I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve totally tanked the mood though. I’m sorry if I ruined your dinner.”
“Nah. You didn’t. I asked a question, and you answered it. That’s how conversation works.” Kellen’s lopsided smile helped ease some of the tension that had been building up in me over the last few minutes. He shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. “So,completelyrandom question,” he began, “and notat allbecause I have a vested interest in knowing the answer. You hooked up with a woman. Not to be presumptuous, but I kinda thought that maybe you were—”
“I’m into guys too,” I cut him off with my blunt response.
“Smooth one there, Grace,” Gage said as he wandered into the kitchen, using the nickname he reserved for those moments when I was being a particularly idiotic blundering fool. “I’m headed over to Devon’s. Be back in the morning.”
I kept my eyes on Kellen as I replied to Gage. “Fuck off, please and thank you.” Kellen covered his laughter with a cough while Gage snickered, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and exited without another word. “Anyway, yes, I’m bi.”
Kellen scratched at his collarbone and tapped his fork against the plate. “I was actually going to say I kinda thought that maybe you were too shy to randomly hook up with someone.”
The color drained from my face and my stomach dropped, probably all the way to the center of the earth.Oh lord. Yet another thing with him I’ll never live down. I was up to at least three embarrassing incidents since meeting him, by my count. But then I noticed Kellen grinning ear to ear.
“You’re such a dick.” He laughed at my accusation. I grabbed a napkin, crumpled it up, and tossed it at his face, which just made him laugh harder.
“I’m sorry, but you stepped right into that. I couldn’t pass on the opportunity.”
“So glad I can be a source of entertainment for you, meanwhile I’m going to go have a coronary now,” I joked.
“Aww, don’t die on me. I’d miss you too much.” Shifting gears again, he asked, “How’d you do on that paper you had to turn in last week that you were all worried about?” I was surprised that he’d remembered, and the surprise must have been written all over my face, because Kellen smiled and followed that with, “I pay attention.”
“No yeah, I know. Thank you for asking. I appreciate your interest in the boring details of my life.”
He pinned me with a stare, his dark eyes searching mine. “You are anything but boring. So, how’d you do?”
“I did okay.”
“Just okay?”
My shoulders raised and lowered in a nonchalant shrug. “I had the highest grade in the class. Ninety-seven percent. So yeah. I did okay.” I grinned cheekily.
“I knew it. Mr. Smarty Pants pulls it off once again,” he teased. He covered his mouth as he yawned widely. It was getting late, and while I was enjoying our conversation, I needed to get to my point.
“Yeah. Um, so Halloween is coming up soon.”Really smooth transition. That deserved a facepalm for sure.
Kellen’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he nodded slowly. “Yup. October thirty-one. Every year.”
I plowed on, shoving away the nerves and focusing on my goal. “There’s this Halloween party I’m going to.” His face perked up, and a flirty smile slowly overtook his tired expression. “Do you maybe want to come with me? I can be the designated driver if you want to drink.” My eyes widened a little, like I was telepathically sending him my thoughts.Please say yes.
“Where’s the party at?”
“Blaine’s. His parents are in Europe right now. There’s always good food and music. Drinks. Dancing. Some people go a bit overboard with…blues.” I didn’t stay up to date on all the current drug slang. Hopefully what I’d said made sense. “But I just ignore that. The cops have never shown, though that may have more to do with his last name than anything else,” I mused.
The flirty expression disappeared from Kellen’s face. I was sweating bullets while I waited for his answer. The longer the silence stretched on between us, the faster my pulse raced.Okay, so he may be secretly annoyed with me for skipping out yesterday.I’m never listening to Gage again.Although in Gage’s defense, he thought Kellen had canceled on me rather than the other way around. But I still wanted to kick his ass. Because Kellen and Blaine had only spent maybe thirty seconds in the same room a handful of times. Surely that wasn’t long enough for Kellen to have formed his own negative opinion about Blaine.
He took a bite and chewed quietly, assessing me as he did. After taking a drink, he finally spoke. “I don’t usually do the whole dress up, dancing in public thing, ya know?”
“It’s not like I’m going to hold a gun to your head and make you do the ‘Thriller’ dance with me,” I countered, pointing at him with a spring roll. “Though I do have the whole thing memorized and could definitely teach you.”
He raised his brows as he took the last swig from his beer. “As impressive as that is, I’ll probably end up working two shifts that day. I’ll take a rain check on the dance lesson though.”
“Oh. Okay. No problem. Just…forget I mentioned anything.” I didn’t mean to sound so dejected, but I always was one to wear my heart on my sleeve, at least according to Grandma. Picking up the closest take-out container, I held it forward without looking at it or him. “Want another wonton?”
“That’s fried calamari, babe.”
I glanced up at him and saw his lips twitching with a held-back smile. My face heatedagain—one of the curses of having a fair complexion from Mom’s side of the family. “Or another beer?” I asked, dropping my gaze to the can in his hand, and aiming to get to the end of this conversation as fast as humanly possible. There was a hole somewhere that I needed to go crawl into, I was sure of it. “I need another can of pop anyway.” I set the container down and hopped off the stool. Before I could take a step toward the fridge, he reached across the island and wrapped his hand around my wrist. My eyes raised and met his. He was biting his bottom lip as if contemplating something.
“Come here.” His voice was kind, but it was a demand nonetheless, and the underlying tone latched around my feet and dragged me forward. He let go of my wrist, and I walked around the counter, stopping beside him. Kellen turned in the stool to face me. The backs of his warm fingers stroked along my cheek. “You look so innocent when you blush,” he said softly. That resulted in my face flushing an even deeper shade of red, and I kept my eyes cast down. He ran his hand over my chest and brushed a crumb off my shirt. My body trembled at his touch. “This is important to you.” It was a statement, not a question, and I knew he was referring to the party.
