“What? Why?” his friend looked at him, clueless as he had ever been.
He played it off by shrugging. “Maybe some boys in her school giving her a hard time?”
Just like that, Marc was all protective of his little sister. He was practically her parent since their parents died five years ago.
“You would know, eh?”
“Come on, Marc, be serious for once. You should know your sister.”
Marc sobered up.
“I’m not actually comfortable talking with my sister about boys, you know that. It’s bad enough that I have to tell her about the condom, surely you can’t boss me to talk about boys with her, do you, my friend?” Marc looked at him with puppy dog eyes.
King rolled his eyes.
“You’re such a lousy, brother.”
He smiled, “You’re the best, King. It’s why you’re still my pimp.”
King got up, unsure if he was the one Kiara needed to be there for her right now. He wasn’t himself yet at the moment…
The memory of her shutting him out flashed back in his mind. There was something wrong and who knew? He might be able to lend a hand.
Without a word, King took his time to get to her room and by the time he was standing outside her door, he was reluctant to knock. A couple of beats later, he mustered the courage to do so and said, “Can you please open the door?”
Silence.
He knocked again.
“I don’t want to be disturb.”
Her voice sounded like she’d been crying and she was trying to hide it by muffling her voice in the pillow.
King contemplated whether he leave her be until she’s ready to talk or…
“Come on, sunshine. I brought vodka with me.”
A moment later the door opened. A puffy-eyed Kiara peeked through the door, jamming the door.
“I told you—“
King wordless pushed the door and he tried to be gentle about it but he couldn’t hold onto it any longer. He was right, Kiara was hurt about something.
“Can’t you respect my personal space, King? I only want to be alone for tonight…” she trailed. King closed the door behind him all the while he had his focus on her. He took notice of the wide-eyed fear in her eyes when he did.
King wasn’t a violent man but when it turned for women to get hurt especially his family, he wouldn’t stand to it. His temper easily rose up.
Maybe that was why Marc didn’t want to deal with it himself. He knew that he was level headed than he was. Right now, King didn’t know anymore. He didn’t want to be the suffocating big brother either, he was never like that to her. Although lately, she’d been skittish and keeping to herself. But then again, she wasn’t really that socialize before. Kiara was this little girl he watched blossomed into womanhood. She was a slim woman with big doe eyes and when she giggled, he couldn’t help but get infected.
What the fuck, King?
Shaking his head, he looked around, anywhere but to Kiara.
With a deep breath, he faced her again. She looked so vulnerable standing there, bracing herself with her arms. King had never seen her in such state. She always this bundle of sunshine and when she smiled, the world would stop its motion just to see that smile.
“The vodka still stands if you want it. I really bought one.”
“I don’t need it. I want to be alone.”
Stubborn as ever.
King closed the space between them and as he did, Kiara gave her a funny look again. He was beginning to be pissed off about her treatment to him.
He looked heavenward, counting to five before he faced her again. If anything, she looked even reluctant around him.
“Tell me, is this about some boys from College?”
She crossed her arms and started tapping her foot like she was really impatient for him to get out. The hard set looked in her whiskey brown eyes revealing nothing.
Heaven helped him, King never had to deal with a little sister in his twenty-eight years. Good thing that his parents wasn’t big on children. One Kiara was enough to last him a lifetime.
But maybe that was because he didn’t get her situation. It was a legend that women are complicated that way.
“You don’t have to do whatever Marc tells you, King. You’re not indebted in this family.”
That caught his attention.
“So is this about me then?”
She stiffened.
*
Kiara hated herself for nearly being caught that night. King knew her better than anyone else in the world which made her realized that she had to be careful around him. She didn’t want to provoke a memory that was best left in the past. It was her fault that she let things went too far.
But that didn’t mean that she didn’t feel hurt whenever he was around treating her like a heartbroken little sister.
“What? Is my baby having a crush on me?” he had mercilessly teased her. Had he known that her feelings for him went deeper than crush he would be out the door the moment he saw the chance.
To cover up for her obvious behavior, she let him pull her in his arms and make peace. It was a nice thirty seconds before he had to pull away and peck a kiss on her head. With a pat on the arm, he left.
*
She had been dreading it for weeks now and looking down the stick she got Faith to buy in the pharmacy, it glowed red. Her palm was sweating, her heart booming in her ears.
A knock sounded on the door.
“What? What’s the result?”
With a shaky hand, she opened the door and greet Faith with the stick that said positively.
Faith looked at it then to her, her doe brown eyes were wide then she cracked into a big smile. She started jumping and yelling which Kiara had her to stop.
“We should celebrate girl!”
“You know we can’t,” she hissed.
“But you’re having a baby!”
“Lower your voice down,” she stomped her foot.
Kiara called her one and only friend in the world, Faith to come over their house with a pregnancy test. Half an hour later, they were in her room.
She wouldn’t be the same girl she had been half an hour ago, her life was altered forever.
Kiara didn’t know how to take the news; she was shocked… scared.
“Aren’t you going to tell him?” Faith urged on.
“You know I can’t do that.”
The look Faith gave her was aghast, her hand on her hips. “And pray tell, why not?”
“Marc forget that he’s friend with King and kicked him out forever. This is not even his fault,” as she talked her voice began to rise. Drawing the two’s attention.
Marc peeked his head inside her dim room, looking around until his eyes focused on them.
“What’s with the noise?” he asked but his eyes were trained on Faith. Kiara would roll her eyes if she wasn’t feeling nauseated with King standing behind Marc.
What if he heard them?
King was the observant between the two. He could hold a conversation while his ears were also perk on something else. Marc, on the other hand, could be as clueless as a child and also, easily distracted!
“You girls are talking about boys?” King had his eyes trained on her. He always managed to see through her.
“We’re not sluts, Dawson if that’s what you’re implying,” Faith’s indignant voice broke their eye contact.
Kiara didn’t know that she had been holding her breath until she released it.
“I never said that,” King frowned at Faith.
“Well, you’re implying it.”
Marc slapped him in the back and said, “You would never win against those two, King. Let’s leave before this gets bloody.”
“Yeah, take your friend with you, Marc and leave us here alone.”
Marc dragged King with him but he didn’t leave without leaving her a message first.
He would eventually know her secret.
Once the door was closed, t
hey faced each other. They had the same reaction, although she was sure that she was ashen than flushed.
“What are we gonna do now?”
“We?”
Faith rolled her eyes, “You have a problem and you find it in you to smile at your situation, really?”
“You said, we, Faith when this my problem alone. Unless…”
A blushing Faith meant that there was something more than she was saying. Kiara would ask if her own problem wasn’t pressing on her.
It was sad that they barely catch up now unlike before. College’s been busy and she was the one to blame for choosing not to come home during semester’s off because she had been bent on ignoring King. She tried to busy herself with school, even casually going out with past boyfriends that didn’t work out.
If Marc didn’t beg for her to spend the summer with them she wouldn’t have come home. In fact, she had been planning on going her own way if home didn’t call back for her. She forgot about Faith, her best friend through thick and thin.
“Earth to Kiara?” Faith was waving her hands so close to her face.
“Huh, what?” she blinked a couple of times before her gaze focused on Faith.
“You keeping dozing out on me!” she harrumphed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“You really are pregnant, girl. From what I learned during my year in College is that pregnant woman is easily distracted and horny.”
“You have to add the last bit,” she said dryly.
“I’m just saying.”
“Point taken.”
Faith opened her mouth to argue but then she closed it again, thinking better of it.
“I don’t to be another headache for you, Kiara, I was just trying to lighten the mood. It’s so dark here and you’re so somber.”
She sighed, “I know.”
“Not with that face, now. You look like the earth sits on your shoulder when in reality you have an amazing baby coming your way.”
“Right now I don’t know how I’m going, to tell the truth.”
“Unless you move out with me and come back with a baby.”
She shook her head. “I wish it’s that easy.”
“Well, we’re really in a big trouble.”
They were quiet for a while until both of them realized that nothing was going right. At last, Kiara decided to come downstairs with Faith beside her.
The two men looked up when they made their appearances, a bottle of beer in each hand.
“Where you girls up to?” Marc.
Kiara avoided making eye contact with King which she knew he was looking. She could feel his burning stare nipping at her skin. She held her head high and meet his eyes. Something about the dim living room made his eyes looked the same gray she saw…
She looked away.
“Let’s go, babe.” Faith tugged at her hand, a key in her hand already.
She let her friend led her wherever, anywhere but under the scrutinizing eyes of King.
The cool night hit her like a brick but it was also a nice change, refreshing.
“What do you fancy we eat?” Faith asked cheerfully.
Honestly, the thought of eating turned her stomach but she didn’t say anything. Faith had been trying her best to make her feel better and she wasn’t exactly making it easy.
“I say Chinese.”
Chapter Three
It was a lazy afternoon, King was casually cleaning the car when he heard a loud tapping of an unmistakable high-heels. When he turned around, he saw Faith.
He stopped in front of him, her big sunglasses made her face looked smaller than it already was.
“Where’s Kiara?” she looked around in emphasis.
“She’s with you, isn’t she?”
Her head snapped to him, behind her sunglass, King could feel the burning look she was surely giving him.
“That’s not the matter here, Dawson,” she snapped.
Women…
“Is this about Kiara?”
“Damn right it is!”
First Kiara and now Faith. What was the two were up to suddenly snarling at him?
“What did I do, now?”
For a small like her, Faith could be really scary. She poked him in the chest, unabashed by the heights that she lacked compare to him, not that he would hurt her.
“You,” poke. “Should know your place,” poke, poke, and poke.
Still, he was confused, “I’m afraid I’m not following, Faith. Forgive me but I’m a little slow today.”
“Forget it. I know now why Kiara wouldn’t tell you.”
The silence that followed only made his curiosity burn hotter.
“What does Kiara don’t want to tell me?”
Faith suddenly looked so pale. He was torn between carrying her inside or let her burn under the heat of the sun. The best in him won.
He braced her weight and was about to move her in the shade when Marc came.
“What the hell man?” he was torn away from Faith and suddenly, Marc was glaring at him.
“I have to ask her about Kiara.”
“Stay the fuck off.”
King did. He knew the burning protection his friend was doing for Faith. He had been there once and looked at where it got him.
“Give her water.”
Marc ignored him.
He clutched at his hair, feeling like a total asshole that he was. Everything he did lately keep backfiring in his face. Maybe he needed a time alone with himself.
*
Kiara decided on going back to the city and stay there until she gathered her wits. Being anywhere near King wasn’t helping her think properly, that and she wasn’t prepared to tell them the truth yet.
“We just came back, Kiara. Why are you going away now after so long of being away?” Carl said. He was their driver since she could remember, almost like a grandfather to them. He was a great man and it pained her to be making the wrong again by going away. And this time, she knew that it would take her a long time before she came back again.
Hopefully, King was happily married off to a woman he valued as much as he was valued. That way, there’s no way she could stand a chance with him.
“I don’t feel comfortable in the house anymore as much as I did when I was younger, Carl.”
He looked at her, “Trouble in paradise?”
His searching brown eyes studied her flushed face. Just like that, he knew the answer.
“Well if that is the case, I won’t stop you from leaving. Just know that running away wouldn’t solve your problem.”
Kiara couldn’t help it, she hugged the old man and thanked profusely. He was the only one who would wake up so early in the morning after arriving late last night. He was also the same old man who gave her candies behind her parents’ back.
“Send my love to Lolita when she gets back as well.”
“I will, kiddo although she will be sad.”
“She won’t be if you propose already.”
Carl blushed making her smile. The man was smitten by their head maid, Lolita. Heaven knew that they’ve been dancing around the idea for so long it was painful to watch them.
“Stop matchmaking us, child. Worry about your own love life.”
“Love is not for me, Carl. I realize that now.”
Carl smiled at her secretively as if he knew something she didn’t.
Sometimes old souls have a funny way of expressing themselves, always underlying their meaning in riddles.
“Well off we go, missy. You might miss your flight.”
With one look of the mansion she grew up in, Kiara said her goodbye.
Faith would be pissed with her but there was Marc who would for King, he was better off without her. What would an eighteen girl like her mean to him?
He will always see you as his brother’s little sister, nothing more.
She better move on now than later. Less painful and there was a chance that it wouldn’t leave her with a scab.
&n
bsp; With the slam of the door, she knew that her story with King Dawson was done. And as the wheel rolled, their house was beginning to fade, becoming a memory to her now.
*
It didn’t take long for her to pick up on her old habit although this time, she was more cautious with herself. The baby that was growing inside her defend on her and Kiara would do everything she could to do her best for them. She hadn’t yet thought of their future other than supporting them financially. That would come later.
“You just got back, Kiara. Why on earth are you doing on your feet working?”
Isa Johnson came out from the back door of the counter, looking as royalty as she had ever been since their first encounter. She was a great mom of Robin, her ex. She still accepted her as a part-time in their small bookstore claiming that the shop needed someone younger behind the counter to draw customers. While at the same time Robin stayed friend with her.
“Sorry, I didn’t call b—“
“Shut your mouth or I will gag you.”
Isa could be a strong-mouthed woman but her attitude was anything but. She had been like a mother to her, something she lost too early. Kiara was ashamed to say that she was forgetting the images of her parents.
“Well, if I’m not bothering, can I please stay? You don’t have to pay me for today. I just want to volunteer.”
Her green eyes glittered of concern. “What’s the problem?”
She looked at the comic book in her hand, reminding her of being a child again where everything was simple and her love for King was merely a crush.
“I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” she looked up. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Isa walked over to her and pulled her into a comforting hug, wordlessly offering strength.
The bell chimed, something that happened when a customer came in. In that case, it was Robin, not a customer. He looked at his mother and then to her.
Kiara smiled at him, “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’m not the one who broke up with me.”
“Robin…”
Robin walked up to her and give her a bear hug, lifting her off the ground.
“You’re still as silly as I remember you, Kiara.” He set her back on her feet, Isa shaking her head.
“Well if you two wants to catch up, might as well bring hot chocolate and cookies in the plate.”
Sports Romance: Feeling The Heat Page 144