“You use it to get lost,” he said, as if it were that simple. “To help you forget.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “The same way you use pot?”

I expected him to get angry, call me a nag. Accuse me of eavesdropping on his phone conversation with his father. His head sloped to the side, a ruddiness growing on his cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Well, I don’t like it when you do that,” I said, standing up and pacing the length of the balcony. “But I know you get enough flack. I’m not the boss of you.”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he bit his tongue. Instead he just shook his head, the beginnings of a smirk lining the corners of his mouth.

“Look, no one has to find out what happened between us.” He moved his legs when I passed by him to pace in the opposite direction.

“You know Dakota would flip.” I turned, fisting the ends of my tank top.

His gaze followed my hands, as if remembering just where his fingers had been. I promptly dropped my arms to my sides.

“So just between us, then?” he asked.

I finally stopped my forward motion and slid back into my seat. “It’s a deal.”

He reached out his hand. “Shake on it?”

I shook my head. “Pinky swear.”

The pinky swear used to drive Kai nuts when Dakota and I were kids, because we’d use it for every single damn thing. And he always said it made no sense. So sometimes we did it just to bug the crap out of him.

“If you insist.” He held out his pinky with a lopsided grin that brightened all the gloomy corners of my heart. We hooked fingers, and I felt the tingle of his warm skin all the way down to my toes.

I breathed a sigh of relief that Kai was cool and mature enough to smooth things over between us. If only I could ignore that little fluttering in my belly every time I thought about where his lips had been.

I’d admit to being a little hurt that he didn’t seem fazed by being in my presence this morning—but having his friendship back was all that mattered in the end.

“So what are you going to do about Miles?” Kai’s jaw ticked. “I’m assuming he wanted to talk and you refused.”

I turned toward him. “How in the hell do you do that, you asshat?”

His eyebrows slammed together. “Do what?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, a dull headache throbbing in the back of my skull. “Know me so well.”

“We have history, Turtle,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

“This is true.” But we’d never known that other part of each other. The one we discovered last night. Sure, I’d fantasized about it briefly through the years. But it was just a passing curiosity.

Besides, I had never taken him seriously. He’d been with so many girls. But he’d never been a dick to them. They just seemed to know the score.

Still, it turned me off. Or at least I told myself it did, even as I imagined him kissing me in the exact same way I’d caught him kissing any number of girls over the years. The only time he seemed to cool it was during my hospital stay. Not that I had the wherewithal to pay attention to that aspect of his life during that time.

Kai leaned forward and tapped my knee with his hand. “So maybe you need closure with that asshole.” I looked down at his strong and callused fingers. Would I ever be able to get over the fact that those hands had been all over me?

I groaned and slumped farther down in my seat. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“You’re a different person now.” He bowed his head to meet my eyes. “Maybe seeing him for who he is will help you leave the past behind.”

I bit my lip, considering the truth of his words. “Since when did you get so smart?”

“Since always.” A cocky grin lifted his cheeks and made my chest ache. When it came down to it, I loved Kai for his friendship, for his honesty, for his loyalty. I don’t want that to ever go away.

I placed my head in my hands. “Gah, I was so afraid I’d ruined our friendship.”

I felt a warm hand on my back and raised my head to look at him. “Kai, you’re . . . very important to me. You know that, right?”

His eyes connected to mine so firmly it was as if we’d been woven into the same patchwork quilt. Each essential to the fiber of the material. And to each other.

“You’re important to me, too,” he said, almost breathless. “No matter what.”

My chest threatened to burst open, so I needed to lighten the mood before I asked him to pull me into his lap. Kiss me. Fuel me. Make me come alive again.

“So, you just go back to being a jackass and I’ll . . .”

“And you’ll go back to being your annoying and obnoxious self?” He reached out and messed with my hair. “And slow as shit. Shelly.”

I grinned. “Works for me.”

Yet something still didn’t sit well. I felt like something was off between us. Or just lost.

He balanced his empty coffee cup on his lap. “But I won’t stop worrying or caring about you, got it?”

I felt my cheeks redden with some residual anger. He’d walked away and yet he now claimed he worried about me? I knew I had no right to feel that way. He had been so supportive, so caring and accommodating.

But he’d also been a screw-up, getting himself in trouble with his band mate and being told in no uncertain terms by his father to leave town. It was irrational to think that he should have held it together for me.

How ridiculous did that sound—we weren’t even dating.

He was just living his life as he always had. I should’ve just been grateful that he had taken the time to visit me every day in the rehab center. I’d felt so close to him back then and maybe that was part of the problem. I felt as if I knew him. Really knew him. I had shared so many pieces of myself with him.

But at times he seemed to hold himself back. I didn’t always know what was going on beneath the pain in his eyes. He would go out and party and get himself in trouble yet again. But friends were supposed to accept each other, faults and all, right? I needed to get over myself.

“We haven’t been around each other in years,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness in my voice at bay. “I’ve taken care of myself just fine.”

“So I’ve heard.”

My head snapped up. There was no denying the sullenness present in his voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” He leaned all the way back in his chair, propping his feet up again. “Forget I said that.”

“No.” I pushed at his legs to get his full attention. “Talk, right now. Say what you want to say. No secrets.”

He hesitated as if formulating the right words. “I’ve been checking up on you.”

“What? How?” I moved my lips to say something else but no words would come out. I couldn’t imagine what he was about to tell me. Had he known someone I’d fucked around with? A sickening dread climbed its way up my throat and I balled my fists as I waited for his reply.

That’s when I saw the regret that filled his eyes. “My cousin Nate.”

“Nate,” I parroted back. I tried to jog my memory as to who Nate could’ve been. I may not have remembered all the guys I’d made out with, but I certainly remembered the guys I’d slept with. Usually they were guys I already knew. And they were almost always jocks. I had a thing for athletes. I liked their dedication to the game and—who was I kidding—their huge muscles and tight asses in those uniforms.

“He knows you from TSU,” Kai said. “Some parties. A couple of classes.”

Realization washed over me. That Nate. Bennett’s friend. Suddenly I was so damn grateful I’d never hooked up with him. He wasn’t my type and wasn’t anyone I wanted to have angry or hard-up sex with. Thank God.

“Nate is your cousin? But you don’t look anything alike. . . .” My words trailed off and he waited to see if I’d put two and two together. Nate had blond hair and looked like the boy next door. Definitely all-American. But not Native American. “Is he a cousin on your mother’s side?”