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I was absolutely losing it.
At the last moment, I snatched a T-shirt from the hamper and released my orgasm into it, sighing with relief before wincing in regret.
I’d violated Kennedy’s privacy and dignity. Whether she would care or not,Icared. I had seen her naked without her consent and then masturbated like some creep.
I had to tell her. Not the masturbating part, but the me getting an eyeful part. It was the respectable thing to do.Right?
I shook my head as if I could knock some sense into my brain and stripped off my clothes. Pulling on sweats, I weighed the options of admitting what had happened. Make it weird for both of us and possibly lose the best thing to happen to me in a long time,orkeep it to myself and wallow in shame.
“You’re such a goddamn idiot,” I muttered, scrubbing my hands through my hair before spinning in a tight circle, like I could find the answer on my walls.
A knock sounded, interrupting my breakdown, and I froze. There was only one person who could be on the other side of my bedroom door, and I sure as shit wasn’t ready to face her.
Still, I swung it open to find her smiling up at me. “Hey, Professor. I didn’t know you were home, but I heard some noise in here.”
Did she hear me fucking my own hand?
Did she know I saw her naked?
Did she understand that I was a man at her mercy?
I cleared my throat. “Uh, yeah. Left school early. Thought I’d get a jump on the long weekend.”
She clapped, hopping on her toes. “I don’t have rehearsal tonight. Do you wanna do a movie marathon? I’ve been trying to talk Finn into watchingToy Story.”
“Oh no.” I tried to play it cool. “You don’t want to hang out with us. You have off until Tuesday.”
She pursed her lips, narrowing her eyebrows as if she didn’t comprehend my words.
“You don’t have to stay here. Go out. Go have fun.”
Her confused—and maybe a little hurt—shrug hit me in my solar plexus. “You don’t want me here?”
“No, I…” I rubbed at the back of my head, keeping my focus on the floor. “I figured you’d have better things to do than hang out with a three-year-old and his dad.”
“But I like that three-year-old and his dad.”
My chest ached. Actually fucking ached, and I couldn’t say no to her. Slowly, I raised my gaze and attempted a smile, though it felt wonky. Her answering grin was not. It was pure sunshine.
“Finn should be up in a few minutes. I ran him ragged at the park, so he could barely keep his eyes open this afternoon.” She waved for me to follow her down the hall. “I’ll make pizza for dinner, but how do you feel about mixing M&Ms in your popcorn?”
“I like whatever you like,” I told her, because I was a spineless single-celled organism, who apparently could do nothing but follow this girl around.
I’d been so messed up in the head over what happened with Kennedy that two days later, I was still thinking about it. When Finn had smacked his hand over and over on the car’s window in the back, saying, “Pop! Pop!” while I was in the drive-thru at Starbucks, I’d ordered without being conscious of it, so we’d arrived to Imagination with a handful of cake pops for all the kids.
As they happily munched on the treats, Jude and Dylan eyed me. I slugged my coffee down in an effort to ignore them.
I finally gave in after a minute. “What?”
Jude was the one to answer. “You look…wound up.”
If I could laugh, I would. But I was indeed wound up with too much anxiety to find my situation humorous. “I am.”
“What’s going on? I thought everything was going great.”
Jude, Dylan, Nate, and I had a group text thread for occasional check-ins and random links to stuff. Like the beer brewing thing Nate invited us to or the TikToks Dylan sent us that were of this woman with a really big mouth—like, an unhinged jaw big—and she was basically trying to find restaurants with the tallest sandwiches and eating them. Originally, Dylan had opened a TikTok account to troll me with videos aboutme, but he’d fallen down this sandwich-lady rabbit hole. Though it was rare, we did sometimes ask how the others were doing. Which was why Jude thought everything had been going well since Kennedy had moved in.
“It was going great,” I said, leaning over to place my elbows on my knees, “until I saw her naked.”
