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“Oh, I most certainly will,” Xander said.
“You sound pretty damn sure of yourself,” I blurted, every word tinged with disdain. My eyes locked on his, but I could see Jake and Owen turning toward me in the corner of my eye.
Xander lowered his phone to his lap, returning my cold stare. “I am sure of myself.”
Neither of us looked away. The seamstress circled around me, tugging at the bottom of my suit jacket and muttering something to herself, but I barely registered her presence because I was busy strangling Xander with my eyes.
At last, Owen broke the awkward silence by clearing his throat and saying, “So, Mason here—his daughter is in Kendall’s class, and he volunteers in there sometimes.”
Xander was the first to break eye contact, bringing his phone closer to his face to get a better look at Kendall. “I mean, if my kid’s teacher looked like that, I’d be volunteering, too. Damn.”
I sucked in a breath. “Got any kids, Xander?”
Rather than answer me, he just laughed at the absurdity of that notion. Jake spoke for him. “Xander probably has at least a dozen illegitimate children out in the world. We try not to think about it.”
With his eyes back on me, Xander said, “I’m tryin’ to add a little blonde one to the roster after this wedding.”
The seamstress pulled away to jot my chest measurements down in a tiny notebook. “Well,” I said, running my hands down the length of the open suit jacket. “I’ve gotta say, watching Kendall Devin reject you just might be the highlight of that wedding for me, ‘my guy.’’”
All at once, Jake, Owen, and both seamstresses burst into laughter, and the initial scowl on Xander’s face eventually softened into a grin. “You just wait and see. Wait and see.”
I looked forward to it.
Once our suits were fitted, ordered, and paid for, Owen and I stood between our cars in the parking lot as the other two drove off. He returned Jake’s middle finger as he pulled out of the lot into the street before turning to me, shaking his head in amusement. He and his brother couldn’t be more different.
“How’s STEM for the Win going?” I asked him, crossing my arms. “What’s next for you?”
Owen inhaled. “Well—a lot. Finishing the second book. Adding some new merch to the shop. Got a speaking gig in Atlanta in December.”
“You just never stop, do you?”
He grinned. “No. Sarah says I need to slow down. But what about you? How’s working for yourself going?” He never liked talking about himself or his accomplishments, so his attempt to shift the focus to me wasn’t surprising. “I don’t know if I said this to you before, but I think it’s pretty impressive that you decided to quit your job and freelance. I know firsthand that takes guts.”
I swallowed. Guts? What I was doing didn’t take guts. I’d made the switch out of necessity because I was so desperate for help with Finley. My current earnings were a small fraction of my old salary, and I was putting in minimal effort.
I was nothing like him.
“It’s—I love the flexibility. But it’s the stability that I miss,” I admitted. “I mean, I’m raising a kid in my parents’ basement. Alone. I’m not exactly thriving.”
Owen stared at me for a good while, carefully considering his next words. “You’re just laying the foundation for something greater, that’s all. This part is just temporary.”
I just shrugged. I wanted to believe him—and deep down, I knew this situation wasn’t forever. I just didn’t know if I had the gumption to pull myself out of it. I’d been looking for the motivation to move onto something better since we got here four months ago, and I still hadn’t found it.
I was exactly what my dad said I was—stagnant.
* *
I spent the majority of Sunday night tossing and turning yet again, anticipating having to face Kendall after kissing her. 7:00 a.m. came too quickly, and I was dragging the entire time I got Finley ready for school. Her braid that day was sloppy, but it was good enough. I prayed the extra espresso shot in my coffee at Riverside would jolt me awake before I got to the school.
But Kendall’s reaction to the caramel macchiato I brought her energized me more than any latte could—she accepted it graciously and held it with two hands as she took her first sip, closing her eyes because it was just that good—and the little sound that emitted from her throat was so similar to the one she’d made when my tongue was in her mouth that it momentarily took my breath away.
The perverted comment on the tip of my tongue threatened to spill out, but I somehow mustered up the strength to keep it inside, choosing instead to pull out my iPad and show her the updated t-shirt design. She approved it, choosing the color version—and had me email it to her.
And that morning, we only talked about the festival until the kids arrived. Neither of us mentioned the kiss.
We were professional. Mature. I did what she asked me to do, playing the rhyming game from the previous week, and then she sent me to the hallway to staple the kids’ apple writing crafts to a bulletin board. I grinned at Finley’s: My name is FINLEY and I like GREEN apples the best.
Anyone watching Kendall and me interact that morning would have never guessed we’d kissed just days earlier—would never be able to tell how badly I wanted her when I returned the stapler to her desk and sat in her chair to observe the end of her lesson.
