dressed in her skirt and shirt and stank of alcohol, the scent of the nightclub clinging to her clothes.
“Gross,” Kait scolded herself in disapproval, though she reasoned that it was preferable to waking up and inhaling the scent of Jasper which had so stubbornly lingered in her apartment.
Groggily, she got up and shed her clothes from the previous night and headed straight for the bathroom. She desperately needed to freshen up. As she stood beneath the torrent of hot water, she tried to remember the final stages of the night before. She remembered dancing and drinking. She had a vague memory of seeing Anna coiled around some dark haired guy like a python. Had she left with him? Kait tried to remember the cab ride home, but her thoughts were murky.
Showered she felt more human, but her head still pounded. In the kitchenette, she reached for some aspirin and hungrily knocked them back with a glass of water. As she stood by the sink, she noticed that something was missing. The sides were more bare than usual. And then it clicked. The flowers Jasper had bought her were gone. A quick search revealed that the now empty vase was in the dish washer but the flowers were most definitely gone. Had she thrown them out in a drunken fit of rage? Kait wanted to peer out from the window but shame prevented it. If the sad wilted cluster of flowers were on the ground by the first floor, she didn’t want to see them.
Heading over to the sofa, Kait grabbed her phone and called Anna who after a record number of rings eventually answered sounding extremely groggy.
“Hello?” she mumbled sleepily.
“Anna, hey! Did you get home okay?”
A slight pause. “Uh huh.”
“Are you at your place?”
Another pause.
“Uh huh.”
Kait couldn’t help but notice that even with a hangover, her friend was being uncharacteristically quiet.
“Anna, are you alone?” Kait sounded like a concerned mother.
A longer pause.
“Nope.” She could hear the giggle in Anna’s voice as she spoke, the word barely above a whisper.
“Is there a guy there with you right now?” Kait was also whispering.
“Uh huh.” More giggles.
“Anna!”
“Oh, hey, I’ve got to go.”
And then the line went dead. Kait stared at her phone in disbelief. Anna must have gone home with the dark haired guy she’d been kissing. Maybe it would be the start of something, a beautiful relationship. Or maybe it would end up being just another scar she had to wear. Kait realised that she was becoming bitter. Her experience with Jasper had burned her in more ways than one. It wasn’t like her to be so cynical about relationships.
Biting her lip, Kait eyed her phone suspiciously. Then before she could change her mind she checked Jasper’s Twitter account. She wasn’t surprised to see that he’d won his big fight the night before. What did surprise her was how much it pained her to have not been there to witness his victory. Her head banged despite the aspirin she’d taken as she held back tears. She was about to go and get the remains of her ice cream when her phone chirped with an incoming message. It was from Jasper.
I feel like celebrating today. Any ideas what I could do? ; ) xxx
He was flirting with her. After everything he’d said at the gym, after he’d basically told her goodbye, he was now trying to worm his way back in to her life. Kait gripped her phone in anger, grinding her teeth together as she contemplated whether or not to even respond.
Chapter 27
Eventually Kait opted to meet Jasper at a local park the following morning. She reasoned that in meeting in a public place she was less likely to lose her head and end up in his arms. But even as she walked over to meet him, she kept thinking about how good it felt to kiss him, how amazing it felt to be within those strong arms.
J
asper was sat on a bench waiting for her. A white t-shirt struggled to contain his muscular shoulders and chest. He lifted his head as she approached and smiled. Tentative rays of sunlight warmed Kait’s bare legs as she instinctively smiled back at him.
“When you told me to meet you today instead of last night I thought maybe you were blowing me off,” Jasper remarked as he leaned back on the bench.
Free Me (Caged Hearts Book 1) Page 7