“Then we have only to look at the tangible, observational evidence. Case in point, three times you showed up here at Kellermann’s with the same shade of lipstick on your person that Kennedy had on. Within a week of each other around spring break, you both had colds. Twice I ran into Kennedy leaving Main Desire after my thermal engineering class. Both times, she used the same excuse that she had to pick up homework Natalie forgot, and once, her shirt was buttoned incorrectly. Also—you do realize the weekend of her sister’s wedding when I asked where you were, all you texted me was ‘Got shit to do’.”
“You two…” Gray ends his rant by adjusting his glasses. “Suck at keeping secrets.”
I stare at him. And burst into laughter.
We thought we were so careful. That we played it safe and none of our friends would find out. But with all her organization, Kennedy hadn’t planned on someone like Grayson Rowe. Someone who observed and studied and knew what had been so glaringly noticeable, though we hadn’t known it ourselves yet.
And now everyone knows. Everyone knows, and I don’t have her anymore. Exactly what I thought, and hoped never, would happen.
Hart sets down his beer. Steps off his stool. And slowly claps. “You astounding, brilliant, fucking weirdo.”
“I know,” Rowe agrees. He racks the pool balls.
Morris frowns. “What have we said about observing us?”
“You can’t make me not know things. Especially when they’re so obvious. Theo.” Gray picks up his cue. “Now, are we playing again or what?”
With a peeved look, Morris throws down another twenty, and they break. I stifle my laughs, just as a commotion makes us all turn to look at an approaching group of guys wearing frat letters. At the front of the pack, Ashton Keeland steps up to the table and knocks his knuckles on the felt.
“Your time’s up,” he says.
Gray hits a ball at the entitled prick. It clips his fingers, and he glares at Rowe, who pointedly fixes his glasses. “Oops. Didn’t see you there. Did you know around fifty percent of the world’s population needs corrective lenses?”
Keeland eyes him like something he wiped off his polished fucking shoe. He turns back to the rest of us. “You’ve been playing all night. We want our turn now.”
“And we want to not see your greasy face,” Levi says. “Guess we’re both not getting what we want.”
“Levi Hart. Make any home videos lately?”
“Whip out your phone, and we can make one right here of us kicking your ass, fuckface.”
Morris calmly speaks Hart’s name. Arms folded over his chest, he addresses the frat bros. “I’m sure you guys have a pool table at your house.”
“Yeah, but there’s no chance of getting pussy there,” Keeland says. His group cheers him on with gloating sniggers. Just the way he says it, how he glances around the bar like any of the girls here would be willing to drop their panties for him, makes my skin crawl. Slicking back his hair, he raises a brow in my direction. “Isn’t that right, Armstrong?”
I tense. More than I already had been, my anger spurred on by my friends’. By Hart, slapping my shoulder and standing by my side, and Rowe, lining up another shot on the table, just waiting for Keeland to unwittingly put another hand down. Only Morris, out of all of us, is able to keep a cool head, and even he glances over his shoulder at me, like maybe for once, he wouldn’t hold me back if I threw the first punch.
I hold myself back, though. Count to five in my head and breathe. Imagine Kennedy was here, too, counting with me.
“But I forgot, you haven’t been sleeping around so much anymore, right?” Keeland continues.
I snap the hair band around my wrist. Though Gray might talk about tangible, observational proof, this is the last thing that proves Kennedy and I had ever been together. She even deleted our secret calendar.
He glances down at his smart watch. Wipes an invisible speck from it with a careless shrug. “No matter. I can forgive Kennedy for an impulsive aberration. Hell, maybe you taught her a thing or two. Though, obviously, I’ll want her to get tested—”
And I surge to him. Lock my fists in his shirt and lift him right off his toes. The other frat guys take a step forward, but Morris steps up, flexing his arm muscles.
I was right. He’s not going to hold me back. No one is. If I want to pummel Keeland to dust for speaking so fucking despicably about Kennedy, they’ll damn well let me have at him.
Lifting him higher, I see that hair band. That tiny scrap of non-latex material surrounding my wrist. All I have left of her. That, and my memories.
And I remember last week, when in a similar fit of rage, I’d punched Keeland. The look on Kennedy’s face—
It’s not worth it. Nothing is worth seeing that mixture of heartache and distress on her. If I hit Ashton Keeland now, it’s just going to add one more thing to the growing list of all the ways I disappointed Kennedy.
That’s not what I want. I want the look on her face when she’s proud of me. When she thinks I’m going places. Listing reasons for why I’ve got whatever task I set my mind to.
I don’t want to be in that constant state anymore, worrying about her feelings and if I’m not enough for her. Second guessing and flying off the handle with doubts. That’s how Meegan handled me. With distrust and demands that I never go anywhere, see anyone, or do anything without her. It’s exhausting. And in the end, it ensures that Kennedy does not stay.
What Hart told me that night on the stairs is right. The worst feeling is losing her. Of not having her. Of never having her and hurting her because of my own faults.
I want to be the man that is enough, even when I fail. Because
