“You overdid it. Gonna feel like shit in the morning,” I brush hair from her face.
She hugs my arm. “Don’t go.”
Unwilling to say no, I take off my shirt and get into bed with her, grabbing her phone to set an alarm. As much as I want to stay and witness her first ever hangover, it won’t do to have any of our friends find us in bed together after Kennedy’s wasted. So I’ll wake up early tomorrow morning, before Morris even, and go downstairs to pretend like I’d slept all night in Gray’s room.
I use Kennedy’s finger to unlock her phone, and see the background screen. It’s gone. The selfie of her and Keeland. Replaced with a simple photo of a Busy Beans latte with a foam heart.
My pulse races, but I don’t know why this would have me feeling so anxious. I whisper her name.
“What?” she hums, sticking her nose in the crook of my arm. “You smell good. Like the woods. Remember spring break? I miss your smell.”
“Me, too.” I lay my head on the pillow next to hers.
“What do I smell like?”
“Coffee.”
“Mmm, that’s the best smell.” She closes her eyes and inhales, like there’s a pot brewing right here in the room with us. “I missed you texting me tonight.”
“You were having fun.” Also, I hadn’t wanted Natalie to steal her phone and find our conversation.
“I like your texts,” Kennedy whispers, pressing closer to me. She runs a finger over my collarbone. “They make me really wet. What’s the definition of wet?”
“Your pussy,” I say, and she shivers. I stop her finger from moving further down. “Stop starting shit.”
“If I start, will you finish?” I groan when she tugs her finger from my hand and trails it over her taut nipple. I’ve been trying so hard to ignore them poking through my shirt. “Spencer, why are we waiting? I miss your cock.”
It misses you, and I have to tame down the hard-on in my sweats. The one that agrees with her question. Why are we waiting?
Because I want to prove it to you. That I can wait for something I really want. That I trust you enough to wait for me in return.
That I don’t need sex to want to be with you. That you don’t need it to want to be with me.
“Go to sleep, you’re drunk.” She pouts when I take her hand and hold it in mine between us. Soon, though, her breathing steadies.
And I still haven’t asked her. So before she falls completely asleep, I ask, “Kennedy?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you over him?”
I don’t want to think about how often the question’s been on my mind. Because while I’ve let her see my vulnerabilities—told her about Meegan, my fucking parents, the siblings I don’t know—I haven’t wanted her to see this one. The one centered on her. How much it fucking scares me shitless that the more I let her in, the more she makes a home under my skin, the more it will hurt in the long run when this thing between us is over.
Especially since this thing, us, the reason we’re together in the first place, is from her not moving on from someone else. Someone she gave her whole self to. A guy she’d blindly trusted and devoted herself to loving for who fuck knows how long.
For once, I don’t think of Ashton Keeland as a fucking tool.
He’s a fucking tool who’s also a fucking idiot.
And I thank fuck he gave her up.
“Who?” she yawns.
She snuggles closer. I open my mouth, ready to ask. Did it work? Did you bang him out?
Something in me prompts another question, Then what?
What happens if it did work? If sex with me got her over him? What happens to us? To the past few weeks, all this time since she threw herself at me that first night, to everything that comes after next weekend when I’ve won this bet and I get whatever I want from her?
Does all of that just… go away? Do we go back to our original terms? One night. No telling anyone. We hate each other when it’s done.
I have no words for how much I don’t fucking want that.
Kennedy mumbles my name. I kiss her cheek, and tell her, “Nevermind.”
When she’s asleep, I lift her phone above us, kiss her forehead, and snap a shot. Looking at the picture, it’s not perfect. Terrible compared to anything Kennedy can do. I delete it.
27
Kennedy
Summer’s phone rings off the hook through our meeting. Between each question we go over, she holds up a finger to excuse herself, answers it, and snaps at whoever’s on the other line.
“No, I said I want the charcuterie boards,” she says through clenched teeth into her phone speaker. “Take stuffed mushrooms off the menu. Yes, I need this by…”
I half pay attention, reading over a text from Spencer until she hangs up, holds her face in her hands, and yells with frustration into her palms. When she’s done, she smooths her curls back and says, “Sorry, what were we talking about?”
When I start to repeat the question I’d asked her, her phone rings again. With a huff, she turns it on silent. “This freaking caterer.”
Before that, it was the DJ. Before him, the Prescott Hall building manager to reserve space for the giant fundraising banquet coming up next week.
I ignore the notes I’d been taking and close my laptop. “Summer… why didn’t you start this planning weeks ago?”
If I were in charge of an event this large, I’d have been on the phone with the caterer the second I had the date.
“My hands were tied, Walsh.” She waves them freely in the air. “You know Alpha Beta Beta votes on everything? It takes forever to decide on anything. I didn’t even know the theme until two days ago.”
