Sound of Love

Chapter 6

Stass' POV.

(Same night as prev chapter)

I was upset seeing them so close together recently and it doesn't help that she's appearing every time I get even a sliver of a moment with him. I watched him walk out to the backyard, eager to follow him, but Kylie leads us girls to the living room as she orders the pizzas. We continue our Disney marathon until the pizzas come and throw ourselves at the boxes. As we eat, I gather a few slices to give to Kyler as an apology, but see Kelsey already walking out with a plate of his favorite kind. I sigh out loud, catching Kylie's attention as she feeds a bottle to Stormi.

KYLIE: "OK, spill. You and Kyler have been acting weird and don't even try to move around this." She stares me down, making me shrink slightly.

STASS: I shrug honestly. "I don't know. I just miss having time with him, you know. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love you to death, but I barely see him and when I do these days, he's like glued to her or vice versa. I want to talk to him and just hang out, but he isn't even making an effort to talk to me." I spill with anger and sadness. "Like, I get his job can be demanding, but he used to be able to text or call me whenever he had even a few minutes but now I can barely see him or hear him. Any time I do, it's either on IG Or through other people."

KYLIE: She nods at my words and tells me, "It's not like you've been playing nice either I mean c'mon Stass, getting mad at him, hooking up with the music producer that he's friends with. You practically ghosted him. I KNOW he's had a crush on you for like ever, but why didn't you ever try to reciprocate it or tell him that you didn't feel the same way? Instead, you just kept him on a string that he'll never be able to cut. I don't care that you guys are fighting or whatever right now, but don't be mad at him when you are making things worse too. Kelsey just happened to be there to comfort him and he latched onto that. You know how his anxiety is. He needs some type of anchor that isn't one of our sisters. You were his anchor and then you just dropped him out of nowhere. So stop being unfair to him, he's been honest throughout his whole life, but have you been honest with him?"

She breathes out a sigh and watches Kelsey and Kyler walk back in.

I settle into the couch thinking about her words. The truth is I've started to like him more and more over the many years of knowing him. He's charming, a gentleman, passionate, so sweet, and driven. He is practically a girl's dream. But, worrying about the what ifs got to me, so I kept him at a distance and let him throw his subtle advances at me, adorably might I add.

Kyler begins to clean up a bit as Kylie and Kelsey watch the movie. He gathers all of the trash and brings it to the kitchen, where I find him alone. I practically run behind him and stand at the counter, watching him wash the dishes and clean up the counters. He finally turns and sees me, but freezes. Wait, what? He never freezes like this with me. He continues to stare at me, not knowing what to do, so he goes to scratch his neck, but I walk up to him quickly grabbing his hand.

STASS: "Stop doing that, I'm honestly surprised you haven't made yourself bleed." He stares down at me as I take a step closer to him.

Shock covers his face and it surprises me too. We haven't talked much or been this close and I've hated the distance, so here I am trying to fix it.

KYLER: He gulps loudly and licks his bottom lip. "I thought you hated me. You haven't been talking to me and with the few times I did text, you just left it on read. I assumed I did something wrong, so I gave you space." He looks down at the space between us and tries to move his hands away from mine, but I keep a tight grip on it.

STASS: I bend down to catch his eyes, not wanting to stare at the top of his head. "Hey, I don't hate you okay? Things have just been complicated and I've been trying to figure things out with-"