I honestly just have no words for myself…..I'm so lame with updates. I completely understand if you've given up on me at this point.

I also don't know if I'm going to continue this story! I know I've always only worked at one story at a time…but I'm already coming up with new ideas and I'm just not feeling this one… I'm at a difficult point with it.

But this chapter has a bit of inappropriate language…as usual. I apologize.


Chapter 9:

Tossing and turning.

Obviously, that's something a two-year old would do in the midst of a nightmare, in the deepest and darkest hours of the night. It wouldn't be until the child woke up that he realized he was in his bed, safe and sound. Away from all the monsters and zombies chasing after him in his head.

However, tossing and turning is also what a teenager falling in love would do.

Kendall spent the entire night rolling around out of pure giddiness. Not because he was uncomfortable or scared of the dark, but restless with passion. He was excited. Excited for what would come of him and James—which was funny because not only a day ago he had despised James.

He was also confused.

Did James only kiss him to makeup for the broken arm? It couldn't have been that way—the kiss was James' 'secret'. James had been waiting to do it for a full day! He said so himself!

Kendall smiled to himself in the dark. It was already three-thirty in the morning—what sense was there in trying to fall asleep now? He rolled over in the massive bed so that he was facing the windows covered in blackout curtains—shutting out the light of Times Square. At the foot of the curtains, a bit of that light lined the carpeted floor.

Kendall followed the line of light with his eyes—way too distracted to close the world out from his head.

He rolled over again and ended up turning on the television, without the success of closing his eyes for even a half a minute.

He was jumpy and restless, feeling thousands of emotions he hadn't felt in years, sad to say.

Yes, for the short time he knew them, he had been happy and excited with Logan and Carlos. But he hadn't lost a lot of sleep over them.

The only thing he lost sleep over when he was with them was over how he was going to break the news to them that he was going to leave them behind.

At some point though, the news of the world finally had Kendall falling into a comfortable, deep sleep, filled with dreams of a certain supermodel.


When Kendall woke up a few short hours later, he was in a daze. He had wondered if he'd really slept at all—it felt as if his eyes had closed for a second and it was daylight again.

He was strangely awake though—considering he was anxious to get his day started. He was anxious to see James and hopefully gain some insight on where they were at relationship-wise.

"Kendall," Kendall noticed his father's head poke into the doorway, peering into the room. "I've got a meeting with the staff this morning, do you think you could get up and going soon?"

Kendall merely nodded, in a sleepy and fragile state.

"Why is your TV on?" Jon noticed the extra noise in the room coming from the TV.

"I fell asleep last night in the middle of a show," Kendall stretched and grinned at the same time. It wasn't a complete lie, except for the fact that he was only watching the TV to create some comfortable noise in the room at the extremely early hours of the morning.

"Ah, well, I'll see you later," Jon shook his head before closing the door behind him.

Kendall rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and focused on the ceiling above him, with its intricate yet subtle paint designs, ignoring the now-familiar 'E-News' theme song ringing out on the television.

"And on E-News this morning we have a special story on the Dak Zevon and James Diamond split—"

Kendall jerked his head up at the two names the anchorwoman mentioned.

"Last night James Diamond was spotted handing a key to his ex-boyfriend, Dak Zevon, here is the picture a paparazzi snapped on the spot—"

Wait. What?

Kendall's stomach did flips and flops before dropping completely as he looked at the picture. Sure enough, James was handing a key over to Dak in the picture. There was no way it wasn't James.

"Sources confirm that James was handing the extra key to his room at the Knight Hotel in Times Square over to Zevon. Do I smell a make-up brewing?" the obnoxious woman reporting the story smiled and winked at the camera.

Kendall was boiling.

Absolutely boiling with rage.

He took a pillow and threw it as hard as he could at the television, before screaming out of pain.

"Fuck!"

He hadn't realized he had used his bad arm to throw the pillow; he was so distracted by his anger. He sat in bed, hugging his arms as his vision blurred with tears. The tears, caused half by the pain in his arm and half by James leading him on, stopped welling up after he got a heavy breathing pattern going, allowing oxygen to flow to his brain.

He got up and started changing, careful not to upset his arm any more than he already had.

He picked up James' scarf from the armchair in the corner of the room and looked at it. He ignored his rumbling stomach that was begging for food, as he tried to remember how exactly he could forget to return the scarf last night. There was just too much going through his head. Pure disappointment.

Sure, he was disappointed. And yeah, he thought that maybe there was a chance he would fall in love with James.

But he was not going to let the two days he spent liking—fuck falling in love—James bring him down.


Kendall stared at the door in front of him, nearly ripping the scarf in his hands to shreds.

He took a deep breath with a frown on his face, and started knocking on the door angrily.

"Hold on," he heard a voice behind the door, followed by some footsteps.

Before the door was fully open, Kendall allowed himself to throw the scarf at James and storm away from James' suite to the elevators.

"Kendall! Wait!"

Kendall was furiously stabbing his finger at the down button—hoping to make an escape to the city streets as quickly as possible.

He took two steps into the elevator before a hand was pulling his arm back.

"Owww," Kendall whined, wriggling his arm sling out of James' grip.

"Shit, I'm sorry," James laughed. "What's wrong with you today?" he joked.

But Kendall wasn't joking.

"There's nothing wrong with me," Kendall fumed, jabbing the elevator button to keep it open. "There's something wrong with you."

James laughed at this, obviously not catching on. He motioned to his bare feet and pajama pants.

"Sorry I couldn't pull myself together in the two seconds you gave me to open the door," he kept laughing at both Kendall and himself.

"This isn't a joke!" Kendall snapped. "You're treating this like a joke! It's not a fucking joke!"

James' smile fell, and he finally looked at Kendall sincerely.

"Kendall what's—"

"I thought we were both being honest last night," Kendall stepped into the elevator and pressed the 'open doors' button to give himself time to speak. "You said you wanted to move on from Dak."

"I do—" James' mouth was left open as Kendall gave him the hand—motioning for him to stop talking.

"Then how come I woke up to a story about you meeting up with him last night and giving him a key to your room?"

James' mouth shut quickly. "That's what this is about?"

"I can't believe I let myself start falling for you—" Kendall could feel a lump in his throat forming, so he released the 'open doors' button. "I hope you and Dak worked things out last night."

The last thing Kendall saw before the doors closed was James standing still, wordless.

Kendall let out a breath accompanied by a whimper.

Served James right.


Kendall had sat by the duck pond in Central Park for three hours, ignoring the texts and phone calls James had tried to reach him with.

There were points where he forgot why he was sitting on the bench, sulking in the ice-cold weather; he often picked up his phone and looked at the screen when it lit up with a text message, or rang with a call.

"God damnit James," Kendall would have thrown his phone in the pond in front of him, if only he hadn't needed it to keep in touch with Carlos, Logan and his family members. What a shame that was.

His phone rang one more time, cut off after two rings; meaning someone was leaving him a voicemail.

I wonder who would do that right now, Kendall thought to himself as he watched some hockey players step on to the pond.

He waited until he heard the tone designating the voicemail was ready for him to listen.

"Kendall," there was a breathy voice—undoubtedly James', "You've got it all wrong. Please. Come back and let me explain. I uh…. I put on shoes and actual pants…so uh…" A pause, "Yeah. Come back now. Trust me. Please. You have absolutely everything wrong. I'm going to stop calling now. Just please, hear me out. Come back and talk."

Kendall deleted the voicemail immediately with a sigh. He sniffled before wiping his eyes, still looking ahead at the skaters on the ice, now setting up goal posts and boundaries.

He used to play hockey. In fact, he played it all the time growing up—it was the best way to get rid of his anger, stress and sadness.

He raised an eyebrow to his own thoughts, and found himself getting up from the bench and walking down towards the iced-over pond.

"You're insane you're insane you're insane," he kept repeating to himself as he stepped on the ice cautiously—finding that it was frozen completely solid; it was exactly how it appeared. He found his old ice-feet—the ability to walk across the ice with ease, and made his way over to the guys who looked around his age, all geared up for their game.

"Hey," someone called over to him.

"Hi," Kendall responded.

You're insane, what about your arm? You're insane, you're insane. He did think about his arm for a second—but what did it matter if he broke it completely? It wouldn't cost him that much more.

"Do you guys uh…mind if I join you?"

The guys all straightened up and looked at him, and then more closely at his arm.

"Don't worry," Kendall reassured them. "I can play with one arm."


"You're really good at this," Kendall's new acquaintance, Austin, complimented him after a skinny-jean soaking, sweat-producing, two hour-long hockey match with nine other guys.

"Thanks," Kendall was breathing heavily as he flopped down on a pile of snow next to the pond. "I've been playing since I was six," he added. "Stopped about three years ago."

"Why?" Austin asked as he untied and kicked off his skates. "Even with your broken arm, you're really talented. What caused you to stop?"

"Started working, moving around, all that stuff," Kendall shrugged. "And it's not broken."

"So you're not from around here," Austin questioned.

"Later Austin, bye Kendall," the rest of the guys called out one by one before Kendall and Austin were sitting alone by the now-empty pond.

"No," Kendall answered. "I've been moving from place to place for the past year," he took off his own skates.

"I see," Austin nodded, looking out ahead of him. "It's freezing. Want to get some coffee?" he offered. "There's a coffee shop right across the street from here; we usually go after our games to warm up."

Kendall thought about it for a minute, wondering why he felt like there was something at the back of his mind. Did he have somewhere to go? Was there somewhere he needed to be?

He suddenly remembered why he loved hockey so much—it filtered the good thoughts from the bad; it cleared his mind out completely.

He smiled at Austin, the cold numbing his ears. "Yeah, why not?"

Austin nodded while standing up, and then held a hand out to help Kendall up.

Kendall felt his phone buzz in his pocket, but he shook his head and followed Austin.


"Oh my god, no way," Austin laughed. "He slammed into you on a skateboard and you guys ended up being fuck-buds?"

"I mean," Kendall laughed. "I'm not hard to win over."

"I don't know…the way you were playing with your arm today, you seem kind of tough, or stubborn or something," Austin took a bite of the muffin he got to accompany his coffee.

"Why's that?" Kendall was taken aback.

"If Sawyer had told you that you couldn't play because of your arm, I feel like you would have ripped the sling off then and there and just tackle him," Austin laughed.

Kendall looked down at his coffee with a smug grin.

"So what guy are you working on right now?" Austin asked with a curious look in his eyes while sipping his coffee.

James. The name popped into Kendall's head before he could really think.

"Well," Kendall was letting the bad thoughts about this morning that he had gotten rid of temporarily take over his mind. "There was a guy," he started, thinking about what he really wanted to say to Austin. It probably wasn't a good idea to mention James' name. "He actually was the one who helped me achieve this," Kendall motioned to his sad crippled arm.

"Oh, wow," Austin leaned back in his seat, interested.

"I thought we were being honest with each other about hour feelings and…I guess things weren't going like I thought."

"He sounds like a dick," Austin gave Kendall a sincere look.

Kendall shrugged, starting to feel a little guilty about ignoring James all day.

"He hurts your arm, and I'm guessing he led you on? Kendall, that's a dick move. You can't shrug that off."

"He's actually nice," Kendall gave in. Maybe shit-talking James was not the approach to recovery that he wanted to try.

"Whatever you say," Austin rolled his eyes.

Kendall studied Austin's features: nice hazel eyes, semi-tanned skin, dark brown hair. Based on the description in his head, Kendall figured he looked like James a bit.

But no one could compare to James. James was perfection.

James was also begging Kendall to give him a shot at explaining himself.

"You okay?" Austin interrupted Kendall's deep thoughts.

"Yeah," Kendall snapped out of it. There was no way he could face James now after ignoring him all day. "I just got lost in my head," he chuckled.

You're a merciless asshole, Kendall.

Austin nodded, skeptical. "You're thinking about him, aren't you?" he grinned.

"Hm?" Kendall tried to play dumb.

You didn't give James a single second to speak. You have no idea what was really going on in that picture of him and Dak.

"Don't play dumb. You're thinking of the guy who you just told me you were upset with."

"No I wasn't," Kendall blushed, trying to defend himself.

Why are you allowed to defend yourself, when you're not letting James defend himself?

"Look, I gotta go," Kendall was beating himself up on the inside with thoughts about James. "I've got to go do something."

"Alright," Austin was confused, it was clear. "We should do this again some time," he offered Kendall a friendly smile.

For a moment, Kendall narrowed his eyes at the James look-a-like. Unsure of whether his new friend's had flirty intentions or was simply just friendly, he shook it all off and nodded. He pulled out his phone, unlocked it and allowed Austin to put his number in and text himself.

"I'll talk to you soon," Kendall dropped a ten-dollar bill on their table to cover his coffee and the tip.

He probably would have felt bad after nearly sprinting out of the coffee shop if he hadn't felt even worse for the way he acted this morning to James. He was being immature—and his tricky mind was right: He was merciless.

"Taxi!" he waved a taxi down and got in, hoping the five o'clock traffic wouldn't be too bad. He needed to let James speak before he could hate the guy. After all, he couldn't push the feelings he had for the supermodel away so easily.

Within ten minutes he was back at the hotel in the warm lobby, glancing around nervously to make sure he didn't miss James in the big room before running upstairs. He realized there was a chance that James wasn't in his room—but he had to try.

"You're the biggest dumbass I know Kendall," he told himself in the elevator as it slowly made its way up to their floor. "You're a big dumbass. A big merciless and immature dumbass."

He crawled down the hallway slowly, scolding himself mentally for being so rude that morning. He didn't know for sure if he had a good enough reason to yell at James or be upset. He definitely didn't know if he had a good enough reason to try to move on.

He reached James' door and knocked three times.

No response.

He knocked again.

Again, no response.

As he lifted his hand up to knock obnoxiously for the third time, he heard the doorknob click. He took a step back as the door swung open.

"Uh," Kendall rocked between his two feet nervously as he stared at the person in the doorway in front of him. "Hey."


Short, lame chapter I know.

But I felt like I owed you guys SOMETHING.

Oh well. Hope you enjoyed it!

Sorry for any mistakes or grammar issues!

Xx

Sarah