A/N: sit down and brew some tea, bc this is the longest chapter i've ever written
There's only ever one bed, Madeleine said. There will never be two. It's a romance guarantee.
After the wedding, Isabelle had led the way—skipping arm in arm with me and Will, with Kai trailing behind—to Zac's farmhouse. As the best man, Zac had told us he took his duties to get sloshed and have a blast very seriously, and he was across the road at the house with the bride and groom living up to his word. He handed Isabelle a key to his house, and gave us instructions for where we would be staying. There was Zac's room, which he would be returning to later, one room with two twin beds and another guest room with a double bed. I was glad for the extra space, but it also made me furious. He had space for his siblings, the money to afford that space, and yet they still lived with Maria?
But I wasn't going to waste time being mad when I was too busy internally freaking out. Isabelle had automatically claimed the twin room and announced that Will could look forward to a long night of chick flicks. Kai patted his friends back sympathetically, but Will just shrugged and went to join Isabelle, leaving the door open behind him so that Kai and I, standing on the landing, could see Isabelle bouncing on her bed with unrestrained glee.
Madeleine would flip the fuck out. How many times can Kai and I be put in a situation where there is only one fucking bed.
A lot, I hoped.
The room was neat, but small. Zac had clearly made the bed in preparation for our arrival; hospital corners and white sheets were fitted carefully to the bed.
"Country houses are cute," I said, when Kai shut the door behind us, and I desperately needed to say something to diffuse the tension brought about by the realisation that we would spend the night lying side by side.
Sharing a bed with Kai felt different when it wasn't for the express purpose of making sure Jameson didn't die in his sleep. Even though we'd woken tangled together the next morning—an inevitability I can now admit probably wasn't accidental from either of us—we'd slept side by side with good, platonic intentions, though I probably wouldn't have begrudged a wandering hand or two. Now, what was between us hardly felt platonic, even though technically it should have. But the bounds of our relationship stretched far beyond fake, and I was almost certain he felt the same.
So, yeah, if I had it my way, we'd start the night tangled together, ideally with one of us firmly on top of the other. I was willing to negotiate which.
Kai eyed the generously-sized mattress when he caught me doing the same, and then turned to me. "Uh. I'm, uh, you know, happy to take the floor. If you like."
It was sweet, how nervous the self-assured Kai Delaney suddenly seemed. I felt privileged to see this version of him, the one that didn't always know the right thing to say, even though he still somehow managed to find the best thing, the most endearing thing, that made me love him just a little bit more.
I grinned. "We've done this rodeo before, Delaney."
"Well, I didn't want to assume."
"Are you still nervous of my wandering hands?" I untangled them from where they had nervously gathered the fabric at the waist of my dress and wiggled them near his chest. "I can't help it! They have a mind of their own."
Kai scrunched his nose at me. It was very cute. "So, you don't mind sharing then?"
"Well, you are my boyfriend now, right?" I wasn't even sure if I was asking comedically anymore. Kai Delaney was going to break my brain. It was too hard doing this with him; we'd always flirted, every joke dripping in innuendo, and it was very confusing when I actually meant it, and wasn't sure if he felt the same.
"Soon, Williams," he said, dropping his bag and falling back against the mattress with a groan of appreciation that sent all the blood in my head somewhere else entirely. "Don't try and lock me down too fast."
And there it was. The words I was afraid he would shoot back at me if I ever confessed something real. I couldn't even respond, giving him a half-smile instead and dropping my bag next to his, before crawling next to him on the mattress and sitting cross-legged beside him, letting the curtain of my hair cover my face.
Kai stretched across to push my hair behind my ear, revealing his frowning face behind it. "You know, because we have to tell the masses first?"
I swallowed. "Right. Yes."
Announcing a fake relationship wasn't a task I would have ever considered undertaking a few months ago, but my life had irrevocably changed since then. Because of that, though, I'd never put much thought into how, exactly, one announced they were definitely absolutely really dating, in a way that didn't scream of shameless bragging. We didn't want it to seem fake, after all. It took us almost an hour to decide the best way to do it, in between changing into pyjamas and getting ready for sleep. Given we resorted to the simplest option, seemed a bit overkill. But we had enough fun that it didn't matter.
Kai immediately vetoed a Facebook relationship status announcement, on the grounds that the ruse was for our classmate's benefit, so unless I wanted to have lunch with his mother (which he took pains to remind me that I really, really, really didn't), Facebook was not an option. This was probably a smart call; I couldn't make any promises about where my butterknife would end up lodged if I was forced to chat to Maria Delaney.
The easiest way to submit gossip for the court of public approval was Jameson Miller, which had been Kai's first point of call. But when the call had connected, Jamie was obviously inebriated—slurred and nonsensical babbling—and couldn't seem to understand what we were asking.
"What do you mean tell people you're dating?" he'd asked. "You're already dating."
Kai frowned into the phone. "We are now. We weren't an hour ago."
He'd replied with a bland and confused— "What."—that wasn't even a question. And despite the number of times we tried to explain to me that we were only now official, he didn't seem to understand. "But I've watched him feel you up, like, forty times. A day."
"And I've seen you after a fumble in the closet with Madeleine, about one hundred and forty times, who you're also not dating."
He did not seem to understand that the two situations were similar, but he just kept mumbling "no" and "that's not right" and even, in a fit of astounding passion, "why do you feel like you must lie to me? I am hurt and offended and will need to drink more whisky to cope with this unmitigated betrayal!"
If he was using words like unmitigated, he had to be mostly fine, but Kai still called Seb to send him over on babysitting duty.
Instead, we had to resort to the common, basic technique that was almost as effective as James Miller. Isabelle had sent through a series of photos from the wedding, and I was definitely more inclined to the classic Instagram post of officiality when I saw how good I looked in them. She texted the group chat with a link to a Google Drive holding any photos that featured the four of us—me, Isabelle, Kai and Will—and had put a note in with all of her favourites. Most of the ones that appealed to Izzy were unflattering shots of Will, but there was one of Kai and me that was... incredible.
The photographer had captured the moment when we'd been walking away from Lena and Jace. Kai was laughing unashamedly, because I'd just told him his brother was hot, and nothing amused Kai more thoroughly than when I surprised him with a joke that didn't fit with the Valerie Williams he thought he knew a few months ago. I looked self-satisfied, pleased to have made him laugh, and the photo was so natural it made me think I could tell him exactly how I feel, and I know he'd feel the same way. He has to. Because that photo was real.
ladybird fucker (Jameson): aw thes r very cute photos
ladybird fucker: OF A COUPLE
Mum (Kai): i don't know why this is so confusing to you
Mum: we were not dating, and now we are
ladybird fucker: bc ur lying to me. i refuse to believe i had to watch so many gag-inducing scenes and u weren't even dating
ladybird fucker: i expected better of you, valerie
ladybird fucker: oh god, are they going to be even worse now, then? that makes me want to vomit
picadildo (Seb): that would be the alcohol, probs
Dad (Will): go to bed, james
ladybird fucker: yes, daddy
Homewrecker (Isabelle): OFFICIALLY
Homewrecker: istg yall better remain fucking quiet or I will vom
Dad: that would be the alcohol, probs
Dad: but also ^^^
I ignored the rest of the messages flooding the group chat, which I knew would include question marks from Cora and Isabelle once they saw the texts and realised what they meant; that Kai and I were actually a couple now. Hopefully, they'd both be pleased. After Cora's strange comments about Sydney and Kai before Jamie's party, I didn't understand how she felt enough to be sure. Izzy, I suspected from her final message, would be thrilled.
After Kai and I spent an hour nervously changing captions, making fun of the ugly Will photos and stopping to discuss our friends, what posting these pictures could mean, and the exact shade of purple Tommy's cheeks would flush when he saw them, we finally uploaded to our Instagram accounts.
This was what the last few months had been leading up to. Anger and a burning need for vengeance had culminated in this moment, which suddenly felt like it was about neither of those things.
The response was immediate and fierce. I knew Kai was more popular, more prolific, than I was, but I was unprepared for the onslaught. Likes and comments rained in my inbox. Kai Delaney was hot property, the most eligible bachelor of high school, and apparently when the resident bad boy with a heart of gold shacks up with a mere ordinary girl, well-liked but not well-noticed, it causes a stir through the world of high school politics. People I'd never spoken to were commenting things like "omg cuties xx" under my post, and I was collecting likes as if I'd just announced I was running for president.
I looked up from my phone at my new 'boyfriend'. "Are you secretly an influencer?"
Without a beat, he looked up from his phone and grinned at me. "No, people are just interested because my girlfriend is really hot."
I grinned. "Suave."
"I try."
I couldn't believe it; the response. There were only a few I really cared about, though, and they came in with the others. I couldn't help but smile at the 5 comments Isabelle left under my post.
izzy.delaney: OMG
izzy.delaney: ITS OFFICIAL
izzy.delaney: you look so go tho, val
izzy.delaney: the best sister-in-law
izzy.delaney: next wedding we go to will be urs, right?
I didn't even want to open the group chat and learn what she'd left there. It would be adorable, but I didn't have the energy to respond to all of her excitement. This felt too momentous.
I was sitting on this bed with Kai Delaney, waiting for the right moment to ask him out, and only because I needed this moment. Needed something to take away from how bitter I felt. Because the two people I'd loved most in the world had taken the pieces of my heart and torn them apart.
I couldn't think about anything else except that. I was too focussed on the boy next to me, and the one comment I knew would come beneath the photos. Tommy wouldn't respond, I knew. He wasn't mature enough to wish me well, and wasn't immature enough to leave a bitchy comment either. His response would be in person, blustering and fuming, and I would feel incredible. I would feel exactly how I wanted to feel, how I imagined I would feel, when I was on Kai's lawn ready to create this crazy plan.
Kai wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "You're waiting to see what she'll say, aren't you?"
I looked up in surprise, meeting his steady blue gaze. He had the prettiest eyes, but they were also so expressive, so capable of conveying every emotion he felt, even when his expression was placid and serene. There was a deep, intrinsic understanding there, and I couldn't help smiling sadly at him. "Yeah," I whispered.
He nodded. "I get the feeling that the revenge was more fun when it came to him."
"I loved her more." It was true. I also thought it might've been the cause of everything that happened. Tommy knew that he would never be first in my life, and it hurt him enough that lashed out in the only way that would really, deeply cut me. Because I would've been mad if he cheated on me; it was taking Sydney that I couldn't forgive. "The whole point of revenge was to make her furious. But I think... I don't think dating you will hurt her like it hurts him."
Kai thought about this for a moment. "I don't know Sydney like you do. But Tommy was furious that you moved on with me, and Sydney was just sad that you'd moved on."
I didn't need to date Kai Delaney to hurt Sydney. It would hurt Tommy, in a bone-deep, painful way. But Kai might be right; nothing would hurt Sydney as much as that day in her pool house, where I'd left without forgiving her.
Her comment came through a moment later.
sydney.elise: the most beautiful couple. leave some good genes for the rest us!
I might've cried a little bit when I laughed. It wasn't heartfelt or moving, but it was a simple sentiment of support that I appreciated more than I would have relished her rage. It felt like the close of a chapter. I wasn't angry at her anymore; I wasn't anything. Sydney and I were just two people who used to be friends, decades of history binding us together, but who would exist in each other's lives as a sweet comment on Instagram. And maybe I could be okay with that.
It was cleansing, really, not being mad at Sydney anymore. I promised Cora I wouldn't forgive Sydney, and I wasn't going to break that promise. But anger at someone you still loved was draining. And I felt free from having to feel that anymore. It was the second-best thing to come out of Madeleine and Cole's ridiculous plan.
Kai was the best thing.
He had his arm around me, tracing soothing circles into my shoulder with his thumb, kissing the top of my head intermittently. Was he being a good friend, or was it something more?
It was something more. It had to be.
I like you so fucking much.
Don't bitch it.
"So, how does it feel to be properly locked down?"
Well, that was an elegant segue.
"Uh—" Kai pulled back from me, looking down at my bent head. So, maybe I was taking the verbal plunge, but I sure as shit wasn't brave enough to look him in the eye while I did it. "Is this your attempt at changing the subject because you don't like emotional vulnerability?"
I winced, and had to look up and meet his eyes at this. Kai was excellent at deciphering my expressions, but without that, my random subject change must be very confusing. "Uh, just the first part?"
Kai furrowed his brows. "So, you want to change the subject, but not because you want to avoid emotional vulnerability?"
"Yes?"
He searched my face for answers, but he wouldn't find them; all my face held were questions, unasked for so long, and he was the one who could resolve them.
Don't break my heart, Kai Delaney. It was never supposed to be on the line again so soon.
It felt as if I'd only just healed from what Sydney and Tommy had done—this moment, when I'd posted the picture and felt like there was an end to my rage—and I couldn't handle it if I was forced to collect the pieces again.
I couldn't exactly fake date my way out of pain a second time.
"What are you asking me, Little Valerie?" Kai
"Nothing I expect you to answer."
Nothing I was certain that I was ready to hear him answer. Not if his answer wasn't the one I wanted, the one I needed.
He raised a brow. "That's clarifying."
"It's stupid," I said, absolutely bitching it.
"I'm sure it's not." Kai was beseeching, looking at me with such intensity that I felt his gaze bury beneath my skin.
I was so goddamn nervous, and I cursed Lena Montez for making me promise I wouldn't back out of this. Cursed Sydney for commenting something nice, and healing my heart enough that this moment felt necessary. Cursed myself for daring to fall in love with the one boy who was known for being easy to fall for, but who never, ever fell back.
"I guess I was just wondering how you were feeling. You know, I heard the great Kai Delaney didn't do commitment," I said, with a grand sweep of my arms that went at least some way to undercutting how desperately I wanted Kai to elaborate on my unasked question. Would you do commitment, Kai? Would you do it for me?
There was something in the shift of Kai's jaw that spoke to an understanding, like he knew exactly what I was asking of him. What I wanted him to say. It crackled like lightning between us, as if the pure energy could tease the ends of my hair.
"I thought you knew by now not to believe everything that they said about me," said Kai. I did know that. He wasn't a bad boy, or carefree, or any of the labels that classist bullshit had assigned him. But it was easy to know exactly who he was in all the ways that didn't pertain to me. When it was my heart in the balance, it was too easy to fall victim to hope. But he cupped my cheek, tracing the line of my cheekbone with his thumb. "Besides, I'd do anything for you, Valerie."
Anything. He had committed publicly to me for my sake. But he would do anything. Anything.
All I could do was nod.
Both of us were on the verge of closing the distance between us, and I could feel the pull like a tangible string tied between us, so taught it could snap at any moment. But neither of us moved. Instead, we just sat there, on the bed we would share tonight, only a few feet apart, wordlessly staring. My eyes roved every square inch of his skin, as if I didn't know the exact constellation of freckles on his arm, the precise shade of skin on the inside of his elbow, as if I hadn't memorised the trajectory of the slope of his ear. I had imprinted Kai Delaney on the inside of my eyelids, saw his profile in my dreams. And yet my eyes devoured him hungrily, and I revelled in the feeling of him doing the same.
I refused to be the one to move first. He held my heart in this moment, and I was certain he knew it, because he knew me. But I wanted plausible deniability if he didn't feel the same way, a safeguard to keep our friendship intact. I wasn't going to bitch it, but I would toe my way into the water before I was willing to plunge to the depths. Mostly because, if Kai didn't feel the same way, I wasn't certain that I would be able to float back to the surface.
"I'll—" Kai cleared his throat, tracing my face with his eyes. "Turn the light off?"
"Sure." My voice cracked.
He stretched across the small room to flip the switch. The room was pitched into complete darkness, such a deep shade of black that I felt as if I were seeing a kaleidoscope of colours. Casserine, light-starved in a way the city and suburbs never were, saw night in a way that I was unaccustomed to. It was pleasant, because we both knew that we were about to have a conversation that changed everything, and it was always easier to confess to a void of endless black.
I could hear his breathing through the dark. I could hear the rustle of sheets as we climbed beneath them, side by side, so close I could feel the fine hairs on his arms against my skin, but not quite close enough that he was touching me.
Not. Quite.
"Little Valerie?" he said into the dark.
"Yeah?" I croaked.
"Were you just trying to ask me what I think you were trying to ask me?"
Maybe we needed the lights off. We were so attuned to each other that we could read every thought that passed our minds on each others faces. For the first time, I felt like I had to actually communicate with him. To honestly tell him how I felt.
Don't bitch it. Don't bitch it. Don't. Bitch. It.
"Yes."
I heard his breath hitch. "I don't want to assume anything." His voice was low, so soft I could barely hear it against the silence so profound it hummed. "I need you to ask me."
He wouldn't make me say it unless he wanted it too. He would never ask that of me.
"Is it real?"
I heard his sharp inhale only a moment before I felt his breath coast against my lips. He'd shifted his weight, levering himself just above me in the dark. Through a daze in which I saw only stars, I thought that I might get my wish after all. Kai Delaney was firmly on top of me.
"It's always been real," he whispered. "I never pretended anything else for even a second. I was just waiting for you to notice."
I felt his confession in every inch of my body, suffused through my veins and tendons and bones.
And he was right, when I considered it later. Not for a single moment had Kai done anything to dissuade me from the notion that we were real. He'd never even particularly espoused the concept of revenge. Instead, he'd invited me to spend time with his friends, kissed me for no one's benefit but ours, confided in me and become my friend.
He ghosted a kiss across the corner of my lips, searching for me in the dark. His hand trailed a path down my side, settling on my hip, tracing my body and mapping it out with gentle caresses. I slid a hand into his hair, silky soft, and guided him to fit our mouths together with a gentle press.
There was something about making out in the darkness. It robbed you of anything but sensation, forced you to learn the contours of another body, to memorise it without seeing, commit its exact shape to memory.
So, when Kai nudged my lips open with a gentle slide of his own, I tightened my body vice-like around him. He was lean and taught beneath my hands as I slid them under his shirt, and he kissed me again, slowly. There was none of the fierceness of our first kisses. But there was something about this moment, and the feeling of being kissed like this. He kissed me like he loved me.
I felt the brush of his nose as he pulled away momentarily, only to gently guide my jaw across and kiss me again, seeking my lips in the darkness. "Little Valerie, you are the best thing—" But he couldn't even finish formulating the thought, before some inexplicable rush of affection had me pulling him down again, for a long kiss that elicited a groan from the back of Kai's throat.
It wasn't rushed. There was no rapid pulling at clothes or tugging of his hair. When I drew his shirt off, it was with a splayed hand so desperate to reach the soft skin at the base of his neck that the only natural conclusion was for Kai's shirt to be sent to the floor. And when mine followed, it was only to oblige the caress of Kai's hand against my stomach. It was so dark I couldn't even see the skin I was gradually revealing, so dark I couldn't have said how long we spent through the process. It might've been minutes or hours, but I was too caught up in the sweet nothings he whispered in my ear, the brush of his hand against my throat, the feel of him bearing down on top of me. All I knew was that I wanted him as close to me as it was possible for two beings to intertwine, and every layer that separated us felt like an obstacle.
We spent so long wrapped together that it felt like the most natural thing in the world when his hand dipped lower, and I gasped into his mouth. Everything about this, about us, felt like an inevitability. As if this was the culmination of a collision course we had been coasting since I tripped on his lawn.
"You are everything I didn't know I wanted," he told me, and I couldn't answer with anything but an intelligible and inelegant sound.
I'd never felt so close to another human being. He was warm and hard and so very real, and I wanted to laugh and cry and sing because if I was everything he didn't know he wanted, then he was everything I knew I wanted, but didn't know I needed.
He was real, and he felt like mine.
"You weren't lying," Kai said against my lips. "That first day in the car park."
"What?"
I felt the cut of his smile against the juncture of my throat when he moved to whisper into my ear. "The left one is better."
I laughed, and pulled him against me. "Just wait until you actually get to see it. It's so great, you won't believe it's real."
"There's a lot of things that are great, and I always believed they were real."
I intwined our fingers, pressing his hand over the left side of my chest, and he made a noise of pleasure that made me smile. "Are we still talking about my boob?"
"Of course," he said. "What else?"
A/N: sooooo, thoughts?