Page 14 of Ky
CHAPTER SIX
Ky
I couldn’t sleep. The bed was soft and comfy. The sheets were like velvet on my skin. The air was cool in the room. But still, I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was that it wastooquiet. Living among my brothers and their craziness at all hours was something that I’d gotten used to. Sometimes I didn’t even see my bed until the sun was coming up.
I had no idea what was going on. This was fucked up on so many levels. My sister, yeah, I didn’t even know where to begin with that. There was a talk coming and I dreaded it more than anything. Well,almostanything. I would have said that seeing Chris every day might have topped that. But it wasn’t about him, or rather the mixed-up thoughts I was having about him. Right now I needed to focus on Ingram.
Should I have been shocked that she was seventeen and pregnant? Maybe if I hadn’t known what she’d come from. It wasn’t unusual for someone that young to already be married and popping out baby number one. That was just the normal thing back there.
What did surprise the fuck out of me, was the fact that she was here and even more than that was the fact that she had left that place. It wasn’t something people did and I knew it wasn’t done easily. Yep, I needed answers and a lot of them.
She needed rest, and that was the only thing keeping my ass planted in this bed. I didn’t have much experience with pregnant women—thank fuck for that—but I knew they required more care than normal. I couldn’t imagine having to take care of yourself and grow something inside of you was an easy thing to do. It looked like I had a lot of things to learn.
So, that was when I pulled out my phone and started looking for answers to questions the Internetcouldanswer for me.
Damn, there were a lot of things that pregnant women couldn’t eat. Or do. And a lot of things that could go wrong. I knew I was going down a dangerous rabbit hole, but I couldn’t stop. I needed to know everything. Fuck, I needed to be prepared for anything. I was sure she didn’t have a clue about most of these things, especially the food stuff. And what about taking prenatal vitamins? I would bet that she didn’t have a clue about that.
With a heavy sigh, I killed the screen on my phone. Reading had only made me more on edge.
Ingram had come to me. She’d made the journey to find me despite how hard it was for her. I needed to step up and be the brother that she could actually count on. It mattered that she was here and I knew it was going to be a long road to wherever the hell we’d end up. But I vowed, in the early hours of that sleepless night, that I’d be there for her through every step. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was never one to take the easy path.
As the room started to lighten with the first rays of the day, I heard someone moving around. They were trying super hard to be quiet, but since I was awake, I heard everything. It might have been Ingram and knowing she was in a new place and situation, I decided to roll out of bed and make sure she was alright.
The house was still dark when I crept out of my room. The stillness led me to think that I’d been imagining things. Ingram’s door was closed and I figured she was still sleeping.
It wasn’t until I walked into the main part of the house that I realized it’d been Chris that I’d heard. His shadow figure moved away from the house, board tucked under his arm as he made his way down the beach.
I tried my best not to cringe. In all honesty, I got a little bit of anxiety every time I watched him run and thrust his board into the oncoming waves as he dove on top of it. I had a great respect for the ocean, enough to realize the dangers that lurked within her depths. It wasn’t something you could control, and I think that was what made me uneasy the most.
But I had to hand it to him, he controlled that board with a mad sort of grace. I’d been to the beach a few times with Brand and a few others when they hung out with Chris. I watched him with a weird sort of fascination. He may have been born and raised a mountain boy, but he carved the water like he was made to do it. It was beautiful, for lack of a better word.
Forcing my feet to move away from the wall of windows, I flopped down on the couch and grabbed the remote. I flipped through the channels until I found something that halfway caught my attention. I kept the volume on low as I moved to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Chris had one of those single serve machines, but he had one of those reusable pod things. I could respect that and oddly, it didn’t surprise me. Thank fuck he had a dark roast sitting there next to the thing.
I turned around and leaned back against the edge of the counter. I liked the openness of his place. It was bigger than anything I’d ever known, but still smaller in comparison to the houses that surrounded it. In all honesty, it was the perfect amount of room. The walls were white, but it didn’t feel bland and boring. There was a strange personal feel to the place and I attributed that to the decor that made up the place. The soft, overstuffed couches that looked so inviting that you couldn’t help but want to flop down on them. The happy yellows, purples, and blues that were splashed everywhere.
I had to hold back a chuckle thinking that it looked like a designers first attempt at trying to impress someone. But at the same time, it felt very homey. Maybe it wasn’t my style, but I could respect it all the same.
“Hey,” Chris said a while later as he walked through the back door.
The sun was up and if I had to guess, I would have said it was over an hour after I’d sat down with my cup of coffee and tried to focus on what was on the TV.
“Hey,” I parroted, flicking my eyes over to him then back at the screen.
I wasn’t trying to be a dick, but I knew that was how I was coming off. If I could only explain what was going on in my head to him then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. But the thing was, I couldn’t even explain those thoughts to myself, so there I was, stuck and just awkward. Oh, and looking like the biggest asshole ever. Chris had taken Ingram and me in, no questions or expectations whatsoever, the least I could have done was make the dude feel like he didn’t need to flee his own house.
“Did I wake you?” His voice held a heavy concern.
“No,” I answered in a hurry trying to ease the situation. “I was already awake. I wasn’t sure if it was Ingram I heard and I wanted to make sure she was okay.”
“Oh, yeah. Makes sense. I’m sorry, I get up at the ass crack of dawn and go out there. I don’t even set an alarm, I just always seem to wake right as the day starts to turn light.”
“I’m not used to it being this quiet,” I said as he flopped down on the couch beside me.
I tried like hell not to feel the heat radiating off of his shirtless body and tell myself that he probably wasn’t naked under the towel that was wrapped around his trim waist. I needed to get a grip on things, and fast.
“Yeah, I’ve been around enough to know that some of you guys like to party hard.”
I huffed out a laugh. Sometimes I was one of those guys.
