AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I took in my friend’s words, thinking about all the times Kennedy had shown me how she loved me, by making dinner and buying silly gifts and taking such good care of Finn and me, but then had trouble accepting the same from me. “What do I do?”
Dylan took a breath deep enough to raise his shoulders as he rolled his pint glass around on its edge. “Keep showing up. Keep telling her you love her. I think that’s all you can do.”
I curled my lips over my teeth in thought. Sure, I could do that, but in the meantime, I needed to do something with Finn. “I’m back to square one with childcare.”
Nate placed a napkin and pen in front of me. “Make a nanny list again?”
I let out a derisive laugh and scratched out a few words.Wanted: Kennedy Novak. Must love me and Finn.
From over my shoulder, Jude read my sad scribbles out loud, and Nate chuckled. “Awfully specific there. I don’t know if you can find exactly that.”
“I don’t know,” Dylan said into his beer, his eyes focused over Jude’s shoulder. “You might be surprised.”
“My name’s Kennedy, and I hear you’re in need of a nanny.”
Except for Dylan, the rest of us whipped our heads in that direction to find Kennedy in all her glory, glossy hair curled and spilling over his shoulders, wearing my favorite pair of dark jeans and a snug sweater under her white coat with her big black bag over her shoulder. She took my breath away, even if her smile wobbled.
“Can we talk?”
Dylan set down his beer, not even half drunk, and pulled his keys from his pocket as he stood. “I’m gonna head home. No one talk to me for the next three days. I’m going to be too busy fucking.”
“Bro!” Nate turned on him. “Don’t think I won’t swing on you again.”
“Your sister’ll be mad.”
As the two continued to bicker, with Dylan walking toward the exit and Nate talking trash from behind the bar, Jude slipped his coat on. “I’m going to go relieve my mom.”
That left Kennedy and me alone.
Being a Sunday afternoon, the bar wasn’t very busy to begin with, but we might as well have been in a vacuum, her and I staring at each other. Even though she wore her usual makeup with thick lashes, dark eyeliner, and what I knew was blush and bronzer because I’d studiously watched her do it so many days, I could tell she was tired. It was in the way her smile didn’t reach her eyes and in the set of her shoulders. I wondered if she wasn’t sleeping well. Like me.
I gestured to the stool next to me, and she gingerly sat like she wasn’t sure if she was going to stay or not.
I motioned to the taps. “Do you want anything?”
“No, I…” Her throat lifted on a visible swallow. “I’m so nervous, my stomach’s upset. I’m worried if I drink something, it might not stay down.”
I felt like shit. I didn’t want her making herself sick. “Want some water, at least?”
“No, really…” She shook her hands in front of her. “I got myself all psyched up to go to your house, and then you weren’t there, and I didn’t know what to do because I wasn’t sure you’d answer if I called or texted, and I figured I might as well check the one or two places I knew you went,” she said all in one breath.
“Where did you go?”
“I went to Imagination and looked around then decided to come here, in case you were here.” She turned her palm up to me. “And you are, so it all worked out, but also not because now we actually have to talk, and in all the times I practiced this monologue, I didn’t imagine it at Walt’s, and it’s kinda throwing me off.”
“You’re not auditioning for me,” I said, hoping she’d stop and take a breath.
Which she did, and then she hung her purse over the back of her chair and removed her coat.
“If it helps with your nerves, you can picture me naked,” I offered, earning a reluctant smile that transformed into a frown when she started crying. “Hey, hey, please don’t cry.”
She dug through her purse, plucked out a small plastic dinosaur and a single sock, belonging to Finn. She was such amom, especially when she plucked a tissue from a little packet she’d located. She wiped at her nose and eyes then focused her gaze on me. “Sorry. Hearing you make a joke… It hit me in the gut, you know? I’d convinced myself that there was no way you could ever forgive me, let alone joke around with me.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up her hand. “I know you’re about to tell me not to apologize, and I’m going to work on that. But you and Finn, you are the two people I should apologize to.”
“I don’t want it. What I do want is an explanation.”
She licked her lips, toying with the tissue, mumbling, “I guess the long and short of it is… I love you. I love Finn. I?—”
