“Here, you can scoot closer if you’re falling off.”
“Thanks.” She gave me a sweet smile, pushed those glasses up and went back to the movie. She had her hair up in one of her ridiculous buns that had little curls escaping in every direction and it endeared her to me. She wasn’t afraid to be messy, or herself, and a small part of me wanted to protect that about her. “Tanner, you’re making me feel like I have something on my face.”
“You don’t. I was admiring your messiness.”
“Itisone of my redeeming qualities,” she scoffed and gave me a hurt look. I laughed, nudging my shoulder with her. “I’ll add it to my bio.”
“I meant it as a compliment.” I reached over, squeezed the ball of hair on top of her head and appreciated the way her body relaxed when I touched her. “I like this. It fits you. You can be put into this box of what you’re supposed to be, like your hair, but the curls can’t be contained.”
“Hm,” she replied, pursing her full lips at me. They curved up on the sides and goddamn, I wondered what they would feel like against mine.Woah, what?
“For someone who said they sucked at symbolism in movies, that wasn’t too bad.”
I wanted to reply to her, thank her—something—but I couldn’t. Her lips distracted me and the unsettling feeling in my chest had me coughing into my fist and reaching for a bottle of water on her side table. She lowered her voice and asked with such a soft tone, “Are you okay, TJ?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I wiped the leftover water from my mouth and told myself to get a fucking grip. People had nice lips all the time. Hers weren’t anything special.
Liar, liar.
She stared at me for five seconds too long, as though she knew what I was thinking about doing to her, but then she leaned against the headboard and paused the film. “This sucks. I thought, I don’t know, like, this movie would be life-changing. It’s not.”
“But it is a marvel.” I quoted what it said in our syllabus. She smiled, my goal achieved, and I moved to grab my laptop. It caused me to reach over her, our bodies touching, our heat combining, and my throat got real dry. But I didn’t linger, I picked up the sleek device and moved back to my nook pressed up against the wall. I was suddenly glad Aaron was at Greta’s for the night. The two of us, in her bed, watching a movie in the dark, didn’t look good.
My thoughts aren’t good either.
“Okay,” I said, forcing myself to finish the task. Once we wrote our papers, I could leave. “We need to write a two-page essay on the symbolism that Orson Welles used and how he helped shake the film world.”
She made an exaggerated face of annoyance and eyed my laptop. “We have over an hour left of it. I’m not someone who can bullshit their way through assignments. If you want to stop, I don’t blame you. I envy you, actually. But I think I’m going to have to force myself to finish every single second.”
“Were you a nerd in high school? Wait, I already know. You were.”
“Not how you imagine. I had to work hard to get decent grades and I learned how to retain information—by not cheating or half-assing anything. I didn’t use SparkNotes on any book, I never copied someone else’s math homework, and I never used Google Translate for Spanish. I’m one of those annoying people who should’ve gotten straight As, but worked hard for high Bs. So, I wasn’t a straight A nerd.” She shrugged at her self-deprecating statement, and it was the slight dimming of her eyes that gave away the shame in her story.
“You also had to balance more than most at a young age.” I reached out and covered her hand with mine. It was instinct, and not something I did often, but it felt right and I made small circles on her palm as I finished my thought. “From what I knew of you from Aaron, and what I know now, you’re so much more than any label anyone could give you. Don’t let labels or preconceived notions deter you for one second. Fuck them. You’re resilient and I wouldn’t say that about a lot of people.”
“Thanks, Tanner.” She squeezed my hand and gave me the sweetest smile, as if I had told her the best compliment in the world. Then she released it and scrunched her nose. “With all those niceties out of the way, I still plan to watch the entire thing, and if I do, you will not copy my essay.”
“You’re no fun.” I stuck my tongue out at her, and she returned the gesture. I immediately regretted my decision because hers sent me an entire wave of inappropriate images of her mouth. “You’ll give me shit, too, if I skip out, huh?”
“No, I won’t. Swear.” She smiled before hitting Play and I slumped farther down onto the bed in defeat. “Sure, get comfortable. Stay awhile.”
Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on me, and my response was fluffing her pillow and moving onto my side.Shit.I now had the perfect view of her profile. Her small chin that led to a long neck that had a couple of freckles on it. She had a mole too, right underneath her collarbone, and I wondered if she had any more. Blood raced out of my head and rushed to the lower part of my body, my dick growing in length the more I stared at her.
Fuck. Focus on the film. Not on Aaron’s sister.
I managed forty more minutes of watching the movie and not thinking about kissing the sliver of skin peeking out from her waist, before Kenzie let out the littlest sigh. She wiggled, causing her to move her legs so they hit mine. This time, she didn’t move them. I waited, totally in uncharted waters, and glanced at her face. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly parted and those damn glasses falling off her face. It felt as if someone had stuck their hand into my chest and squeezed my heart—that was how good a picture she made lying there.
Shit, I couldn’t wake her. I held my breath, carefully pushing myself up so I could step over her. She sighed deeper, the sound hitting me somewhere in around my gut, and I studied her. She had trim hips and breasts that strained the front of her shirt and made my mouth water.
I’m being fucking creepy.I shook my head, making the final push and landed on the hardwood floor with a soft thud. The movie kept playing, but I didn’t want to pause it. There had been two nights where I’d heard the TV playing all throughout the night and I knew some people liked the sound of it as background noise. And with one more glance at my adorable housemate, I left her bedroom and went to mine. My libido pounded through me, a totally misplaced lust for my teammate’s sister. I craved a drink or a wild night with a chick I wouldn’t have to see again, but it was the night before a game and it didn’t matter that it was just summer ball. I had a goal and my horny ass wasn’t going to get distracted, no matter how much it hurt.
* * * *
My alarm woke me after a shitty night’s sleep and I groaned at the raging morning wood that pounded through me. Instead of taking care of myself the night before, I’d watched old films of me hitting and made notes on how I could improve. It was probably a myth, but I tended to hit the shit out of the ball when I was pent-up. And I was beyond pent-up. I trudged from my bed to the bathroom, shuffling my feet on the gray carpet, and twisted the handle to open the door. It was unlocked, it was just past six in the morning, and I jumped back in surprise when Kenzie stood there in nothing more than a towel.
Holy fuck.“Uh—”
“Shit! I thought I locked it!” She clutched the little hot-pink towel to her chest, water dripping from her hair onto her neck, her shoulders and arms, creating a little puddle on the floor. That was what it felt like in my head—a puddle.
