When I reach Kendall’s door I knock and then give her handle a twist, finding it unlocked. I step inside just as Kendall peeks around the doorframe of the bathroom.
“Sorry I was in the shower,” she says, drying her hair with a towel.
“Your neighbor is a nutcase,” I tell her still baffled by what had just taken place.
“Yep,” she says. “You probably scrambled her brain out there looking all manly and stuff.” She laughs and I look down at myjeans and snug T-shirt. “She married her uncle, twice her age, believe me seeing you has most likely kabobbled her brain.”
“Kabobbled?”
“Yep, made it all gooey and hard to sift through. Any logic she had is most likely buried by ideas she hasn’t had in years. She is inside right now, bouncing one out over thoughts of you shirtless.”
I wrinkle my nose at the idea. “You can stop now.”
“I could, but I won’t.” She shrugs and her smile hits me right in the chest. Somehow bringing up anything I’d heard earlier seems wrong. But knowing I won’t be able to sit on this forces me to get it off my chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Aaron
“I should beready in thirty minutes,” she hollers out from her bedroom and I pace the living room trying my best to talk myself out of saying a word.
I hear the blow dryer kick on, and I walk to the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of water.
It’s more like forty-five minutes later she comes out of her bedroom, wearing a pair of black shorts and red tank top with some black wording on it. Quickly she finds a pair of black boots, grabs her bag, and starts for the door. “You ready? We’re late.” She says this like I haven’t been here for close to an hour waiting on her.
Smiling I walk over, hook her by the waist, and pull her in. She yelps, I hold her stare and kiss her lips softly. “You staying at my place or are we staying here tonight?”
“How do you know we’ll be staying together anywhere?”
I cup the side of her face, dragging the pad of my thumb over her jawline. “You’ve been spoiling me, and I’ve gotten used to you hogging the bed.”
“I do not hog the bed.” Kendall laughs.
“Baby you are all over the place when you sleep, but I’m bigger so I just grab hold and pull you back to me. Eventually you stop wiggling and cuddle in.”
“Oh Aaron you are delusional, I do not cuddle.”
Resting my forehead to hers I grin and kiss her softly once more. “You cuddle, babe. When you relax and settle in, you reach a point when you turn toward me, bury your face in the crook of my neck or against my chest, and then your entire body grows heavy. You may not think you cuddle, but you do.”
“I think we’ve overthought this enough and it’s time to go.” She pushes against me. I pull her in harder and when she tilts her head back I kiss her, this time holding on a little longer. She moans, and I swipe my tongue along hers.
Then Rory’s words hit me and I quickly pull back. “We should go,” I say, reaching out to open the door and ignore the way her brows furrow in confusion.
The ride back to Hudson is quiet with only the radio playing. Kendall is tapping away on her phone and it continues to chime with incoming messages.
When we pull into the parking lot at Sully’s I put the truck in park and turn off the engine.
“What’s going on?” I glance over to find her watching me. “And before you say nothing you should realize that I already know it’d be a lie. You were fine, then suddenly it was like an ice coldglass of water got dumped over your head. You jumped away from me so fast, practically shoving me out the door. Then the entire drive here you spoke less than ten words.”
There’s a pause.
“So again I’ll ask, what’d I miss?”
I weigh my options immediately realizing I’ve already backed myself into a corner. “I wanna to ask you something, and I wanna to be able to do it without you getting pissed off that I’m asking.”
“Now I know I’m gonna be pissed. When you start a conversation like that it’s inevitable.”
“Not if you can understand that until I ask this, I won’t be able to move on from it. That is has been beating a fucking hole in my mind for hours,” I confess and she waves me on, but I can see the shift in her mood. There is no longer humor in her face, no longer a hint of a smile on her lips. Her guard is up, her shields are on, and she’s ready to fight.
