I erase the text to my friends. Type a new one. I need to see you.
I delete it. Too fucking desperate. Even as cold panic squeezes my lungs and tells me it’s the truth.
A cool breeze waves over me, and it’s not enough to break me out of it. My skin crawls with an undetermined disturbance, and I want to rev up my bike and speed far, far away from whatever the fuck is going on in the pit of my stomach when I think of a certain redhead. I put my phone away and snap the hair tie around my wrist in rapid succession.
A honk calls me out of my thoughts. The agitation in my chest subsides when I see the car flashing its lights at me from the street. What fucking luck.
Kennedy opens the passenger side door for me and asks, “Were you at the gym? It closed over an hour ago.”
“What are you doing over this way?” I ask, moving her camera bag to my lap so I don’t crush it with my legs.
She nods at it. “I thought I’d use the last of the daylight to take some photos of Prescott Hall.”
I make a noise of understanding. We hadn’t talked about it, and I hadn’t fucking asked, but I’d overheard her talking about her newspaper assignment to Rowe and Hart at the house a week ago.
Turning on her camera, I flip through the pictures she’d taken as she drives. I don’t know jack about photography, but I like Kennedy’s. During the season, she’d taken one of me running the ball downfield, dodging a tackle from an opposing player. It had been in the paper. Hart, whenever there’s a spotlight on him, emails that shit to his parents, and Morris’s dad keeps tabs on anything mentioning the quarterback. I’d bookmarked the article online, in case I could use it for a scout or for the draft next year or some other fucking shit, I’m not sure. Lately, when I put off doing homework assignments, I pull the article up, telling myself I’ll actually read the damn thing and not stare at the headshot next to Kennedy’s byline.
“These are good,” I tell her before setting the camera back in its bag and putting it in the back seat. Her smile beams. She tries to hide it by shaking her head, hair falling in her face. Without thinking, I brush the red locks back. Cup my hand around the back of her neck and run my thumb over her pulse.
“I’m driving,” she rolls her eyes. But sneaks a kiss on my wrist before I pull away.
“Kellermann’s?” she asks.
“Fuck no. Go home.”
“Kellermann’s,” she confirms, and when I growl, she laughs. “Everyone’s there. It’ll be fun.”
Not as fun as fucking you.
“Why were you at the gym so late?” she asks again. “Didn’t you train this morning?”
I smirk. Kennedy Fucking Walsh and her fucking schedules. She’d sent me the one she made. Our secret schedule, she’d told me, pleased with herself. I’d given her a deadpan look, then threw her on my bed and said, Fuck that.
Later, I’d consulted it again and had a laugh at her goddamn color-coded squares and little notes on the blank spaces. Tiny requests like, I have yet to be on top. Let’s remedy that. Or, Can we try cunnilingus again?
I’d added my own notes. Yes. Fuck yes. Wear red panties.
And I’d carefully ignored next week. Each day blocked out with, Happy spring break!
“I doubled up workouts,” I explain. “Morris’s dad is visiting with a scout after break.”
Kennedy’s eyes widen with excitement, though they don’t stray from the road. Her hands remain perfectly on the ten and two positions of her steering wheel. “Spencer, that’s awesome! How did his dad manage to swing that?”
“He’s Trevor Morris.”
That makes her snap her head to mine. “Wait—Trevor ‘The Drill Sergeant’ Morris?!”
I nod. Kennedy’s jaw hangs, and there’s a beep from the car behind us, since her speed’s dropped. She accelerates, though never a mile over the limit. “Spencer, my dad watches his third Super Bowl game every Thanksgiving—it’s Walsh family tradition. He’s in the Football Hall of Fame! My sisters and I can recite all his stats, though believe me, we never wanted to memorize that information. He’s Morris’s dad?”
I nod again, and luckily, we’ve reached the street leading to the bar. Kennedy’s too distracted looking for a parking space to keep gushing about some old timer football legend. When she finds one, right in front of Kellermann’s, and kills the ignition, I grab her wrist as she unbuckles her seatbelt.
“Morris,” I say. “Don’t ask about his dad.”
When she gives me a questioning look, I let go of her and tug my hat off to run a hand through my hair. “He won’t be a dick if you do, he’s too polite for that. But he and his dad don’t exactly see eye to eye about football. The Sergeant wanted him in the draft this year, but Morris said no. It’ll just make him pissy if you bring it up.”
Hazel eyes soften, and Kennedy’s hand reaches for mine again. In the quiet of the car, she whispers, “You really care about your friends, don’t you?”
I pull my hand away, undoing my own buckle. “Fuck no. I’m getting fucking wasted tonight, and I don’t need him bitching over my shoulder.”
And since my hands itch and she’s so fucking pretty and I can’t fucking stand it anymore, I haul her half over the center console and lock my mouth on hers. Tenderly biting her bottom lip, I soothe it with my tongue. She holds herself up with one hand, and the other draws down the zipper of my jacket. Curls into my shirt. And when she pulls back, eyes soft and hooded
