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“I can't believe I'm doing this,” Jo said, glancing over at Kendall in the passenger seat of her car. She didn't like to do a lot of driving, mostly because of the trembles that she still got, and she hadn't wanted to drive over to the hospital, but she'd done it anyway. She'd let Kendall get in the ambulance without saying a word, and she had way too much to say to him to let him go without a word, but sometimes she didn't know what to say, and that had been one of those moments. Then she'd gotten to Kendall's room just as he was signing a paper to leave against medical advice, talking crazy about walking home on his leg, and she found herself offering him a ride.
“Even I know we have a lot to talk about,” Kendall said, adjusting his position to ease the pressure on his leg. He winced, and she shook her head. She shouldn't have helped him leave the hospital, but she couldn't let him go off on his own, either. He'd only do worse to his leg if he'd tried to walk home.
“Should we start with my dad or with that kiss?”
He flinched. “That... I would say it was just to distract you while I gave you the gun, but I'd be lying because I did want to kiss you.”
She shook her head. She was not ready to deal with that at all. Kendall had broken her heart too many times, and she would not let him do it again. “Let's just stick with my dad, okay?”
He nodded. “Okay. Sure. Sounds great.”
“Or we could talk about how big of an idiot you are for leaving the hospital before you should have. Did you even sit still long enough for them to redo the stitches?” she asked, and he gave her a dirty look. “Well, you never know. You could have skipped them.”
“I was a good boy, and let them stitch me back up. Then I sat in that bed for hours while no one would tell me what was going on with James or Logan or even Carlos, and I got fed up of waiting, so I decided to find out on my own. The nurse at the desk was very helpful and gave me the form, and I took it back to my room and signed it because there was no way I was staying in that room, alone, with nothing to distract me because the tv didn't even work. If I'm going to be miserable, I'll be at home being miserable, and I didn't want them hooking me back up to the iv painkillers that, while nice, were something I didn't ask for because I hate being drugged and shouldn't be on anything that heavy because of my stomach, but did they listen to that? No, of course not. I don't know anything—or at least that's what they think. Guess they thought I was an idiot for pulling the stitches, and I admit, it wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but I couldn't stay in bed while your father had James and Logan.”
She nodded. “I know. I understand that. You always did protect them.”
He looked out the window, his head moving a little as he did. She sighed. “Why did you have to pick an apartment in the worst part of town that happens to be almost ridiculously far away from your hospital?”
“I didn't have any choice in the hospital, and it wasn't like I stuck around for very long. As for the apartment, it was cheap.”
“It looks like it,” she said, parking the car in the lot. Her hands shook, and she sighed. She did not want to think about driving back to her side of town again. She should probably stop for a while, take some of the pills that she hated so much, and give them a chance to kick in. She reached for her purse and started looking through it for the pills. “Did they give you a prescription that we should have picked up?”
He shook his head. “No. I wouldn't have taken it if they had, so no big deal.”
“What about your leg? Doesn't it hurt?”
“Like hell, but I know her, so I'm okay,” he joked, opening the door. He got out and walked toward the building, and then he stopped, cursing loudly. Jo took her medication and frowned at him.
“Kendall? Something wrong?”
“Forgot my apartment's still a crime scene,” he said, shaking his head. “I could call and have it cleared, but I don't know how much they actually processed, and I have a feeling your father's not going to confess, and we'll need all the physical evidence we can get.”
She sighed, not wanting to think about her father. She couldn't believe what he'd done, what she'd seen him do to Logan and James... “I guess I can take you to a hotel if you want.”
He didn't seem to hear her, looking instead at the ground. She frowned, wondering what could be so compelling. She decided that she'd try stretching her legs and seeing if that helped with the way she was feeling right now—being weak had absolutely nothing to do with being in Kendall Knight's presence again. She got out and walked over to where he was, touching his arm. “Hey. You think you want to try a hotel?”
He couldn't seem to move his eyes away from the dark stain on the ground. She shook her head. “I never knew oil stains were so fascinating.”
He shook his head, touching his leg absently. “It's not oil.”
Given that revelation, her eyes regarded the stain with horror, and she tried not to think about how he could have died. Not just here. At that warehouse. Before he got to the hospital. She shouldn't even care after what he'd put her through, but she did. “That is a lot of blood.”
He shrugged. “It's not that bad. Did you say you'd take me to a hotel?”
“I guess it's a good thing you wear your badge on your belt, or you wouldn't even have that right now,” Jo muttered, and Kendall sighed. He truly did seem sorry that he'd somehow lost his wallet between his transfers in and out of the hospital. She knew he probably was. He wasn't that bad of a guy, not really. She knew that he wasn't doing this on purpose. Nothing said that she had to take him to her place. She'd resettled in LA to make her California touring schedule a bit easier, since it had so many schools, but she didn't want to be here. She opened up the door and let him inside.
He stumbled over to the closest chair. He closed his eyes and rubbed his leg. She walked over to the closet and took out a spare blanket and pillow, coming back to give them to him. He had tried to stretch out, but the couch wasn't meant for someone his size to sleep on. “Sorry. About the couch. Love seat. Whatever. It's not very big.”
Kendall shrugged. “It's fine. No better than I deserve, really.”
She shook her head, grabbing the throw pillow off the armchair and giving it to him for his leg. “You know, I may think you're a bit of a jerk—”
“Just a bit?”
She shook her head. “No, Kendall, after Ventura, I thought you were more than a bit of a jerk.”
He nodded unhappily. “You didn't have to do any of this, so... thank you.”
She frowned at him. “What? Now you're going to act like Ventura never happened? Because that is not just being a bit of a jerk or even a big jerk, that is definitely asshole territory.”
He caught her hand before she could move away. “I... owe you more than an explanation or an apology for Ventura. I know that. It's just... When I figured out that it was your father who had done all this, the thought crossed my mind that maybe you'd actually been using me the whole time because if you knew what your father was doing—”
“How dare you?” she asked, yanking her arm free. “You know what? I almost wish I could have been capable of that, but I wasn't. No, you broke my heart all over again, and I never should have helped you at all. If it hadn't been for James and Logan getting caught up in this, I wouldn't have. You can trust me on that.”
“I haven't done much in the last eight years that I'm proud of, Jo. Hurting you is probably the worst, though what I did to Carlos—I don't know. That's a toss up. It should be Carlos, I guess because that lasted longer—”
“What? Oh, fine, call me selfish if you want, but Carlos was in a coma. He didn't have live with what you did every single day—”
“He could have if I'd let him, but your father said he'd kill him if he woke up, so Carlos didn't wake up!” Kendall shouted, and she put her hand to her mouth, shaking her head. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. “Yeah, that's how low I sank. I thought I was protecting him, but I was an idiot. He could have fended for himself outside of the coma. And trust me, Jo, you can't hate me more than I hate myself.”
She swallowed hard. “Does... Does anyone else know about this?”
“They will. When Carlos wakes up, they'll know.”
She looked at him. “You know, in Ventura, I had this weird feeling that you saw the whole thing as some kind of... life raft, something you needed desperately to keep from drowning, and I didn't believe your story, and now I know that it was true. That it was my father. And...I still can't forgive you.”
“I never expected you to. I'll just... go.”
“Where? You have nowhere to go.”
“I can't stay here anymore than I could stay in my apartment. I'll find somewhere to crash for the night. It's not a big—”
“One night. I already said you could stay. You're here. And you can't walk and I can't drive, so you're just staying here, and that is the end of it.”
He nodded. “I swear, I'll be gone before you wake up.”
She forced herself into the other room and closed the door behind her. What had her father done? What could possibly have made him think that this was right? Look at what he'd done to Kendall. That was not the man she'd fallen in love with. Kendall would never have done that if not for her father, and that bastard thought he'd done it all for her. She couldn't take this. There was no way to fix any of what had been so badly broken, not her, not Kendall, not any of his friends...
Her father had, once again, ruined everything.
Kendall was, at the very least, true to his word, and gone first thing in the morning. Jo had spent most of the night awake and finally caved in and took one of her sedatives when she saw the clock read one o'clock. Her mind had been replaying things over and over again, some her dad, some Kendall, and the Kendall ones almost made her stupid enough to get up and go out to him. She'd even tried to reason that if they talked, it wouldn't be too bad, but she knew it wasn't really about talking. Her brain wanted to ignore everything she knew—everything in the past—and take the Kendall she'd seen underneath it all—the Kendall that was still a scared eighteen year old in way over his head, the one whose eyes had begged her for help to save him from himself—into her arms and make all of it go away any way she could have.
She blamed herself. She blamed her father. She blamed Kendall.
It was beyond messed up to have a triangle like that, she thought angrily and went into the kitchen, making herself a cup of coffee. She could handle coffee—it didn't remind her of anything that she wanted to forget right then, and she was fine with that.
Her phone rang. She jumped. She half-expected it to be Kendall, using some abuse of his authority as a cop to get a number she knew she hadn't given him, but it's the other Knight, the one who hadn't blown off her calls and acted like a human being—at least some of the time. “Hello, Katie.”
“Hey, Jo. I was just asked by the school district over in Ventura if you were going to be able to come by any time soon.”
“Since when do you handle those requests and not one of your many assistants?”
“Since the time you told me, in tears that my brother deserved to die a horrible death and you were never, ever going to Ventura again.”
Jo winced. “Right. I'm sorry. I guess I tried to forget about all that.”
“I don't blame you,” Katie said in a quiet voice. “I know you were with Kendall when they arrested your father, and I'm pretty sure you're the one that took him out AMA even though everyone else thinks that was me.”
“I didn't want him walking on his own. He shouldn't be walking around at all, but he threatened to walk all the way back to his apartment. And as much as I might want to hate your brother, I don't. I can't believe what my father did to him. To all of us. So many lives destroyed because of a stupid mistake that I made...” Jo shook her head. “No, I don't think I'm ready to face Ventura just yet. Maybe in a few months.”
“You agreed to go out of state for a while, remember?”
Jo sighed. She did remember, now, but she had forgotten. She didn't want to go anywhere right now. Didn't want to see anyone. “Why did I let you talk me into that?”
“The ability to afford the reconstructive work on your shoulder,” Katie reminded her, and Jo reached up to touch the scars. She had tried so hard to get over all of this, and she never would. “That, and the fact that you hate being in LA around the anniversary of the accident.”
“I guess I had good reasons at the time,” Jo agreed. She sighed again. “I need to look at the schedule, and it probably won't be a problem. I'm just a little mixed up right now, with all that happened with my dad. With Kendall.”
“He's not still around, is he? I know he couldn't go back home. His apartment's a crime scene, and I ended up with his wallet when I got to the hospital, and my brother wasn't there.”
“Kendall? No. He... We kind of had another fight, and he told me he'd be gone by the morning. He was,” Jo answered. “Nothing's wrong, right?”
“Not as far as I know. I'm sure Kendall will turn back up when Logan and James are released from the hospital today,” Katie told her, and Jo nodded absently. That made it simple, then. If she wanted to avoid Kendall, and she kind of did, then she wouldn't go by the hospital. She'd send cards to James and Logan, try facing them and apologizing for what her father had done in person later. “I'll have my assistant send you the schedule again, okay? We'll talk more later.”
“Of course,” Jo agreed, hanging up. She set the phone aside for a moment.
She leaned over the counter, feeling overwhelmed. It was all too much, and she could never fix what her father had done. She hated him now more than ever. It wasn't bad enough what he'd done to her, the hurtful things he'd said, he'd had to go and destroy almost everyone she cared about. He had wrecked Kendall's life, destroyed him. Kendall shouldn't have been capable of what he'd done, but her father had pushed him to that.
She picked up the empty coffee cup and threw it across the room, hitting the wall. She stood there and shook, a full body tremble that she knew would put her on the ground in a few minutes. She couldn't keep this up, couldn't stay on her feet. She didn't know what to do. She could never even begin to fix what had gone wrong, what her father had done because of her.
She hated him so much.
She hated herself more.
“I'm coming; I'm coming! You can stop pounding on the door!” Jo yelled, grabbing the wall and forcing herself to her feet. She'd had a really bad couple of days—her body refused to do what she told it to do—and she had decided to stay in bed for a while, also feeling a bit sorry for herself, a bit angry with everyone, especially her father, though she remained a close second. She hadn't expected to be dragged out of bed to answer the door, though she knew she'd have to face the police about her father's actions sooner or later. She almost preferred it being them as opposed to anyone else. Katie had asked her to help Carlos with his recovery, and she didn't know how to face him, knowing what she did about his coma. She should help. She owed him at least that much. She didn't know if Kendall had told him the truth or not yet, and she didn't know how to act at all.
She finally reached the door and opened it. Kendall's partner. Great. “Did you need a statement, Detective?”
Bennett looked her over. “Where's the tub of ice cream?”
“Uh... I...”
“I'm guessing that alcohol is off-limits with all the medication and the possible setbacks for your recovery, but ice cream should be okay and is generally a weapon of choice with depression. That, or chocolate. You look like you'd be deep in ice cream right now.”
“I ate the ice cream three days ago, actually. The chocolate yesterday. Today, I'm just trying to figure out what to do now that I've done the blame and the self-pity and even a bit of anger,” Jo answered, and then she sighed. “Is there something that I need to add to my statement? Is that why you're here?”
Bennett shook her head. “No. I don't need anything from you in an official sense.”
Jo blinked. Bennett was a fairly scary woman. “Um... I don't know why we'd have anything to do in a non-official sense.”
“Of course you don't think that, blondie. Go get dressed.”
Jo shook her head. “No. Not only do I hate being called blondie, but I also have no reason to listen to you. Even if you are scary and carry a badge. Because I have a feeling this has something to do with Kendall Knight, and I am not going anywhere near him, thank you very much.”
Bennett looked her over. “It wasn't over eight years ago, was it?”
“It should have been,” Jo told her. “And it is now. My father did enough damage. I won't make it worse. Kendall, James, Logan, even Carlos... none of them need me anywhere near them. My dad did this to them. It's something I can't fix.”
“It's also not your fault.”
“It was my accident that started all of it. My stupid choice to get in that car.”
“Yeah. So it was dumb. So was my brother's decision to drive drunk and plaster himself into a wall. He was a traffic cop. He knew a hell of a lot better. Alcohol makes you stupid. You face that when you decide to drink, or you don't bother at all. You know that it's going to make you lose control. I'm betting you haven't had a drink since, have you?”
Jo shook her head. “Even the slightest thought of it makes me—it takes me right back to that decision, and I can't do it.”
“So, you made the mistake and learned from it. That's a start. This crap your dad did, the stuff he put Knight through, did you have any idea what he was doing?”
Jo lowered her head. “Kendall told me there was a guy who was ruining his life, but I didn't believe him, and I never connected it to my father. Not until he did. I didn't even talk to my father because of what he said to me after the accident. I wasn't going to walk again at that point, and I was scarred, and he asked where his daughter was. If I wasn't his because I wasn't pretty, then I sure as hell didn't need him in my life.”
“I'm surprised you let Knight shoot him instead of doing it yourself.”
“He was still my father. Even with my mom remarried and the great guy that I call Dad, the other man... he was my father. I never would have been able to do it. My father is still in prison, right?” Jo had to ask. She knew her father was capable of escaping a simple jail, and he was wounded, so if he'd gone to a regular hospital, he could already be out and terrorizing everyone again.
“I had him transferred to the hospital ward of the county lock up until he goes to trial. I know a few of the guards there, and they know to watch him closely,” Bennett answered. “Go get dressed. Whether you let yourself take the blame for what your father did or not, whether you want to see any of them again or not, I'm giving you a chance to be a part of something that will never happen again if my suspicions are right. Take the chance. No one else is going to get it.”
“What chance?”
“I got Big Time Rush back together for a live performance. All four of them. Don't look so surprised. I have my ways. This will most likely never happen again, so you get dressed and come with me or I'll get my husband to carry you there. I've invited a few others that you know, so that should make it easier on you, seeing Knight again.”
“What do you mean by suspicions?”
Bennett looked at her. “You already know.”
“Jo!” Camille cried happily, and Jo blinked as she took in the other woman's outfit. She was dressed like someone out of an old film noir movie, very Veronica Lake. Jo felt a bit underdressed. She'd gone with a pair of dress slacks and a nice blouse, not wanting to be too formal or too casual—and she couldn't even think of wearing a skirt around Kendall. “It's so good to see you.”
“It's good to see you, too. And weird, because you're not in character while wearing that.”
Camille grinned. “Oh, I just gave Bennett's husband a real performance.”
Jo laughed. “Okay, I don't think I want to know.”
“Just wait. Bennett wanted me to get Kendall, too.”
Jo forced a smile. She really wasn't ready to see Kendall right now. She couldn't hardly think about that, and she knew her pulse was racing because she couldn't hardly breathe, either. She was not ready to go face-to-face with him again. And if Carlos didn't know... Of course Carlos didn't know. She was going to have to pretend that she didn't know. “Sounds great.”
“Anything that's a joke at the guys' expense is good by me,” Katie said as she joined them. She looked around with a smile. “Bennett may have suckered them into the bets, but I am good at last minute reorganization.”
“So... they didn't actually agree to this?”
“Of course not. Kendall's been really against the idea of singing for a long time,” Katie said, and Jo figured it was another one of the rules that Kendall had mentioned before, the rules her father had made him follow. “He thought the bet was for Bennett's daughter's party. Now it's not, but he can't back out.”
Jo frowned up at the stage, but Camille linked her arm through hers and started talking about something Jo couldn't hardly follow with so much on her mind, and they ended up going up to the back stage area, where Katie got them past the security and into the guys' small dressing room and prep area.
“The gun? Really?” Jo heard Logan ask, and she froze, wanting to back out of there right now.
“Do you want to get psychological on me right now? I spent eight years wondering when that bastard was going to stop tormenting me emotionally and get it over with and kill me, so forgive me if I'm still a tiny bit paranoid,” Kendall shot back. He took a deep breath, and Jo did try to leave. Her father had done that. Katie stopped her. “Besides, having the mic in my hand gives me something to do since I can't dance.”
“And having the gun is kind of hot,” Camille said. At her words, the guys all turned around and looked at her. She smiled widely as she walked over to Kendall. “I still didn't get to have you frisk me, you know.”
Jo knew it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't to her. Her chest tightened painfully as Kendall got a bit red. “Uh, right. So Bennett thought it would be funny if you came, and you decided to dress up as a gangster's moll again even though tonight neither of us are on duty?”
Camille shrugged. “She did pay me a hundred dollars to do what I did to you to her husband.”
“I don't even want to know,” Logan muttered. Jo almost laughed. She'd just said that.
Carlos waved her over. “Come here, Camille. I'd go to you, but I can't. It's good to see you.”
She nodded, hugging him and then moving onto Logan and then James. “I think it's great that you're doing this.”
“We'll see in a minute,” James said, looking back at the stage.
Kendall glared at his sister. “I hate you. We have nothing to discuss.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she agreed, hugging him. “Make me proud out there.”
Kendall shook his head as she went over to the rest of the guys and Camille, leaving Jo standing there alone. She started to panic a little. He took a deep breath. “I didn't expect to see you here, Jo.”
She nodded. “I didn't think I should be, but your partner insisted it wasn't my fault and threatened to have her husband carry me here if I didn't come. I ran into Katie and Camille on the way in. You really ready for this?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all. Look, I never got a chance to thank you. For helping me and trusting me when we went up against your father. It wasn't a very good plan, and you didn't have to go along with anything I said, and I'm sorry he had a chance to hurt you again.”
She shook her head. She didn't want an apology. Not for that. “No, it was... I finally got some closure there. I think, despite everything, a part of me felt guilty for forcing him out of my life, and I almost want to blame myself more now, but he was so far gone... I never knew him, not really, and I wish there was some way I could make up for what he's done to all of you.”
He gave her a slight look for that, like he didn't believe she wanted to make anything up to him, and she didn't know that she did. It was complicated.
“That really isn't your fault, you know,” he told her. “He twisted up your accident and made it about him, and that's not what it was. It was—”
“Kendall! If we don't get out there soon, I think we're going to end up lynched!” Logan yelled, and Kendall sighed.
She forced a smile. They had too much to talk about and not enough time. Not even enough motivation. “Just go. There will be plenty of time to talk later, and I haven't finished catching up with the other guys or Camille or Katie. I'm fine.”
“I know you are. I'm the one that's not,” Kendall said, mostly to himself, as he followed the others out onto the stage. She folded her arms over her chest and tried to tell herself that this was supposed to be fun.
Camille nudged her. “You... still have something going on with Kendall?”
“Other than the fact that my father wrecked his life? No. I don't,” Jo lied, though if Camille was about to ask for permission to go after Kendall, Jo knew she'd never want to give it. She hated herself for that, but she couldn't help it. She still loved him. She didn't want to, but she did.
“Jo!”
She forced a smile as she went over to join Carlos and his physical therapist. She'd been working with them for a while now, and she hated herself every day for it, even as much as she knew that she had to do this to atone for her role in all of it. It was just so hard to be encouraging when she knew what she did. That secret was slowly destroying her, and she imagined that it was even worse for Kendall. She wondered if he was trying to hold onto his friends for the little time he had left before they found out or if he was trying to make sure that Carlos recovered before he told him. She didn't really believe that Kendall would try to hide it.
“Thanks for coming today, Jo. Carlos has been rather uncooperative, so I thought maybe you could cheer him up a bit, get him working.”
Carlos glared at the PT, and Jo frowned. He'd never been like this, even when he got frustrated. This wasn't Carlos. She knew that recovery was bound to have a lot of mood swings, but Carlos was just so happy to be awake that he had one of the best attitudes she'd ever seen, far better than her own had been when she was starting out. “I'm not doing this today.”
The PT held up his hands. “Fine. I'm going. I'll check on you in a while.”
“You got off easy,” Jo said as she watched the other man leave. “My drill sergeant would never have done that if I said no to him.”
Carlos sighed. “I should do it. I should walk. But... I shouldn't have to learn to walk all over again. I shouldn't have lost all my muscles because I was stuck in bed.”
“I know it's hard to accept the accident—”
“It wasn't an accident, and I'm not even talking about the car crash,” Carlos said. He shook his head. “Last night... Logan read my chart. He said... I'd been drugged. To keep me in the coma. Kendall told him to look. Kendall did this to me.”
She winced. It was a relief to her that Carlos finally knew, but she knew that it wasn't for him. She knelt down next to him. “Carlos, I am so sorry—”
“I don't understand. It's Kendall. Of all people, he did this. James is so mad that he wanted to go off and hurt Kendall, and Logan he got all weird and wanted to research the possible effects on me, like he can't even deal with the idea that Kendall did it, and me... I don't know what to think.”
“Have you tried talking to Kendall? He might have an explanation—and I'm not saying that he does or even if he does that you should just forgive him, but if you want to know why or how, he's the one that knows, isn't he?”
Carlos lifted up his phone. “I start to call, but then I get angry. I can't talk to him right now. I can't. Kendall is the last person I thought could do something like this. He was always taking care of us. Protecting us. Why, Jo? Why would he do this?”
Jo swallowed hard. “When Kendall asked me about my father, he mentioned rules. Rules my father had given him to follow. I don't know what all of them were, but he did say he was supposed to stay away from me. Maybe there was something in those rules that said... maybe my father said if you woke up, he'd kill you. I don't know. But I can't imagine—even as much as Kendall hurt me—that he would do something like this for anything less than that.”
Carlos lowered his head. “That doesn't make it any better. It... Logan and James were mad because Kendall didn't tell them what was going on, but he didn't even let me wake up. How—what—I don't understand. I don't know what to do.”
She looked at him. “You know what you won't do. You won't let another day go by of you stuck in a bed or in a chair helpless. You're going to call that guy back in this room, and you're going to keep working on walking. Because that was something that should never have been taken away from you, and you can learn to do it again. So you will. That's where you start. I can't tell you any more than that, can't tell you how to feel. That's something you'll have to sort out for yourself. Just take all the anger and put it toward recovery. I did that with what my father said to me, and it helped.”
Carlos looked at her. “What did Kendall do to you? You said he hurt you.”
“He didn't keep me in a coma.”
“I know that. But... you still care about him. How? Why? Was what he did... not that bad?”
“In so many ways, Carlos, what happened between us was almost the worst thing that could have happened. I—I told you, my father told him to stay away from me. When I ran into him in Ventura, it was a complete accident on both our parts, at least at first. But that meeting led to me wanting a lot of things I'd given up on, feeling things that I didn't expect to feel again, and then getting my heartbroken all over again. It's also the reason that my father started killing people. Because he thought Kendall broke the rules. I don't know how anything good... It's—The one thing I understand now about all of it was how desperate Kendall seemed to have even a moment of peace. He took it a my expense, and I do hate him for that, but I can't blame him all at the same time. It's... all my fault, Carlos. My accident. My father. I should go.”
“Jo—”
“You can't hate Kendall without hating me. It was my father who did all of this to you because of my accident. My choices helped push him over that edge. My choice to get in the car, to kick him out of my life. I told him—never mind. It doesn't matter. I just... don't belong here,” she insisted, hurrying toward the door.
“Jo!”
She heard Carlos calling after her, but she didn't stop. Couldn't. Not until she got to her car, sat down, and started crying. What she'd said to Carlos was true. She couldn't hate Kendall without hating herself. If she was ever going to move on, everyone said she had to forgive herself. And that would mean forgiving him, too.
Jo figured that maybe she should be used to the loud pounding on her door, though she hadn't really expected Bennett to drag her off to another concert—that was impossible now that Carlos knew the truth—and she didn't know what else Bennett would want to see her for, so she had no reason to be used to anything. She sighed. It would be good to leave next week for the speaking tour. She could use some time away from here. She opened the door and stared up at Kendall, unable to say anything.
“I know you don't want to see me, and I don't blame you. It... I should have known it would all turn out this way—and I mostly did. I'm not really surprised. Just a bit disappointed. I hoped for more, even if I knew that I didn't deserve it.”
She nodded, moving back to let him inside. She wasn't sure why he was here or what she'd really think about what he had to tell her, but she didn't want him out in the hall, either. “I know Carlos knows.”
“They all do. They're all not speaking to me,” Kendall said, stepping inside. “I'm not sure why you are, but if you are, even for a minute, I'll take what I can get because I've got... nothing. Nothing else. You'd think, with the arrest, that I won, but no, your father did. I finally did lose everything I was trying so hard to save.”
“Kendall—”
He shook his head. “Let me get this out because I have to do this now. I don't have another—I have nothing left to stay for, and it's past time I moved on. I can't fix what I did or make it better, and I can't stay here, hoping that something will change. I am finally free of everything that I had to do to survive the last eight years, and now when I wake up in the morning, it's not a question of how I get through another day of the rules, but what I do without them. I thought it would be simple when it was over—maybe I just wanted it to be—but I don't know who I am anymore. Bennett's the only one who really wants me to stay around, and I can't do it for her. It's time to find another place, another reason for living.”
“So you're... going?”
He frowned at her. “I... Yes. I thought that would make you... happy.”
“Don't put words in my mouth, Kendall. You have no idea what's going through my mind right now,” she told him, and he nodded. She folded her arms over her chest. “I am sorry I didn't believe you about the man who was controlling your life. If I'd given it more thought, maybe I might have connected it to my father sooner.”
“There's a lot of what ifs and could haves and should haves and a lot of bullshit left over,” Kendall muttered. He shook his head again. “I'm not going to waste any more time on them. I did what I did. I have to accept the consequences and move on. I took a leave of absence from work, and depending on where things lead, I might never go back. I'll quit or transfer, but I'm not making my mind up about that just yet.”
She swallowed, trying to force her mouth to come open so she could talk. She took a deep breath. “You made a couple promises back in Ventura. You said you would find the man who did this to you and that you'd shoot him.”
Kendall almost laughed. “Yeah, I said that. I didn't know he was your father at the time, but I did. And I managed not to shoot him where I ended up killing him, so that's... something.”
“You kept one. I guess you have no intention of keeping the other?”
He looked at her for a very long moment, and then he moved close to her, touching her face. “You don't actually want me to. I've already ruined enough, Jo. I can't do that to you, too.”
She hit him, hard, in the stomach. “You idiot. You've basically ruined me for anyone else, and I want to hate you but I can't and I don't want to forgive you but I already have, and I hate the fact that I am standing here, freaking out at the idea of you leaving because I can't take that again. I should tell you to go and never come back because you are going to hurt me all over again, but we're tied up in this mess together. Our past. My father. I don't even know how you can think of me without hating me for all my father put you through.”
He shook his head, rubbing his stomach. “That wasn't you. It wasn't even really about you. What I did, on the other hand, was actually me.”
“Did you really think you had any other choice?” she asked. “I remember the way you looked at me that morning, like I was the life raft you desperately needed to survive, and you held onto me with everything you had that first day. That night when you were here, on my couch, you gave me that same look, and when I saw that, you weren't the man you are now, not hardened and broken, but just a scared boy again, and that part of you is still there. You're still in there, the Kendall Knight that would do anything for a person he loved. You did, even if they won't forgive you for it.”
He close his eyes with a wince. “I don't forgive myself for it.”
“If you can forgive me, then why not yourself?”
He shook his head. “You didn't have any part in—”
She put her arm around his neck and puled him down to her, covering his mouth with hers. She'd had enough. He just needed to shut up. He could blame himself all he wanted, but she wasn't going to let him tell her that she wasn't at all to blame. She understood it now. If he was guilty, then she was. If she wasn't, then he wasn't. They were so wrapped up in all of this that if he was damned, then so was she, and she'd follow him straight to hell. She didn't see any other option, and she loved him too much to let him suffer alone. Not anymore. She'd been alone, and he was alone, and they were both miserable. At least together they had a chance at happiness.
“Jo, we shouldn't.”
“Were you lying about the scars?”
“No. I never lied about that. I wouldn't.”
“And you do forgive me?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have a promise to keep, Kendall, and I expect you to start right now,” she told him, and he pulled her into his arms, holding onto her so tightly that she knew she was the life raft again. She wasn't sure that wouldn't end up being a problem later on, but she could live with it for now.
He lowered his head and kissed her again. She started pushing on his jacket, trying to get him out of it, and he stopped for a moment, pulled it off, then his t-shirt, and started kissing her again as they headed back toward her bedroom.
“Is your leg going to be a problem?” she asked, just now remembering it. She forced him to sit on the bed, wondering if he still had a bandage on it or if it was healed up. Why was it that every time they got to this point, he was hurt somehow?
He shook his head. “You can be on top.”
She laughed, and he took her hand, pulling her down onto his lap. “I missed you, Jo. I can't even tell you how much I missed you.”
“I guess I was the lucky one. I was so angry that I didn't want to see you,” she admitted, slipping out of her robe and throwing it onto the floor. He touched her shoulder, running his fingers over the scars. She closed her eyes for a moment. “Don't.”
“Why shouldn't I?” he asked, frowning. “I don't have a problem with them. As far as scars go, yours are... they're a part of you. Like mine are to me. I thought about getting rid of some of them, but you know, scars are who we are. They tell our stories.”
She sat back. “I got rid of mine. Some of them, anyway.”
“And I got new ones,” he countered. He took her hands again. “Jo, I didn't say that to make you think you'd done something wrong by having surgery. You didn't. You have a right to your life and your choices and I wouldn't tell you not to have surgery any more than I would tell you to have surgery. I just meant that mine were always there to remind me of why I was doing what I did. The accident, keeping everyone safe, staying angry because he messed up my hip and cost me hockey... I need the scars in a way that you don't.”
She shook her head. “Not anymore, Kendall. Let them go. Let it all go.”
He kissed her, and as his cheek brushed against hers, she felt a wetness that she knew was his tears. They had both been hurt so much in the past eight years, and it was time for it to stop. “I love you.”
“Don't say that now. Save it for when I deserve it.”
She tried to tell him that he did deserve it now, but everything he did after that made it hard for her to catch her breath and incapable of any meaningful speech.
“Not fair.”
Jo lifted up her head and looked at Kendall. “What's not fair?”
“You told me not to touch your scars, but you're running your fingers over mine,” he said, and she looked over. Yes, her fingers were up on his shoulder, tracing the long marks that ran down to his chest. She hadn't even realized that was what she was doing. It had just been nice to wake up and not find that the bed was empty next to her, and she was still enjoying every moment of it. She had been half-afraid he'd get up and leave in the middle of the night, even after everything they'd said and done.
“I can stop if you'd like,” she offered, and he shook his head before he leaned up to pull her lips to his.
“Don't stop,” he said, smiling at her. “I was just teasing you, that's all.”
She reached up and touched the small scar on the side of his head, the one almost covered by his hair. “I don't remember this one.”
He nodded. “It's newer. I don't remember how long ago it was, not specifically. It's why Benny trusts me with his wife. Suspect got me with—you know, I don't even remember what he hit me with, and I got a nice concussion out of it—but I dragged myself over and saved Bennett from getting shot. Got some kind of a commendation for it. I thought it was kind of stupid.”
“You don't like being a hero, do you?”
“I'm not a hero.”
“Then stop acting like one,” she told him, pushing the blanket off his leg so that they could both see the ugliest, newest scar, the one that was still healing. She smiled at him. “Don't get me wrong. I love that you try to protect people. You're a good man. I know that, even if you're not ready to believe it yet.”
He shrugged a little. “Don't be so nice to me. I think I thought it was better when you were mad at me. Not that this isn't very... nice, but I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be... what you think I am. I am not that good. I don't even know how to be that good.”
“Well, that's what you're taking the time off for, right? To figure out who you are now?” she asked, touching the scar on his hip. He jerked. “One thing I've learned in talking to all of these high school kids is that no one ever knows who they really are, especially those kids. I don't know who I am. That's what we spend our whole lives trying to figure out. And I don't really like the idea of you trying to back out of your promise after only one night.”
He laughed. “You know, it's funny. When I left Ventura, I tried to think of how I would make it up to you. How I'd prove that I meant it. I even had this crazy thought that if I had a ring—”
“Oh, no, you did not get me a ring,” she said, shaking her head.
He shrugged. “I might have thought it was one way to try and make you believe that I meant it.”
“Uh huh, sure. And where is this ring now? You conveniently got rid of it, didn't you?”
“Not conveniently. I'm a cop, Jo. I don't make a lot of money, and the money I had from Big Time Rush dried up fast between college and my own medical expenses. I didn't live in my hellhole of an apartment because I liked it but because I had to. All of my extra money went to Carlos' care. Not only did I drug my best friend, but I bankrupted myself to do it. That should have told me not to do it, right? I couldn't afford to keep any rings in hopes of a better time. I was really starting to think I'd never figure this thing out, never have my life back. Now all I have to show for it is a badge and a gun that I can't carry while I'm on leave and a couple of boxes of junk.”
“And me.”
“I can't count you. You don't belong to anyone but you.”
She looked at him. “That is not what you said last night.”
He got a bit red. “That is—you say stuff under the heat of the moment and—I do believe you're your own person. You have your own mind. I knew that back when we fought over your career and my career and all of that stupid stuff. I don't expect you to drop everything for me, and I'm telling you flat out that I've got nothing to give.”
“I didn't ask for anything.”
“You shouldn't have to support me, either. It's not right.”
“You have a job. A job that I am—admittedly—not that comfortable with, but you have one. You do not need me to carry you, and you know I can't. I am not exactly in a high paying field anymore. I do this because I need to. I need to tell those kids not to do what I did. To show them the consequences. I can't let my mistake be meaningless.”
Kendall started to say something, then stopped, covering his face with his hand. “I am so used to pushing everyone away. I cannot believe what I almost said.”
“What?”
“That your father gave it plenty of meaning.”
She let out an angry breath and shook her head. “You are an expert at pushing people away, aren't you? You know the cruelest thing to say, and you'll say it, won't you?”
He sat up, disrupting her and knocking her to the side, not so that it hurt or anything, but she was surprised and more than a little unhappy. She watched him as he put his arms around his knees, not sure what he was doing, afraid that he was about to leave again. “Kendall—”
“I know what I promised,” he began, lowering his head. “I said it, and I meant it, but for your sake, Jo, tell me to get the hell out of here before I do it all again. Don't let me hurt you like I did the last time. You can't... I'm not someone you can save. I'm already lost.”
“I don't believe that,” she said, sitting up and putting her arms around his back. “Come with me. I'm going on another lecture tour of out state next week. We'll leave early. Make it a road trip. I was going to fly because I don't do much driving if I can help it, not with my nerves, but I remember when we used to talk about borrowing the car and taking off cross-country, just like that, and we would put the top down and turn the music up—”
“And when we pulled over to make out, we'd find that one of the guys was in the back,” he added. “Yeah, I remember that, too. I haven't driven in a convertible since the accident. I don't know. You really think you want me behind the wheel of a car? With you in it?”
She smacked his arm. “Come on, Kendall. You have been driving responsibly since the accident. I bet you don't even have one speeding ticket, do you?”
“Cop.”
“That is not a get out of jail free card, and you know it.”
He nodded. “I know. I'm a good driver. Paranoid, even. Of course, it finally all came together, all the memories of the accident—I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't. There was nothing I could have done to stop what happened. Nothing.”
He started to cry then, and she held onto him as he did, wishing that there was some way to undo everything that had happened—always, always wishing she'd never gotten in that car with Devon at that party—and hoped that somehow she could help at least him with all of this.
“That is not going,” Kendall said, trying to take the vegetable tray Jo was putting in the cooler out of her hands. She frowned at him. They had plenty of food that was unhealthy in the chips and the candies, and she did not need to have nothing but sugar or salt for the entire trip. He could eat that way if he wanted to—though judging from the pills he'd left on the bathroom counter, ones for his stomach—he shouldn't, either. She wasn't going to push the diet too hard as long as he ate decent food when they stopped for an actual sit down meal and didn't go through all the snacks in one sitting.
“It is going. I want vegetables. I get vegetables. And I need them. I have a diet I have to follow, you know,” she reminded him, and he nodded, giving the vegetables a dirty look. She pushed him out of the kitchen. “Go. I've got this. You're supposed to load the car.”
“So all I'm good for around here is manual labor?”
She gave him a meaningful look, shaking her head. “No.”
He grinned at her. “Okay, but don't start that, or we won't leave today, either.”
“Hey! Yesterday was your fault.”
“You wore the skirt,” he said, refusing to take the blame, and she started to laugh. His phone rang, and the humor of the moment was gone, just like that. He looked down, and she waited, wondering if maybe one of the guys was actually willing to talk to him for a change. “Bennett. Hey. I'm still on leave, so if this is about a case—Oh, okay. No, I didn't know about that. Next week? No, I am going to—you know, I don't know where I'm going to be next week.”
“Phoenix,” Jo told him, though he didn't even seem to hear her. She rolled her eyes and took the energy drinks out of the drink cooler, adding in some water bottles to even out the selection there.
“That is a very nice offer, Bennett, and I do appreciate it, but I am not going to be here, and no, I am not sleeping homeless. That is unkind, you know. Tell Benny to shut up. I am not—yes, I do remember how much that guy offered me, and yes, it was a lot of money. No, I'm not that desperate.”
Jo figured she didn't really want to know what he was talking about with his partner, though it was nice to see him smiling. She had seen a lot of smiles in the last couple days, but she liked knowing that Kendall had more than just her looking out for him. She closed up the cooler, moved it to the side, and finished the food cooler as he continued to talk. She had them ready and set them where he'd see them and move them down to the car, but they were kind of heavy, and her hands were starting to shake. She took out a glass, filled it with a little water, and opened her pill bottle.
“That is uncalled for. Just because I seem to be in a good mood does not mean I've talked to anyone, and it doesn't mean that I got laid, either. I did not need to hear that about you and Benny, okay?” Kendall said, grabbing a cooler. Jo gave him a look as she swallowed her pills. He shrugged.
Her fingers twitched again—stupid nerve spasms—and she dropped her glass. It shattered on the floor, and she sighed when she realized she'd taken out one of the glass ones that looked almost exactly like the plastic set without noticing it. “Damn it.”
Kendall put down the cooler and his phone, coming over to her. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Just lost my grip and broke one of the few glass glasses I have left. It's nothing.”
“You're tearing up, so it's not nothing,” he said, brushing a finger across her cheek. “I'll get it. You just take a minute, okay?”
“I'm not helpless, Kendall.”
“But I'm here for manual labor. And sex. So let me do my job. One of them, anyways,” he told her, giving her a quick kiss as he ushered her into the other room. She sat down on the couch while he cleaned up the mess, shaking her head. She wished that there was some way of predicting when that was going to happen, but she had no idea. They'd said it was an intermittent thing—that the damage didn't always block the nerve receptors, or she'd have no control over her arms or legs, but it did sometimes, and she just had to watch for it and be ready for it—and this was no way to live. Kendall kept telling her she should push him away because of what he'd done, but her real fear was that he'd wake up and realize what he'd really gotten himself into, that he wouldn't want her, not like this.
“Hey,” Kendall began, kneeling next to the chair. “What is that look for?”
“What look?”
“The one that looks way too damn much like the one that I saw on your face just before I walked out in Ventura. What did I do?”
She shook her head. “It's not you, Kendall. It's... It's me. It's this.”
He watched her hand tremble for a second and shrugged. “What about it?”
“Come on, Kendall. You don't want an invalid for a girlfriend. You don't need a burden.”
“You are not a burden to me. So you have a few physical disabilities. That's nothing. I'm a jerk. Or worse. I think I'm getting the better deal.”
She laughed in spite of herself, and he kissed her again. “Just sit still while I get the coolers in the car, and then we'll go down together. I have no problem with carrying you, if you want me to.”
She nodded, blushing a little, remembering how they'd ended up not going yesterday even though they'd planned on it. “I know you don't.”
He grinned at her again and went over to pick up the coolers, taking them both at the same time. She took a deep breath and went through her mental list again. The suitcases were already in the car because he'd taken them down yesterday, and it was really just the coolers and anything they might have left out. She would need the pills from the kitchen, and then she could go.
Kendall's phone rang again, and she frowned as she looked at it. Bennett again. He actually had her in there as Hell. Jo shook her head as she put the pills in her pocket. “Jo, where did you say we were going first?”
“Phoenix. Bennett is calling you again.”
“Oh. Better answer that,” he said, picking it up. “Hello, Hell. No, nothing wrong. Actually, things are good. Really. I'm about to go on a road trip. No, not alone. And there's vegetables in the cooler, believe it or not. Goodbye, Bennett, I'll call you when I get there.”
He hung up, and Jo smiled a little. He put his phone in his pocket. “You know what's on the way to Phoenix?”
“A lot of road, so we should get going,” Jo said, pulling him along by the hand. He shut the door behind them and put his arms around her waist.
“I was thinking of somewhere more specific.”
“We are not gambling in Las Vegas.”
“Only if you count love as a gamble,” he said, taking her hand and setting something in it. She looked at the little box and couldn't breathe. “I got my last month's rent back thanks to Bennett, and I paid back the pawn shop, so I have it back. Okay, so that wasn't romantic, but I did get it for you, and you should have it.”
“I don't think I can take this—”
“Yes, you can. Consider it the least of what I owe you for Ventura.”
She opened the box, staring at the simple platinum band with its one diamond, and looked up at him. It was elegant and yet so simple and perfect, and she couldn't do this. “I really can't take this.”
“If I say it wasn't just from Ventura, will you accept it? I held off on that until the end, I don't even know why, but it was the last thing I sold or pawned. I was going to give it to you before we screwed up the New Time High role, and then I didn't because I didn't want you to think that I did it just because of what happened, out of pity or something, and... I always figured someday I'd put it in the mail or something. I don't know why I didn't.”
“Kendall, this is... I don't even know what to say,” she began, her eyes filling with tears. He took the ring out and slid it on her finger.
“You don't have to say anything,” he assured her. “That just meant that I loved you all along. It means that I still do. Keep it.”
She stepped up and kissed him. “Thank you.”
“So... does this mean we can gamble in Las Vegas?”
“You are so lucky that I love you,” she muttered, and he laughed as he picked her up into his arms, carrying her the rest of the way to the car. She turned the ring over on her finger, looking at it. She remembered the plans she used to have, the life she'd meant to lead, and how all of that had changed. One thing was still the same, though. He was still a part of her life.
She should probably reprogram the GPS, find a route that didn't take them through Vegas, though. Just so they didn't end up rushing anything. They still had a lot to work through, a lot of past to deal with, and a lot of scars that needed to heal. They were going to need a lot of time. Maybe even forever.