“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding genuine.
“You’d think I would be used to it by now, but it doesn’t get any easier. I want him to get help, but he…he just wants to die.” A sob escapes my mouth, and Kent scoots closer, taking my hands in his.
“If you need money for rehab, I can help.”
I lift my head, my tears instantly drying. “Why would you offer that? You don’t know him.”
“I know he’s important to you.”
I press a hard kiss to his mouth. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re not a good guy, Kent Kennedy.”
“Don’t gush too much. I was also thinking he’d be out of your life for at least a few months if he was in rehab, so it wasn’t a completely selfless offer.”
My lips curve at the corners. I love his honesty. It’s refreshing. “It was still a fucking generous offer. One I thank you for, but Chris would never take you up on it. He doesn’t want to help himself. I truly think he has a death wish.” Pain slices across my chest again. “If he dies, it will devastate me. He and Clay are the closest I have to a family. I can’t lose either of them without losing myself.”
“I’m not gonna lie, Pres. The fact you’re so involved in Chris’s life bugs me. One, I think he’s a selfish prick for doing this to you. Two, I hate how much you care about him. I think I’m…” He averts his eyes and withdraws his hands from mine. “Fuck.” Air expels from his mouth, and his eyes are a mix of bewildered and tortured when he looks at me again. “I think I’m jealous.”
My heart melts. This guy has the power to fucking slay me. I crawl into his lap, circling my arms around his neck. “What’s going on with us, Kent?” I tip his head back. “What do you want?”
He gulps audibly. “I’m fucked if I know.” He looks so stressed trying to figure this out, and he’s burrowing a new path to my heart.
I run my fingers through his hair, fighting a smile. “Do you like me and want to spend more time with me?”
He nods without hesitation.
“I like you and want to spend time with you too, so how about this?”
He quirks a brow.
“We agree to casually date. Exclusively. And just see where things go. No expectations. No labels. No pressure. And an agreement that we will always be honest with one another, especially if either of us wants to end this. Would that work?” I ask.
He flashes me that blinding smile of his, and my ovaries swoon. He rubs his nose against mine. “Not just a pretty face.”
“Is that a yes?” I whisper over his mouth.
He closes the gap between us, kissing me passionately until I can’t remember where he starts and I end. I reposition myself on his lap so I’m straddling him, and we kiss like it’s going out of fashion. “I’ll take that as an affirmative,” I rasp when we finally surface for air.
“You need to be patient with me,” he says, mirroring Selena’s words.
“Not a problem,” I reassure him. “And you’ll have to be patient with me. I’m not used to the world you live in. The money. The paparazzi. The celebrity.”
“I will do my best to shield you from all that, and you can trust I’ve got your back.” Something close to a grimace washes over his face. “In the interests of honesty, I should bring you up to speed on something.”
“Okay.”
He lifts me off him, placing me on the seat beside him, threading his fingers through mine. “I need to tell you about Whitney.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kent
“Okay. I’m listening.” Presley gives me her undivided attention, setting her empty bottle of water down on the side table.
I keep a firm hold of her hand, as I begin explaining, because I need to be touching her. There’s no way of sugarcoating this, and I’m fearful she’ll be disgusted. Afraid this might send her running for the hills. I want to explain this properly so she understands that Whitney is no threat to her. What Presley and I are building far exceeds anything I ever shared with Whit. “Whitney is Faye’s half-sister. They have the same dad.”
“And Faye is your cousin. The girl who is married to Kyler, right?” she adds, and I feel like giving her a gold star.
Honestly, trying to keep up with who is married to who and which kid belongs to who is becoming problematic in our large and ever-growing family. I nod. “Yeah, that’s Faye. Anyway, I met Whitney the same time Faye did. I was fifteen. Whit’s a year younger, and we were drawn to one another from the start. Not for the reasons you’re probably thinking,” I rush to add in case she’s reading too much into it. “We’re both messed up and self-destructive, and we formed a kind of fucked-up bond.”
