The bed.
Covered in a plush white bedspread, with a mountain of pillows, all various shapes and sizes. And though her choice of accent colors borders a side of frosty, there’s a lamp on the bedside table and a curtain of string lights behind the headboard, both of which cast a soft glow about the room. Like a flickering campfire in an igloo. Warm, intimate. Enticing.
What the hell kind of college student makes their bed?
I tamp down a grin. Kennedy Fucking Walsh, that’s who. The girl that throws beer on assholes who upset her, wears lace and flannel to ask a guy to bang her, who doesn’t realize she has a latex allergy and threatens to sue for punitive damages when she thinks her vagina’s broken, who hides from social gatherings in her own room…
“There’s a party downstairs,” I say, slowly crossing the room, hands in my pockets. “In case you wondered what all that noise was.”
Kennedy sits cross-legged on a shaggy grey rug next to the bed. In front of her on a towel, she’s deconstructed a camera. Tiny bristle brushes line up in a row next to a pile of microfiber cloths, folded in squares. Holding a lens between two fingers, she gingerly wipes the glass with one of the cloths.
“Is it a grool party? I only go to grool parties.” She meets my eye, corner of her lip twitching. “See, that means ‘great’ and ‘cool’. Though you probably already know, seeing as you’re such a huge Mean Girls fan.”
I grunt. I’m not big on chick flicks—I’d prefer a game, any game, and football’s top of the list if it’s on—but Meegan had been obsessed with that one. Probably because she saw something of herself in the characters, though none of the good ones. After the tenth rewatch, it had grown on me. Enough that I’d watched it a few times, long after we’d broken up. It maybe was the one good thing left from that relationship fuck-up.
I should have lied, should have never fucking told Kennedy about liking it. As it is, Hart’s going to having a field day making fun of my ass when the Leopard Leap article goes live Monday morning.
Yet… she’d looked so miserable in the clinic. I could have gone home at any time, but to leave her alone, hazel eyes swollen with tears and skin covered in red bumps…
Even I’m not that much of an ass.
Besides, as she had so tearfully accused me that night, it was my penis’s fault. Punishment fits the crime, as they say. Though talking with her, without terse words or insults, her actually smiling at me, hadn’t been much punishment in the grand scheme of things.
I lean against the wall. She sets down the lens and picks up another piece to clean. “If you must know,” she says. “I am planning to join the party. Just… not until Natalie notices.”
I raise a brow.
“She didn’t send you up here, did she?”
Shake my head.
“Did it seem like she was looking for me?”
Shrug.
She throws one of those folded square cloths at me. It lands limply on my foot. “‘A series of speech sounds that communicate a meaning’.”
“Meaning?”
“Words. You can use them.”
I clear my throat of what feels suspiciously like laughter. “Last I saw, Mason was playing beer pong with Rowe.” I nod at her camera cleaning set up. “Why are you up here? This can’t wait?”
Her shoulders lift and fall in a sigh. “It can. It’s only that… I don’t know anyone down there.” When I give her a look, she rolls her eyes. She reaches under the bed and pulls out a black camera bag. “Besides you guys, obviously. Other than that, though, it’s just Natalie’s acquaintances and Rylie’s art friends and your football buddies… who, no offense, can be dimwitted hooligans.”
“None taken,” I grin. I’ll be the first to attest that members of the Leopards can definitely be… dimwitted. “You can call them what they are.”
“Which is?”
“Fuckheads.”
Kennedy frowns, pausing as she places her camera gear away. “I can’t call them that. That’s too mean.”
“‘Dimwitted hooligans’ isn’t?”
“Okay, fine, you’ve got me there.”
She stands, setting the camera bag on her desk. She tips her head to check everything’s in rightful order before zipping it up. Copper strands of hair slip over her shoulder, brushing her collarbone. That’s as low as the neckline of her long-sleeved green shirt goes. It’s tucked into high-waisted jeans that illustrate the flare of her hips. The whole outfit modestly hides every inch of skin, while provocatively hugging every curve.
I tear my eyes from the swell of her tits. Focus on a collage of photographs hanging above the desk. I squint, faintly making out four redheads in one picture, Kennedy one of them.
She catches me. Taps the photo. “My sisters.”
“Fuck, there are more of you?”
“People usually say ‘your poor father’,” she points to another picture of her and an older man with faded ginger hair. “But that’s pretty apt, too.”
She tucks her hair behind her ear. I’m drawn to the movement. I never got the chance to fully feel it in my hands. I look away, not wanting to see that tempting silkiness or talk more about her fucking family.
So I ask instead, “Why don’t you say fuck?”
Her shoulders tighten, and I realize my tone may have been overly harsh. So, quieter, I ask, “Or any cuss word? You have some moral objection to swearing?”
“No. No moral objection,” she says, folding the towel she’d been using.
Her gestures are slow, deliberate. Deep in thought. She arranges the towel, neat and straight, over the back of her desk chair. Then, smoothing her hands over it, she looks at me.
“I just… I have this firm belief. That words hold power. It’s why I want to be a journalist. Words can do so much, with so little. They shape stories, points of view, emotions. Every syllable, every utterance, they bring meaning to someone, you know?”
She leans a hip against the desk, hands moving as she
