Read Online My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) by Kennedy Ryan - Free Book Online

circle earned that closeness. It was hard knowing who to trust once I broke away from my parents. Two albums and several Grammys later, it’s even harder to know. I stopped counting the girls I slept with long ago. That just seems douchey anyway—the counting. But ask me how many friends I have that I can count, and I only need one hand.
    “So you’re willing to go on a date with me, even sleep with me,” Kai looks down, twisting her fingers around the strap of her bag, “but becoming my friend is too intimate?”
    “That and I think it’s impossible for us to be just friends. I’m very attracted to you.” I reach out and tip her chin up, searching her eyes for the truth, a reason, whatever would make her resist this thing that has been tugging on me like an undertow since our eyes locked across Grady’s studio. “You telling me you don’t feel it too?”
    Her eyes stay with me, but she eases her chin away from my fingers and lifts it an inch.
    “Thanks for asking, but I’m gonna stick with no.”
    I swallow a groan, frustrated as hell that this girl has me on the verge of begging when I’m not the guy who ever even asks.
    “Kai, it’s just a date.”
    “And I’m just saying no.” She opens the passenger door and steps out into the parking lot. “I need to get inside. Thanks again for the ride.”
    She closes the car door and starts off toward the restaurant.
    What am I supposed to do now? I put all my cards on the table. Cards I’ve never even held, much less shown a girl, and this is her response? She turns me down hard and offers me the fucking hand of friendship. I watch her slim back, the dark hair, and the tight curve of her ass. All that’s great, but it’s more than physical. That moment when we talked about “Lost” showed me how deeply we could connect if she would only give us a chance.
    I jump out of the truck, lean my forearms on the hood, and yell across the parking lot from the driver’s side.
    “Hey, Kai.”
    I wait for her to face me before finishing my thought.
    “Let me know if you change your mind.”
    She starts walking backwards, and her smile says that’ll be the day. Her words yield no more ground.
    “Let me know if you change yours .”

GRIEF TAUGHT ME TO LIVE NUMB . Death takes more than just the one life. It thieves tiny particles from the ones left behind until you feel only half alive. In some ways, that’s how I’ve lived, how I’ve felt, even since moving here to L.A. San and Grady see it. That’s why they worry.
    Last week, I felt something. It started with that music Rhyson played. Each note was a tiny needle shooting adrenaline into my barely beating heart, jolting me awake and heightening my senses. My heart races when I remember every moment, every word we exchanged, every time we looked at one another as long as we could stand it before we’d looked away.
    Meeting Rhyson was like being in a darkened room where someone lights a match. He was a flare of light that illuminated everything around me and showed me just how dull my existence had become. Then before my eyes had time to adjust to the light, it was snuffed out again
    But that’s okay. I’ll find my way out of this dark room. The stage is my path to the light. It always has been. I’ve always known it. I’ll make my own light. I’ll find my own way.
    A bill marked with blood-red past due notice warnings grabs my attention on the corner of my dresser. As soon as I can pay off some of these medical bills, I can actually focus on getting to the stage. I pick up the notice, reading over the dire warnings that I’ve learned to ignore. The hospital is a bloated beast satisfied by small payments as long as they’re consistent. Especially from a dead woman, or at least her daughter left holding the bag.
    “That came yesterday,” San says from my bedroom door. “I’m not even the one paying those bills, and I get tired of seeing ‘em.”
    A rueful grin shapes one corner of my mouth, but I