Caught in the middle

Ch 2

Joshua POV
I close my phone. I messaged Kai as soon as I woke up. Seeing her last night was like a blast from the past. I haven't seen her since I graduated 9 years ago and moved back home. Much of the first 7 years after moving back home is blurry or missing chunks of time. Dark times and bad chocies I prefer not to reminisce about when I'm home alone. I wanted to talk to her. After Chris and I saw her, her sister, and her friends, he kept pushing me to talk to her and see if her sister would go on a date with him. It was the perfect opening to try to see her again. A double date, though I didn't tell Chris I had proposed that to her in case she turned me down.

When I told Kai she should have come to say hi outside the bar and told her I would have taken her home, I expected outright refusal. I stared her down from where I leaned against my Harley. I know dressed in all black with my face cast in shadows by my cap, standing at six foot four inches with the perpetual scowl on my face I don't look friendly or approachable. I look downright dangerous. Just how I want to look. People don't talk to me, people don't look at me for long, people don't acknowledge me. But she stared back at me. She looked me in my eyes. Like a challenge she wanted to take on. Like the danger that rolled off me in waves, didn't matter. It was intriguing. My interest is piqued.

I smiled to myself thinking about the courageous, albeit stupidly so, little kitten who litterally ran face first into me, as I headed to my closet to shirk on my leather jacket and riding gear. It was Sunday afternoon and I didn't want to miss a day riding. I shoved my feet in my leather riding boots, slipped my phone in my pocket, and tugged on my riding gloves. Grabbing my keys I marched out my door locking it behind me and heading to retrieve my bike from my small garage to take advantage of the day. Tomorrow meant I was back to work at my personal security position for some low grade govt official I hadn't even bothered to learn the name of.

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I finished my ride and tucked my bike back in its corner of the garage. I rode for 4 hours straight and my hands and legs are tired and sore. My ass was numb. My face wind burnt. All in the best kind of ways. The ride gave me nothing but time to think about Kai. My sweet naive Kai. I hadn't thought about her in years. I hadn't spoken to her or interacted with her since I graduated high school. I left and went through my dark years and didn't want to drag her through all of that with me. So I didn't reach out. She was a light hearted fleck of brightness during years where I had upheaval and turmoil at home. She was something that made me look forward to the following days back then when I hated going home to my moms asshole husband. When I had conflicts with friends. When I hated my dad for making my mom take me and leave.
Sports and Kai made the days a little more bearable. And I met her through sports. I unleashed my pent up rage and aggression and anger out on the football field when I couldn't at home. When my moms husband would beat on me and we would fight, I'd end up with bruises and sprains. These were easy to pass off as sports injuries I would get from unleashing on the field. And every time Kai was there at practice or games as a student manager for the football team. She would smile at me and tease me about hurting myself again, about going "too hard" as she would tell me. She lived in a world where parents loved their kids and supported them. She lived in a world where step parents loved you like their own. It never would have occurred to me that my own step dad was the cause of my injuries. That there was too many to be just from sports. It didn't occur to her that these injuries would show up during the week or after a weekend but weren't there Friday night after games.
None of that mattered. Because knowing I would see her in a couple days or the next day, and I would get to poke fun at her and I'd get to see her blush and smile while she shook her head at me made the time away easier. I'd ask how her weekends were and what she had been up to or how her classes were going. Then she would tell me about whatever dumb "adventure" as she called them, she had went on with her friends. About how school was boring and she couldn't wait to hang out with friends instead. Sometimes I let myself imagine her including me in her weekend plans. About being part of the stories she told me while she bandaged my injuries or put athletic tape on my ankles so I wouldn't make my previous injuries worse. I would let my mind wander while she prattled on about whatever I had asked her about, letting myself pretend we were on a date after a long week, or watching tv on my couch after work or on our way to the after game party on a Friday night after we kicked ass on the field.
I never spoke or acted on these thoughts. I didn't want to drag her light hearted life through the muck I lived in. Then I left town and didn't look back for many years. I all but forgot Kai for some of the years I was gone. But I missed my mom. I missed a simpler life without the cloud of my bad decisions and influence of friends who made equally as bad or worse decisions hanging over me. I needed another chance with a cloudy but more clear than dirty slate. So I'm in this dull little town. And Kai is forefront in my mind yet again. She might be just the right distraction to help me readjust to this slow life again.