She glances at me over her shoulder, looking extremely kissable.What the fuck?
I clear my throat, “Since it’ll be just us today…what about helping me with my personal statement?”
“I can’t right now. I have to finish these logic problems,” she says. “But–”
“But?”
“If it doesn’t take longer than I expect, I should be done in the next hour. And I can help you then, if you’re still here.”
“Deal,” I say. “In that case, focus.” I narrow my eyes at her, taking two fingers and pointing from my eyes and then to the work in front of us. She purses her lips, rolls her eyes, and faces forward, but I catch the smile that dances across her lips.
Kennedy and I work in near silence for the next hour using her timer method and I get little to no work done whileshe seems to be getting massive amounts of work done. I keep getting distracted by Kennedy, something I am not used to.
I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye, or hearing her flip a page in her text book, or God forbid, smelling her citrus and vanilla scent. Every time I’d glance over at her, I’d find myself staring at the pen she has cinched between her teeth. Sometimes when she’s reading, she’ll tap the end of her pen against her plump bottom lip, chin resting against her other fist.
It’s completely distracting to be next to her when she’s fidgeting with her pens like that. It's borderline obscene the way my body is responding to her.
She flips the page of her textbook, catching my eye,again. I’m practically staring at her when she looks over, gawking at her and that damn pen. The back of my neck feels hot and I open my mouth to say something.
“I’m done,” she says. “Want to show me what you’ve got so far?”
I pull up my personal statement document and hand her my laptop. It has one sentence.
She looks at the nearly blank document and reads my one sentence aloud in a whisper. ““I want to be a physical therapist.” That’s all you have? Will, seriously? That’s not even a good sentence. It’s implied you want to be a physical therapist by just applying to the school. I can’t help you if you have literally nothing.”
I run my hand up over my eyes and through my hair, groaning, feeling like I have two braincells. “I know.” She hands my laptop back to me and I close it. “I don’t know how to get started. I’m not a good writer like you. I don’t know where to start. I’ve read about a hundred example essays,” I say. She looks at me and my pulse is speeding up and my neck is hot and that feeling of having no brain cells keeps getting bigger, pressing in on me. “I need help,” I blurt out. “I’ll help you with your list.”
She stops, taken aback, glaring at me. “What?” she says.
“I’ll help you with your list in exchange for helping me with my personal statement,” I say.
She purses her lips and lets out a sigh, “Fine. Let me do some research on PT personal essays and then I’ll try and help you,” she says, and for some reason it's causing my stomach to swoop and an image of me with flowers picking her up from her apartment flashes through my mind.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her. “You have no idea how much I need help with this.” It's technically true, I really do need help. I was debating trying to find someone I could pay to help me. She blushes and looks down, starting to pack up her things and put them into her bag. My tongue feels too big for my mouth and my pulse isn’t slowing down. Giddy, I realize. I feel giddy at the idea of Kennedy agreeing to let me help her with her list. I want to ask her to get started on the list right away, as in right now, but instead I ask her, “What do you want to do first?”
She looks serious and nervous and I know that I need to be careful with how I respond to whatever she says.
“The swimming one,” she says between gritted teeth, clearly embarrassed. I nod my head, “Okay. This weekend at my place. We can have a pool party. Do you want me to invite the whole team, minus fuckhead of course, or just be a chill thing?”
“Chill thing, please. No more than ten people, and no one I don’t already know. I haven’t been—” she cuts herself off before finishing her thought. I want to press her about it, but I don't. She continues with a huff, “you know what, it doesn't matter. Small and chill pool thing please?”
“You got it. Easy,” I say, my stomach tightening. “You want to go get some food?” I ask her, not wanting this to end. I like being alone with her. I like making her blush. I like the idea of helping her with her list even if she never ends up helping me with my personal statement. She doesn’t immediately respondso I add, “Adrian has a girl over right now, and I donotwant to be at home while they’re having sex.”
She smiles and nods her head, “Yeah, but we have to go somewhere kinda quick, I have plans with my work friend at six.”
“Serendipity?” I suggest, and that strange feeling low in my stomach clenches again as I wait for her response. When she nods her head yes and heads toward the elevator, a nervous excitement spreads out from my stomach and up through my chest for what feels like the hundredth time tonight.It's not a date and you don’t like Kennedy,I remind myself over and over as I trail behind her.
Chapter Eight
Will
It's Saturday, the day I’m throwing a small pool party for Kennedy per our agreement.
Our pool is pretty sick, not even going to lie. It's also pretty sick that Adrian has keys to the gate so we have access whenever we want. Yesterday, I asked Adrian to pull some strings with the maintenance guys and get us a private reservation.
Adrian was able to get the pool reserved for free under thirty minutes. I don’t know how he’s so well connected, but Adrian is somehow always able to make things happen. I know he’s rich, but there are a lot of rich guys on the team and none of them can get things done like he can.
I also thought a lot about who to invite. Obviously, I invited both Adrian and Liam. Not only are they my roommates, but they both really like Kennedy. I also invited Logan. He hates Carter with a burning passion and we’re pretty good friends and he and Kennedy get along well from what I've seen; even if he flirts a little too much for my liking. I feel like Logan will balance out Adrian and Liam a little too. And I trust all three of them.
