Kalen finally reaches us, glancing once over his shoulder at the approaching girls.
His expression barely changes, but he does raise his voice a bit.
“I’ll slap the shit out of anyone who touches me trying to get to him,” he says dryly.
Kalen’s accent is lighter than Jeremy’s, though I know it’s deliberate.
His mother is Irish, father speaks Italian and English, and the guy grew up bouncing between elite boarding schools allover the world. He slips between accents as often as most people change their shirts.
Sometimes he sounds American.
Sometimes fully Irish.
Sometimes he speaks the italian language in a way that you’d swear he was born and raise in Milan.
It depends on who he’s talking to, and while I haven’t spent much time with her, Juniper does the same thing.
The two of them have this strange way of existing in their own little orbit, like the rest of us are just visiting their world for a while.
My laughter gets worse when one of the women following my roommates yells, “Don’t cockblock us, we just want to talk to him.”
Kalen looks at me like he’s considering hitting me himself if I don’t stop laughing.
“Cock. Did you hear her? She wants to touch my cock. HURRY UP,” Jeremy says, covering his crotch with one hand and then turning to walk away from us, not looking back to see if Kalen and I are following him.
This only makes me laugh harder, but we do follow him at a more socially acceptable pace. Sprinkles or whatever the fuck her name is looks up at me and huffs.
The feeling is mutual, and I let her know by scrunching my face up at her.
I feel a little delirious, and I’m pretty sure it has everything to do with the fact that my songbird couldn’t keep her eyes off me earlier. I will bring that up, even in my own thoughts, every chance I get. A win is a win, and today feels like I won the fucking Superbowl and I haven’t even touched her yet.
When The Red Boot sign comes into view as we round the next corner, I slow slightly, forcing myself to breathe and settle. I need to be composed. I need to play this right. If I’m going tokeep Livy safe…If I’m going to hold her in my arms…If I’m going to have her naked in my bed beneath me…I can’t afford to lose control again tonight.
But I can’t make any promises.
LIVY
We score a booth at The Red Boot Pub and Miranda is already dominating the conversation. I’m not really paying attention, but I’m pretty sure she’s rattling off a play-by-play of her favorite things that happened during the game tonight. My eyes are on Juniper. She’s over by the door, glancing out the glass panel, I assume waiting for her stepbrother. He promised he’d bring her dog with him. I don’t know what the official policy is of pets in the pub, but from what I’ve gathered, Kalen and Juniper do whatever they want, whenever they want.
I don’t really care, I get to see the puppy…who isn’t a puppy. They think she’s around ten years-old, but in my eyes all dogs are puppies. Ronan is hovering around Juniper, and when he leans down whispering something to her, she reaches out her petite hand and covers his face, pushing him away. I snicker because as sweet as she is to me and a select few others, she really does not give men an inch to push her around.
The place is packed tonight. I’m not really surprised because the pub is the only place within walking distance that stays open late enough for everyone to pile in for a pint. The air smells likefried food, really strong beer, and much to my dismay, frat boy cologne.
Juniper slides into the booth across from Miranda and me, pushing a menu aside. When our eyes meet, she looks away, and she’s being really fidgety.
“Are you okay?” I ask because I’ve got a weird feeling with the way she’s watching the door. Does she know something we don’t?
“Okay, so I don’t know what’s up with you and Sebastian, but that whole thing at the game and then after the game was weird?” her tone indicates what she’s saying is a question, but I’m really not sure what she’s asking me. I didn’t even know his name was Sebastian. “He’s Kalen and Jeremy’s new roommate, and I think he’s coming here with them tonight.” She bites her bottom lip, and while I don’t know her well, my gut instinct is telling me that she’s leaving something out, but I don’t feel comfortable enough to call her on it.
She fiddles with the edge of the menu and looks back toward the door and then finally back at me. “He was acting super weird with how he was staring at you, and I just wanted you to have a head’s up, I guess.” I try to keep my face from giving away any of my thoughts. Juniper is a tell it like it is kind of girl, so I’m confused as to why she was apprehensive to tell me that this Sebastian person is Kalen’s new roommate.
“Anyway, he’s gorgeous,” Miranda adds with a dreamy lilt to her voice. “I mean, Livy, come on, he wants you. You’ve gotta just put your shyness aside and go for it.”
Miranda leans back against the booth like she’s challenging me. I can’t care enough about any of this to argue with her. I’m not sure what exactly I think about the rugby guy. For all I know, he’s here to try and kill me. I can’t take chances like Miranda does, but I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of explaining any of that.
I don’t know what’s changed, but the Juniper I know is speaking when she says, “If he bugs you, I’ll have Kalen kill him.”
I do laugh at this, and the vibe at the table seems to shift, but the way she smirks, holding the ends of her long brown hair up to inspect makes me wonder if she indeed has a hit list and if Kalen is her own personal hitman.
