“Last night was pretty incredible.”
We shared a heated look before she winked and went back to her computer. I kept watching her movements, like how she chewed on her lip when she read, or how she adjusted her hair every couple of minutes, or the way she kind of hummed when she sighed. I liked her gestures and I had to force myself to stop staring at her. We finished our assignments for our class and submitted them, but Kenzie wanted to stick around for a bit to work on class selection for her freshman year.
She has her entire life ahead of her. New start.
But it didn’t stop the fact I wished I could keep her as mine even after I went back to baseball. She fitted into my life so easily. Itcouldhappen. It was just the possibility of it not working that held me back. The situation when I’d gotten hurt, thinking I’d seen her in the crowd… I couldn’t afford it and I shook my head to clear my thoughts.Baseball first, always.She was jotting something down in her notepad filled with lists when I saw a dude approaching our table.
He was shorter than me, a dark-haired kid decked out in our school’s colors. I had no idea who the guy was but he was bold, walking right up to Kenzie and staring at her. It amused me that she didn’t see him for a solid thirty seconds, until the guy said, “Kenzie.”
She glanced up at me first.Score.But she followed the voice and her entire body stiffened when she eyed the stranger. “Uh, hey. What in the world? How are you here?”
He smiled, darting his gaze down her bare legs. I did not like that. “I’m having an informal tour with my mom. She wanted some coffee and we were literally right here. What are the chances?”
“No shit.” Kenzie scanned the entryway but the dude moved closer so he could touch her if he wanted.
He lowered his voice in a practiced move and twitched his hand, as if he wanted to reach out to her. “How are you? I heard you moved here early and I saw your house is already sold to someone else. I’ve texted you a couple of times…I missed you.” The dude moved his intense stare to me, but I remained expressionless. Kenzie’s neck turned red. Ihadto know who this kid was to her.
“I’ve been pretty good. Living with Aaron and his friends has been interesting. I’m picking my classes for fall now. This guy has been entertaining me all summer.”
The dude had a forced expression of kindness on his face as he reached over to shake my hand. “H-hey, man.”
I squeezed my grip harder than normal. I didn’t respond. Instead I just jutted my chin at him. He let go and directed all his attention back to Kenzie, and I had every urge to smack this kid.
“Look, Kenz, I wanted to tell you in person, not text, but I’m coming to school here in the fall. I know we talked and I said I was going out of state…but it makes sense paying in-state tuition. Isn’t that awesome?” The guy smiled with a hint of hope, but Kenzie did not have the reaction I expected. She laughed.
“Sweet. Good for you, man. It’s a nice school.”
“You’re…I thought you’d… you know. Look, whoisthis guy? Can I talk to you alone?”
Thatset off my alarm.
Kenzie raised her voice, a bit more dominance escaping her, and said, “This is Tanner Johnson, a friend of my brother and me. He plays on the baseball team. TJ, this is Sean. Myex-boyfriend.”
Sean. The fucker who’d slept with her and left her. I gave him a tight smile.
Sean looked a little flustered and blinked a lot. He then stared at Kenzie a little too long and I wanted to say something, but my girl did it just fine herself.
“Well, this has been awkward. I’m not sure what you were expecting here, but it isn’t some reconciliation. I’ll be friendly if I see you around, but that’s about it.”
“I thought…I don’t know. Maybe you’d be happy to see me again?”
“Sean. You dumped me. I’m not real upset about it, but don’t make this weird,” she fired back. “I’m being honest. We won’t have any friendship, so please don’t try.”
“Okay. Uh, sure. Well, bye.” Sean spun around so fast I felt air hit my face, and Kenzie turned to me with the widest eyes.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, that was entertaining,” I replied, holding back from asking a thousand questions. Like, did she text him back? Did she miss him? Was she glad he was going here? Instead, I acted real mature. “He seemed…fun.”
“Ha. Ha.” She made a bemused face and blinked back the uncertainty that had been there moments ago. “God, that threw me for a loop. I never expected to see him again.”
“Do you miss him?”Shit.
“Uh, no. Not at all.” She laughed and slid me a coy look. “The sex is comical, comparing what I had with him to you. Astronomically comical.”
“I like where this is going. Please, continue.”
She giggled and leaned into me a bit. It was simple, just her shoulder touching mine, but it felt like more. She didn’t let a lot of people get inside her circle, and I was in. I felt special—a totally cheesy thing to feel—but I liked being in her world. “It was something to do—no pun intended—to have a boyfriend. My life was crazy with my dad being sick and me working all the time to avoid feeling things, taking care of the house and finishing classes. A boyfriend was a distraction from it all. I didn’t reallylikethe guy all that much. But we got dinner, we went to prom, we went to movies. We did things. It got me out of the house.”
