“The bar was very, very loud. She never heard him ask it.” He pats himself on the back. “Not bad, Wingman Levi.”
“Not bad,” I repeat with an impressed shrug.
Hart stills, hand on the banister railing. The one we’d had to have repaired last semester, after I’d punched him through it when I’d found out about him and Meegan.
Now, he smiles at me. Jerks a thumb over his shoulder, “Rylie in bed?”
I hand him one of the water bottles to give to her. “She almost stripped in front of me.”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “She’s great, right?”
I quirk a brow at him, and he laughs. “Wait, I mean—now I have to beat you up. Because we’re men. Grr.”
He slugs my shoulder and turns to go up. I see his hand on the railing again.
“Levi.”
That makes him stop. Face me with a concerned expression.
I nod in the direction of his room. “You and Stone…” Though I’ve spent the last few weeks with my nose in a dictionary app, these words are a struggle. I push through it, past the feeling like I need to shut my damn mouth and let him go on his way. “How do you do it?”
“Do what, Spence?”
I breathe it out. “Trust her.”
He drops to a step above me and sighs, “Finally. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”
“For what?”
“A heart—” He points to me, then to his chest. “—to Hart. Hit me with it. How much are you hurting inside?”
“Forget it,” I growl, pushing past him up the steps.
He stops me with a laugh. “No, for real, Spence, wait.”
I wait, and he taps the water bottle as he mulls over my question. “How do I trust Rylie? It’s hard to put it into words—I just do?” He tugs at his curly hair. “I know, that sounds like bullshit. I guess it just comes down to letting her see all of me—Not like, a sex thing, Spence, don’t look at me like that.”
He nods, confirming his thoughts. “Yeah, that’s it. I don’t try to hide from her. I show her all sides of me, even the most vulnerable ones. The unfunny stuff. She was the first one I told about my mom, and that shit was tough.” He stares at the ground, blinking rapidly, and I get a glimpse at that side of him he calls unfunny. “I let her know me, Spence. And I know it may bite me in the ass. She may hurt me. Fuck, I’ll probably hurt her. I already did. I could spend all my time waiting for the other shoe to drop, for it to fall apart. But you know what feels worse than that?”
I wait.
He points to his room. “It’s not having her here. In my life. Not seeing her smile or hearing her laugh or getting to kiss her whenever I want. I want her with me for as long as she’ll put up with me. Forever, if I can have it. And it’s trusting I want that that lets me trust her.”
“She’s really done a number on you, huh?” I finally speak.
“Damn right.” He stands, pushes my shoulder with the end of the water bottle. “That’s what we call a healthy relationship.”
We walk up the rest of the stairs, and at the landing, when I expect him to go into his room, he turns back to me and says, “Spence, Meegan sucked. Your parents sucked. But neither of those things mean that you suck.”
“I know that,” I grumble.
“Do you?” I don’t meet his stare for a moment. When I turn back, he shakes his head. “Just you wait. One of these days, you’ll meet a girl you want to spend more than one night with, and it’s gonna punch you in the face.”
I frown. He opens his door and I hear him whisper Stone’s name to the dark.
Her soft reply is, “Spence tucked me in.”
“Heard you gave him a show. Care to repeat it for me?” He shuts the door, and then I’m alone in the hallway, holding a water bottle and wondering when the fuck my friend got so introspective.
I step inside my room. Kennedy’s on my bed, and her head turns, smiling bright when she sees me.
And she’s so picture fucking perfect, on my bed, happy and beautiful and she takes my goddamn breath away.
She sits up, legs hanging over the edge of the mattress, and I’m on her, cupping her face in my hands and bringing her lips to mine. She moans into my mouth, falls right into me, my name a sigh of longing and affection.
One week. I don’t know how I’ve made it this long or how I’m going to make it one more fucking week when she looks at me that happily.
“Kennedy,” I pull away, but she grasps my shirt, holding me in place. She bunches the fabric up, sliding her hands over my abs. I grab her wrists, even though her cool fingers, for once, feel way too fucking nice on my heated skin.
“Spencer,” she slurs, and it’s a convenient reminder why I can’t have her tonight.
I smooth my thumbs over her cheeks, then kiss her forehead. “How was your birthday, princess?”
She smiles, eyes closed. “I’m really drunk.”
“I know.”
“The world’s spinning,” she whispers, clutching at my hands. She leans forward and kisses my chest. “You make my world spin, Spencer. Make it go upside down.” She giggles, and it’s fucking adorable. “Tipsy Turvy.”
Yeah, she’s fucking tipsy. More than that, I realize when she leans too far back and her eyes pop open with sudden alarm. And I know that look, just as well as her dazed drunken glow a moment before.
“Bathroom. Now.” I usher her there just in time for her to retch into the toilet. I gather her hair in my hands, sloppily tying it with the hair band on my wrist and patting her back as she cries.
Once she’s finished, we get her cleaned and I pass her mouthwash. In my room again, I help her out of her
