All of the guys looked at me sympathetically. “Sucks to be you, dude,” Cole Townsend murmured behind me, clapping me on the shoulder and shaking it gently. “That doesn’t bode well for you.”
“What doesn’t?” Kenton asked as he joined us. Hearing his daughter’s voice coming from the video, he frowned and squeezed between Ellis and Garrett to see the screen of the phone. “Is she… Wait, why does that have the logo for a news channel on it? Did Bexley get into trouble?”
None of us got to answer him because just then, the news anchor came onto the screen.
“When we went to Torus Trading to report on the organized crime and money laundering operation that was uncovered yesterday, we assumed we were finished with our story. As we left the building, we heard screaming and shouting from Pia’s Lotus, an establishment known for its cuisine and variety of Sakes, and assumed we were stumbling across something seedy and sinister related to the original story we were reporting on. What we saw here tonight was, in fact, the celebrations of two women that ended up bringing people together, people who were in shock at what had been going on in their city, under their noses, this whole time. If this isn’t proof that we can withstand anything, I don’t know what is.”
If it’d stopped there, it would have been okay for Kenton. Instead, just then, the crowd started roaring, “Gag reflex, gag reflex!” just as Bex tried to eat a banana in the background. We saw a brief glimpse of her gagging as she bit into the tip, then the video cut off.
“Damn,” Carter whispered next to me. “You’re screwed, man.”
Kenton straightened, his lips pinched tightly together, and then asked, “Whose phone is that?”
Normally DB was a take-charge kind of guy, the one who spoke clearly and confidently no matter what. However, at that moment, when he replied with, “It’s mine, sir,” he sounded more like a kid who’d been caught doing something wrong than the sheriff he was.
“Send it to me,” Kenton ordered, pulling his phone out and reeling off his number. In seconds his phone beeped, and we heard the video start again from the beginning.
We all could have moved away and at least pretended to be doing something, but for some unknown reason, we were rooted to the spot until he got to the end.
“I’m going to kick her ass,” Kenton muttered, putting his phone in his pocket. “No,” he glared at me, “you’re going to kick her ass.”
“More like kiss it,” Garrett snickered, getting a glare from me and a curious look from Bex’s dad.
“What’s that? They kissed?” When the guys from work all nodded, he looked expectantly at me. “Well, all right, then. It took you long enough! So, you kick her ass, and me and her mother will just lecture her about doing dumb shit on live television. Not that I expect her ever to go on live television again,” he added, more to himself than the rest of us.
Raising my hand slowly, I told him, “Uh, the kiss wasn’t exactly an intentional one.” I could feel my cheeks burning as the others smirked at me behind him, including Hurst. “It was an accident. I mean, not exactly an accident because I was aiming for her cheek, but then she tried to kiss my cheek, and we didn’t get the angles right.” I swear, it was like someone had erased all of the pauses speech patterns had to separate words because they all just mixed together.
For shit’s sake, I was telling her dad I’d kissed his daughter… The daughter who I’d humiliated seven years ago so badly that she pretty much ran away from home.
Just to add to my embarrassment, Grandpa walked up behind her dad, having disappeared to use the bathroom a couple of minutes before this atomic bomb had hit.
“Son, not sure you wanna tell a father that you kissed his daughter in public by mistake. See, she’s got a reputation to uphold, and you kissing her makes your intentions known, if you get my drift.”
Glaring at him, I snapped, “It’s not the eighteenth century anymore, Grandpa. Welcome to the modern ages where shit like that happens all the time.”
Smiling smugly at me, he shrugged, “You’re still telling the poor girl’s dad you kissed her, and it didn’t mean jack to you. How would you feel if that was your daughter?”
“I’d be kicking his ass if he did that to Layla,” Hurst chimed in, winking at me evilly behind Kenton’s back.
Looking down at his boots, Kenton shook his head and sighed sadly. “It’s going to break Lorena’s heart when I show her this video and tell her you kissed our daughter—our only baby—and it was all a worthless mistake. You know, Pops always said y’all were meant for each other, and with you stepping up the way you have, he’d be so happy.”
“Damn, son,” Gramps winced. “You’ve broken a dead man’s heart and her mother’s.”
Kenton was opening his mouth to say something else, so I threw my hands up in the air. “Fine! It meant something, okay? It meant a lot, but it was still an accident. She didn’t mean to kiss me—”
“And she booped him on the nose and knocked twice on his head after it,” Carter interrupted, laughing his ass off with the others. “I think we’ve got it on the security cam from the reception area. Funniest shit I’ve seen in a long time.”
“What’s this?” Alex asked as he joined us.
“When Logan kissed Bex,” DB explained through his laughter. “I need to pull the footage up so we can relive it.”
The typically somber and serious Alex burst out laughing, getting a glare from me.
“Sorry, man, but it was hilarious. I was just coming out of the door from the cells when it happened.
