.:Chapter Thirteen:.

Too Late For Crazy

Riley lowered her phone from her face as Kendall stirred beside her. He rolled over onto his back then onto his other side, eyes fluttering open. He brought up a hand and ran it across his eyelids as he yawned. Chuckling, Riley leaned back away from him.

"And I thought bad breath only happened when you woke up in the morning," she commented.

Kendall closed his eyes as he smiled. Then his eyes flew open once more as if a wave of ice water was dumped over him. A light groan escaped his lips and he draped an arm over his eyes. "Did I really fall asleep?"

"Yes and let me say it's the first time I've ever had someone fall asleep on me when I was kissing them. So that was a fun thing to cross off my bucket list, yeah?"

"I'd be really impressed if that was actually on your bucket list."

"Yeah, well, you're skating on thin ice, pal. Pun intended." Riley tucked her hair behind her ear as she gazed at him. "I'm not upset. You really looked like you could use the sleep. Especially after the game you just played."

A light 'humph' sound came out of Kendall's mouth. He stretched out his legs and rested them in Riley's lap, the bed springs creaking below him as he did so. "Playing, like, five minutes of a game shouldn't make me this tired."

"Are you seriously complaining about five minutes of a game when you scored the winning goal?" She rested her hands on his stomach, gently digging her fingertips into the skin covered by his t-shirt. Kendall laughed and pushed her hands away. "Otherwise, I'd be surprised if you're even getting an ounce of sleep with these guys you're living with."

"Oh yeah, Craig has a habit of playing a lot of pranks. Mostly with me being the guinea pig on them. He's also very, very loud."

"Yeah, I noticed when the bloke let me in." Riley commented. She wiggled a finger in her ear. "And I thought we were loud."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry I fell asleep. I know you had something planned for us to do today."

Riley waved a hand. "It wasn't so important, Hockey-Head. I just wanted to make sure that you at least had some time to relax and not think about hockey for a little while. Besides, you know this area better than I do so my idea probably wouldn't have worked anyway."

Now Kendall looked curious. "What were you going to do? Blindfold me, stick me in a car, and drive me somewhere against my will?" Riley glanced towards the ceiling and Kendall laughed.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the most exciting idea for a date but it was interesting. Probably something she'd try the next time the two were in Australia or maybe back in LA. Getting to explore the city you were in was always fun to do, especially if there was anything most inhabitants hadn't seen before.

"You were really going to do that weren't you?"

"No, I was just going to drive you off a cliff." Riley laughed, stretching out onto the bed next to him, her hair falling over her face. Kendall reached out and moved her hair back from her face.

"I don't doubt you would." He watched as she continued to laugh, slowly growing concerned. "You're not funny."

Still laughing, Riley leaned over and pressed her lips against Kendall's in a long kiss. Then she leaned back and smoothed her hair out of her face, gazing down at him. She rested her chin in her hand. "Alright, so when are you going to tell me what's going on with you?"

Kendall's eyebrows lowered. He crossed his arms and shrugged. "Nothing's wrong with me."

With a patient sigh, Riley reached over and grabbed onto his cell phone as it sat on his dresser. She slid her thumb against the screen and turned it around so that he could see all of the messages that sat on his phone. Some from Jimmy, some from Gustavo, others from their friends and his parents.

"I don't think I've ever seen you have your phone get this filled with messages," she commented. "Not to mention you're ignoring your dad despite the fact you have to see him practically every day. And why haven't you answered anything from James, Carlos, or Logan?"

"I've been busy." Kendall grabbed is phone from her hands and locked the screen once more. "I haven't had a lot of time to talk to them."

"And Jimmy?"

"He's the PR guy for the team and consistently sends messages as a reminder of the things we can and can't put on social media or say in interviews."

"And your Dad?"

"What about him?" Kendall looked over at his phone once more and illuminated the screen, looking at one of the messages. "Oh, would you look at that, Gustavo wants to kill my Dad. He's not the only one, I'm surprised my mom hasn't murdered him yet. Or some of the people he's represented and lost a court case for. I wonder what I'd wear to the funeral."

"That's not funny," Riley reminded him.

"It is when you realize that my dad gets on Gustavo's nerves just as much as I do."

Riley's eyes narrowed for a minute as she stared at Kendall. He made a show of looking away from her, causing her to smirk. Instead of pushing him to spill the beans, she waited quietly for him to come out with it himself. That usually worked as it was. As much as he was the leader of his friends, the most mature, and the most responsible, once he found someone who would listen to what he had to say—even with the things he didn't tell a lot of people—it didn't take much for him to open up.

Finally he sighed. "What could possibly be wrong?"

"What do you think?" She shot back.

A groan escaped Kendall's lips. "You can never just answer any of my questions with a simple answer can you?"

"Would that be fun for you?"

He shot her a look and she stuck her tongue out in reply. "It'd keep my sanity, that's for sure." Then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. She reached up and ran a hand through his hair. "So just admit that you miss them."

"Yeah, guys don't do that."

Frustrated, Riley pushed her face down into the bed and let out a huff of her own. She scratched the back of her head then flipped over onto her side. "You do realize that's the exact thing you said when you all got into that big fight, yeah?"

"Yeah, so?"

"That whole moving fiasco back at the Palm Woods could've been avoided if you had just admitted you missed each other, boofhead."

"This isn't a time for semantics, Riles."

"Kendall." Riley sat up and Kendall looked at her, waiting for whatever it was she had to say. She waited until knowing she had his full attention. Being able to simply say his name like that always came in handy at times. "I'm being serious."

"I know. You didn't call me Hockey-Head."

"Do you want to know what your problem is?" She didn't give him a chance to answer. "Your problem isn't that you just miss everyone. Your problem is that you're afraid you're being left behind." Kendall started to protest but Riley cut him off, putting her hand over his mouth. "You've come out to Minnesota to live your dream and that's amazing. And you're afraid you've left everyone behind just as much as you're afraid you've been forgotten. Logan's busy with school, James's solo career is starting up, and Carlos is taking that next big step and getting married. Everything they've done is something that you've wanted or could've done but decided to go the hockey route."

Kendall pressed his lips together. "You know I couldn't turn this down. It was a—"

"—once in a lifetime opportunity, I know. You've said it enough. There was no way you weren't going to take the chance. But now you're on your own. When you first came out LA you were with Mama Knight and Katie and you made a lot of different friends. Now you're in Minnesota with none of that around and everyone else is still thriving around you. It's not a coincidence that those guys are your friends; you support each other with everything. And now you don't have the support system here."

Kendall let out a frustrated sigh and rolled off of his bed, standing in the middle of the room. He pulled down the bottom of his gray t-shirt and crossed his arms. Riley looked up at him, tilting her head to the side.

"Okay, maybe you're right," he finally admitted. He started to pace back and forth. As he continued to speak it was more like he was talking to himself rather than his girlfriend who sat quietly, watching him. "Maybe I've been rethinking being out here because the guys aren't with me. But can you blame me? I haven't been treated like crap like this since I was in middle school trying out for the high school team. Is it so bad that I think things should be going differently? Or that they wouldn't be going this way if I had stuck around in LA, maybe tried out for one of their teams?"

At this Riley's eyes widened. "Sheesh, it's no wonder you take it so seriously." She tapped her chin. "Oh and being the low man on the totem pole isn't something you're use to and it's making you feel like you're not good at all."

"Right."

Wobbly, Riley got to her feet, standing on the bed. She placed her hands on her hips. "Are you crazy?!" She snapped.

Kendall paused in his pacing. Then the turned back to her and mimicked her earlier movement, tilting his head to the side. "I think you're the one who has that portion of our relationship covered, Riles."

"I swear you're going to pay for that one later, Kendall. Do you really think that you can go through life having things done easily for you?"

"Why does this sound so familiar?"

"I mean, you had to have that tough lesson when you guys first started sa your band too."

"Ah, that's it."

"And even then you couldn't understand it." Riley lowered her hands form her hips, allowing her anger to fade when she realized she wasn't angry at all. Frustrated, maybe. But not angry. Here these four boys were consistently complaining about missing each other but they were too stubborn to admit it to each other. She understood hat completely; knowing she'd be completely distraught if she had to be away from her brothers and sisters the same way. But couldn't quite understand what it was that was keeping them from telling each other. "May I ask you something?"

"You always do," Kendall pointed out.

She smiled a little and abruptly dropped her feet from underneath her, plopping down on his bed once more. Riley placed her hands in her lap and let out a quiet breath. "You know I miss you, right?" Even she was surprised at how soft her voice had gotten. Maybe as a precursor to how she thought he would react to her actual question.

Kendall nodded, his eyebrows coming together. "Of course. I miss you, too."

"And you miss your mum and Katie?"

"Yeah."

"And all of your friends."

Kendall lowered himself to his bed once more. "What are you getting at, Riles?"

"Have you ever thought the only reason you're terrible at saying goodbyes is because of what happened with you and your Dad? I mean, he walked out on your guys without saying a word to you or Katie. He stayed away for most of your guys' lives so you had to fend for yourselves. You even had to get a job to help your mum make ends meet, yeah? And now you're out here working on your hockey dream and he's around again? Must be hard."

Kendall blinked at her for a long minute.

"What?" she asked, eyes shifting back and forth.

This wasn't the reaction she expected. She expected him to start yelling at her, to tell her she was wrong, to tell her she was crazy. Anything other than silence. The last time they had the conversation about his Dad had blown up in both of their faces all because she had gone behind his back and asked Kevin to go to an event for the Big Time Rush boys. In her defense Kendall hadn't exactly explained everything as to why he never spoke about or to his dad at the time but it had been pretty bad.

Or maybe she expected things too much, the worst specifically. Slowly he had taught her how not to see the bad in everything but sometimes she felt it creeping up the back of her neck. The desire to keep form moving forward because whatever was behind her would catch up and forcibly keep her from advancing.

The fight or flight response could be very exhausting at times.

"Nothing." Kendall leaned in and pressed a kiss against her forehead, causing her to instantly relax. Then he rested his forehead against hers as he smiled. "How'd you get so smart?"

"Common knowledge that our parents help determine the way we turn out." She pointed towards her face, making a funny face. "I'm Grade A proof of that. No parents and look how I turned out.""

"Well, I hope you can get some of your money back on school. Because if you weren't studying to be a doctor you should seriously consider becoming a therapist of some kind."

She smiled back. "I'm just that good, Hockey-Head."

"It shows." Kendall gave her a kiss on the cheek then leaned back.

He ran a hand through his hair, tousling his bangs. "Speaking of which, how is school going." He laughed when she mimed sticking a finger down her throat. "That bad, huh?"

"I just don't particularly like school. I like to learn things on my own, form the people around me, from life…Being cooped up in a room to be lectured to for hours on end isn't my idea of fun, yeah?" She pulled her hair around so it cascaded over one shoulder. Then she rolled her eyes. "But its uni and I can't afford to put it off. Got to have a backup plan just in case."

"In case the band ends," Riley pointed out. "In case life gets in the way. In case we get bored. If you haven't noticed, I get bored easily."

"Oh, I noticed. How many nicknames have you come up for me already?"

"Including or not including the ones that are actually based off your name?"

"Does it matter?"

"Clearly it does or it wouldn't bother you so much." She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again. "So promise me that you'll at least try to think about talking to your dad. I don't want to force your or anything if you really don't want to." He smiled and nodded. Then a cry of surprise escaped his lips when Riley reached out her foot and kicked him hard in the side, causing him to fall off the bed and onto the floor.

"And that's for calling me crazy."

A/N: Kendall's and Kevin's relationship is always interesting to me. I need to work on that and the Knight family dynamic more.

Cheers,

-Riles