Page 1 of Rebel
Chapter One
Kinsley
I shouldn’t have come back. I should have stayed in LA, where my life has been for the last ten years. Sure, it had its problems, but it is home. Except theproblemsweren’t going away.
It reached a point where I could no longer face it alone. Everyone told me the right move was to get away, work on myself, then come back.
My head and my heart are at war. It feels like I failed and ran away.
That isn’t how Colton sees it. If he could, he would have been in LA to help protect and guide me. My cousin has always shown up for me. He couldn’t leave his job, so I’m here, back where I grew up. Colton is the only family I have.
I watch him moving around the kitchen. He isn’t wearing the black shirt and white collar of his job, or his calling, as I’ve heard him put it so many times.
He’s wearing black sweatpants and an old college football shirt and looks like the teenage boy I grew up with. It’s comforting, it’s chasing away the bad memories.
Then last night, while I was looking at the church where I was going to be living for the next few months, one of the bikers from the MotorcycleClub across the street scared the shit out of me, accusing me of creeping around their clubhouse and demanding to know what I wanted.
And he pulled a gun on me, the absolute asshole.
It was only when his sister, who I met at the bar earlier, came over and told him who I was, that he backed off. It took me a long time to calm down after that. If I ever seehimagain, it will be too soon.
The beep of the coffee machine brings me back to the present, and I focus on Colton. Why did I think he would always dress as a priest? I mean, he’s still a person underneath that outfit.
The smell of coffee and pancakes reminds me of being in my aunt and uncle’s kitchen. They did everything they could to make me feel welcome when they brought me into their home.
My parents messed up my childhood, they had no right being parents. Dad gave up on life and OD’d, then Mom ran from her problems.
For a long time, I was angry at the world. Fearful, abandoned, and scared to accept help because my whole life until that point, I did everything for myself.
The Eastwoods never gave up on me. And the one person who called me out on my shit, and dragged me out of my dark misery, is doing the same thing his parents did. He’s taking care of me.
“Do priests make their own breakfast?” I ask, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe.
Colton doesn’t pause in flipping the pancake, in fact, he does it with a flourish and a wink at me.
“I hope you don’t do that in front of your parishioners.”
“Make pancakes?”
“The saucy wink, it’s unbecoming of a man of the cloth.”
“Sit down,” he shakes his head with a laugh. “What time did you sneak in?”
“I don’t sneak,” I slide into a chair at the table, which is set for two.
“It was after one when I gave up and went to bed.”
“Oh shit, sorry, but you gave me the key to let myself in.”
He gives me a look over his shoulder.
“Colton, you know me better than anyone. I promise I won’t curse in the big house next door, or in front of your flock. Censoring myself in the place I’m living will only make me want to do it more.”
“So long as you can control yourself in front of others, I’d appreciate that.”
He makes me a mug of coffee, then comes over with a stack of pancakes. There is already syrup on the table, but he sets a jar of peanut butter down. It’s unsealed, he got it for me.
Colt doesn’t comment how gross it is, like he did when we were kids. He understands my attachment to peanut butter has more to do with it being what I always ate at my parents’ house, when there wasn’t much food around.
