The smart part of this plan is that Kaya and I hired a deejay to keep us honest. Some people were a little hesitant to get up and sing, but when the deejay calls out their names, people suddenly gain
“Your turn, Kay.” Kyle reminds her.
Kaya throws the dice hard, like she’s playing craps at a casino and has a lot of money on the line. It’s hilarious. Someone’s had a little too much of her own custom cocktail.
“Six!”
Now it’s the jerk’s turn.
“Eight!”
Tre hands me the dice, so now it’s mine. I pray that I don’t get an eight because the last thing I want to do is to sing a buddy duet with this fucker.
“Six!”
Somebody up there likes me. I’m singing with Kaya. I ask her to pick the song, and she picks an oldie but goodie–“Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince.
I had no idea how great of a singer Kaya was, which makes it all the more funny as I sing every single note off key. Still, I’m having the time of my life.
“You should try out for American Idol,” Kyle says through tears of laughter. “You know how they always have to have a few bad ones for shits and giggles.”
Everyone in the room is either laughing or singing along with us, really getting into it, and Kaya is having such a blast that her joy is infectious… and tells me so much more about who she is.
I wanted to learn more about her, and now I do. She loves her brother; she loves good food and drink, and she loves singing.
The two of us are so into the performance that I don’t even realize that there’s one person who’s stopped laughing and starting staring… Dena.
She’s studying both Kaya and me in a way that people do once they’ve discovered a secret about someone.
She watches as Kaya’s hand touches my biceps and then she catches the way mine brushes along her hip as we sing. I try backing away from Kaya toward the finale of our performance, but I think that only makes it more obvious that I’m hiding something.
When the song ends, everyone claps and cheers and Kaya, tipsy herself, gives me the sexiest bear hug. It takes everything for me not to reciprocate. The warmth of her lush curves against me makes my dead heart come alive.
“Good job, Brandon,” she says playfully as we sat back down on the couch, and it doesn’t escape me that she uses my real name for the first time since I’ve been home and not my nickname.
It turns me way the fuck on and all I can do is conjure up ways that she’d say my name like that over and over in a much more private setting.
“Drink up, you two,” Dena’s sister Felicia commands.
“Oh, I think Kaya’s had enough.” Dena’s face tightens as she stares directly into mine.
Kaya whips her head around and looks at Dena.
“It’s my cocktail and no, I haven’t,” she protests.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Dena asks Kaya in what sounds like a protective big sister's voice.
The two of them stand up and head to one of the bedrooms upstairs.
“What’s with the two of them?” Kyle asks, having missed the entire exchange because he was talking with another guest.
“I can only imagine,” I answer guiltily as Tre sits on the other side of Kyle, looking like the cat who swallowed the canary.
I haven’t even done what I truly want with Kaya, and this is already getting really messy.
Kaya
My stomach churnswith a mixture of anxiety and excitement as a plane full of my friends and family finally heads to the beautiful islands of Turks and Caicos for my brother’s wedding. I turn toward Brick as the plane reaches its cruising altitude. He’s been watching me closely since we arrived at the airport, and I can feel the sexual tension between us grow with each passing moment.
