I wait for him to speak, which he does with a heavy sigh. “The Sergeant’s schedule is wide open the next few weeks. He wants to know what time works to come in with the scout. Next week good?”
Fuck no.
“I think Hart’s visiting his mom.” I have no idea if that’s true or not. But it works to get Morris to say he’ll tell his dad the week after next. By the time he realizes Hart’s not busy then, his dad will have already arranged his travel plans.
Because in one week, I have travel plans of my own. Which include a hotel room with no interruptions and no looking over shoulders, so I can bury myself in Kennedy for one glorious night after over a month of resisting her.
He runs both hands through his gold hair. “You want to go for a run?”
“Do I look like Mason?” I gesture to my lounging pose, distinctly lacking crazy hair colors or noisy bracelets. “Also, it’s ten fucking thirty.”
I point out the window at the dark night sky. It’s rained off and on all night long, and even if I’d been willing to run around the neighborhood this late, I’m not doing it when I can be comfortable and dry on my couch.
Besides, I have a very important duty tonight. Babysitting.
Though, the big baby could probably use a run, I think as Morris paces. He’s recovered from being sick, but not well enough to do more than the bare minimum when it comes to workouts. If I let him go running now, in this impatient and irritated state, he’s likely to push himself too hard and wind up slipping on the wet street. Or getting sick again. And Natalie, who had entrusted me with this considerable task—“Theo needs rest, Spencer. Watch him like a mama bear watches her wily cubs.”—will have my balls for not heeding her demands.
I need my balls. For the aforementioned burying myself in Kennedy and all that.
The job had fallen to me, since my friends have become well too aware that I’m avoiding the bar. They’d finally chalked it up to me being on my best behavior with this scout meeting. Honestly, I couldn’t have made up a better excuse if I tried. Now, I don’t have to justify why I turn down a beer or a party.
Though, this doesn’t stop them from taunting me with those things themselves. As evidenced by Hart, texting me a video of a woman slapping Gray after he’d asked her if she knew some obscure fact about praying mantis mating habits. Being a wingman’s hard, Hart had messaged, when the bird in question can’t fly.
Natalie, after leaving me with Morris, had been sending images all night in a giant group text of girls night. But instead of their house, her, Rylie, and Kennedy are up and down the bar strip tonight to belatedly celebrate Kennedy’s birthday. I hadn’t responded to any of her texts, though I’d kept my eyes peeled for each one. A pic of Kennedy at the beginning of the night, grimacing at her first taste of beer. Her cheeks flushed and smile lax as she sips a margarita. Ponytail loose and falling out around her shoulders as she tips her head back for a shot.
I’d saved all of them, ignoring the growing pit in my stomach that wishes I could be there in person. But even if I had come up with an excuse to join them, Natalie had adamantly stressed when Hart complained, No. Boys. Allowed.
So an hour after I get Morris settled into our racing game again, we both jump at the series of erratic knocks on the door. Morris gets up to open it, and the second he does, Natalie spills in, wrapping her arms around his waist and shrieking his name. Behind her, Stone and Kennedy lean against one another, giggling.
“Fun night?” Morris grabs her arms as she nuzzles the side of her face in his chest.
“We brought pizza,” she says. “And donuts.”
“Who sells donuts this late?”
“Shh, shh, Theo, let me eat them.” She tries to shush him but ends up smacking him in the mouth with splayed fingers. Then, she lets go of him to dig in her purse, and Morris helps her stand when she sways too far in one direction. When she pulls out a box of donuts—a brand I recognize from a local corner store just off the bar strip—she cradles it in her arm, stroking it fondly, each pet jingling her bracelets.
“Yeah, Morris let us eat,” Rylie grips Natalie’s shoulders. The movement makes both of them fall back, knocking into Kennedy, who holds a pizza box out of the way, though her reflexes are just as sluggish as theirs.
“A little help?” Morris asks me. I sigh like it’s asking a lot of me, though I’d been about to get up in a second, anyway.
I reach for Kennedy first, and she smiles with pink cheeks, leaning towards me…
I snatch the pizza before she drops it. And then, because Stone almost trips, I lead her to the couch. Between the two of us, Morris and I sit the bumbling trio in the living room with their drunk munchies, which they consume without a care for getting sauce and grease and cheese on our furniture. Even Kennedy, normally so attentive to her appearance, doesn’t notice when chocolate frosting from a donut slops her jeans when she drops it.
Her face and nose red, and hair completely down, she’s toast. Curling up on the couch and giggling when Mason and Stone get in a heated shouting argument over who gets the last donut.
I take a photo of Kennedy, drunkenly smiling back at me. Then I take one of the three of them, sending it off to Hart with a short message that his girlfriend’s about to come to blows over a circular pastry.
“Share, Nat,” Morris says, handing the donut to Rylie. “You have ice cream in
