Page 20 of Ky
CHAPTER EIGHT
Chris
A week went by and we all seemed to find a routine. I had to admit that we all worked well together. When I wasn’t working, I was hanging out with Ingram. In a way, I was kind of bringing her into the real world. She caught on quickly and even in just the little amount of time she’d been here, I could tell that she was adapting pretty well.
We cooked together at least once a day. It didn’t escape me that Ky was always awake when I came back from spending my mornings out on the water. Then one of us would cook breakfast and the others would clean up after.
I noticed Ingram had a tendency to try and do everything. If she cooked, she tried to clean up too. She was constantly straightening things or cleaning something. It wasn’t like my house was spotless, but I kept it pretty clean. I hit the floor regularly with the broom or vacuum because living at the beach meant sand got tracked in constantly. There was simply nothing you could do to stop it. No matter how much I rinsed off after I’d come back from surfing, or stomped my shoes on the bristle rugs outside of the doors, I always managed to bring in half the sand on the beach with me. It was a small price to pay, though. And I dusted once a week. I liked to keep on top of things but I didn’t over do it.
I didn’t take offense to her cleaning. I had an idea that it was something ingrained in her and that it might be a hard habit to break. I was slowly trying, though. I figured it was good to start small. Like I made sure she didn’t clean up if she cooked. I didn’t say anything when she took her dirty plate to the sink, but I did step in when she tried to wash it. It was almost comical. I wasn’t mean about it or made her feel bad. In fact, every time she shook her head and smiled at me.
I hadn’t sat down and talked to Ky like Ingram had asked me to. I wasn’t usually a procrastinator, but I was when it came to this. He was still being a bit standoffish, but I could tell he was trying. It could have been he was doing it for Ingram. I noticed that he was still tense around her, but he’d stepped into the big brother roll without hesitation. He looked out for her. Made sure she didn’t eat anything she wasn’t supposed to. Always made her sit down and rest if he noticed she was doing too much. He even went as far as changing the channel to make sure she didn’t see something he deemed inappropriate. Though she was seventeen, she wasn’t like most of the girls her age.
On the other hand, I tried not to baby her. I could tell that she might be able to handle more than people gave her credit for. Maybe between Ky and me, we were the perfect balance of what she needed at the time. I sure hoped so, anyway.
“I think, maybe, Ingram could use a change of scenery,” I said slyly as I washed the dishes. He was putting away all the ingredients that Ingram had used to make breakfast. I didn’t look at him directly, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pause for a beat. “I know it may not be my place, but she’s basically been cooped up here for a week. Brand said something about grilling out tonight at the compound. I was thinking that maybe you could take her there for a little bit.”
I was trying to be suggestive but not pushy. I didn’t want him to feel like I was trying to suggest that he was doing things all wrong.
“Shit,” he breathed out and his head hung down. “I’m not very good at this, am I? The truth is, I have no idea what to do, or what she needs.”
“I know,” I stated simply. “I know you didn’t ask for my advice, and you can choose not to listen, but I feel like I need to say something. You need to sit down and talk to her. I think she’s waiting for you to initiate the big conversation that you’ve been avoiding. It’s been a week, Ky, and I think we both know that it’s time.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I just…have no idea what to even say to her, you know?”
“You could start by asking her how she’s feeling.”
His head lifted to look at me, his beautiful hazel eyes looked sad. I’d never seen that in them before and I almost had the urge to touch him if not just to lend a bit of comfort. I held back though, scared that he’d clam up on me.
“Take her by the compound tonight. You’ll be there to watch over her and I’ll stop by after I get off at six. Introduce her to your brothers, show her that side of your life and how you have people to watch your back. Let them meet her and I have no doubts that they will embrace her too. She needs all the comfort and support she can get right now. You don’t have to stay all that late and if she looks uncomfortable then you can bring her back here.”
I hoped that something in what I’d said had gotten through to him.
“Alright,” he said and then we finished cleaning up the kitchen in silence.
Baby steps. That was what it was going to take with Ky. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t thought of that before.
“I promised my parents I’d call them before I head into work. I’ll see you later tonight,” I said and turned to head up to my room without giving him a chance to say anything else.
My parents were pretty fucking awesome. I knew I was lucky and I never took it for granted. I may have been a grown boy, but I still talked to them once a week. I hated that we were so far away from each other but I understood their need to take off, and besides, they deserved it.
I learned about my uncle after he’d died. It was kind of crappy but after hearing the story, I got it. It was hard for my parents and my grandma. I couldn’t imagine that it was easy to try and wipe someone out of your existence when they’d been there all your life. But that was what they’d done. I wanted to hate them because it was a pretty shitty thing to do to family, but after understanding the whole situation, I realized that they didn’t have much choice.
To shorten the story down to next to nothing, my uncle and my dad were in love with the same person. Yep, that person happened to be my mom. My dad and his brother were only two years apart. It seemed that my mom was maybe a bit wild in her youth and ended up dating the two brothers at the same time. Both of them knew about it of course, and my dad even half-joked that they had a ‘may the best man win’ kind of thing going on. In the end, it was my dad that won by stealing her heart. I couldn’t even be mad a little bit because as selfish as it might have seemed, if my dad hadn’t been the man she chose, then I wouldn’t be here. And I rather liked being here.
So after she chose my dad, my uncle’s pride was damaged too much and he cut all ties with my family, and from the way my grandma told it, the whole thing wasn’t very nice.
Who knew that he’d spend his days full of regret and drowning in his own hate and well, pride? He never apologized or even tried to reach out for the rest of his life. After his death, we each received a letter from him. He, unfortunately, had cancer and knew his time was coming. He also happened to be a billionaire. Who would have thought? I mean, my parents weren’t poor, but we weren’t rolling in the dough. We had a comfortable life and honestly, I wouldn’t have wanted it differently.
So with the newfound zeros in their bank account, my parents took off to live the old retired people life in Florida and they were loving it.
We honored my uncle, burying him next to my grandpa in the family plot and having a long, involved talk of my parents and my grandma remembering him as a boy. It made me feel closer to him and I wouldn’t ever forget that. Every time I walked into my house, every buck I spent, I thought of him and how all that money hadn’t made him happy. I never wanted to live like that. I tried my hardest to be there for the people that mattered to me, no matter what happened.
Maybe that was why I was still trying with Ky even though he treated me a tad bit crappy and did his best to push me away. I kept thinking that if I could get to the root of the problem, get him to open up to me, then all would be alright. That said, it was a lot easier to have that as a plan than to execute it.
“Chris!” my mom squealed through the phone like a drunk sorority girl. And she might have been, drunk that was. “I miss you, my sweet baby boy.”
And there went the eye roll.
