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Cooney was in his normal spot on the couch. “They had a fight,” he said without looking up from the notepad he was scribbling some notes on. “It’s obvious. Just look at them.”
Astaire slowly lowered her phone, then looked from me to Kenzie. “Oh,” she said. “And you get really hungry when you’re fighting?”
Cooney chuckled. “He’s keeping an eye on her. The food is an excuse. I bet his room is full of uneaten shit right now.”
“I’m not listening to this.” I snatched my plate and headed for the stairs to the basement.
“Talk to her,” Cooney called after me.
Unfortunately, I had a feeling I was going to have to talk to her, even if I’d rather not. That was one downside of sharing a room.
I went down to the couch I was using as a bed and scrolled through my notifications and emails. I had a handful of nagging emails asking for updated timelines or begging for excerpts. There was a text from my father reminding me that my old friends were still trying to bring in another partner and had been asking about me.
When I’d first detached myself from my old life, I thought it would be temporary. I never planned to go this long on my own. But Patricia made sure that old life was gone. It wouldn’t matter if I wanted to go back to it. The guys might tell my father they wanted me as a partner but working with them would mean surrounding myself with people she’d poisoned towards me. It wasn’t an option, even if it was what I wanted.
This was simpler. The more people I pushed away, the smaller my list of worries became. Kenzie was just one more person I needed to cut out from my life.
I spent a few hours picking at my story in progress, but mostly only managed to re-read and correct a few obvious mistakes. I expected Kenzie to start an argument when she came to the room, but she only went to the bathroom, took a shower, and got into bed as if I wasn’t even in the room.
It was for the best, and I knew that because it stung like fire in my chest. All the good things in life hurt. Every single thing worth doing made you feel like shit at first, but if you stuck through it and made it to the other side, it got better. The things I needed to worry about were the things that felt good. Like talking to her when I wasn’t being an asshole. Like fucking her. Like…
I rolled to my side and forced my eyes closed. Once I was sure she was asleep, I’d sneak all the uneaten food from under the couch up to the sink and toss it. Fucking Cooney needed to give up writing and start a profession as a mind reader. Prick.
At that moment, I might actually endure a conversation with the man if it meant getting any insight into what Kenzie was thinking, but I knew that was hopeless. I didn’t understand Kenzie or the way her mind worked in the slightest. After our fight, I doubted I ever would.
25
Kenzie
One of the best forms of therapy was writing. Especially when I was inserting a certain moody asshole from my personal life into the story and torturing him. I wasn’t sure how much of what I was writing would survive the final draft. After all, there wasn’t a vast market for romance books with overly descriptive torture scenes and ball stomping. But writing it out certainly helped vent some of the frustration I’d felt after the argument I had with Sebastian.
Argument was a strong word.
It was more like an assholement. Yes, I made that up, but yes, it also made sense. An assholement was a noun and it was the act of revealing one's assholish tendencies. That’s what Sebastian had done. He’d just made completely sure I really understood what an idiot I was. I kept tricking myself into thinking it might not be the worst thing in the world to have feelings for him, and he kept reminding me I was a lunatic for thinking so.
And he’d earned himself a ball stomping torture cameo in my book for his trouble. So there.
I’d also pulled up my blog and started a particularly juicy entry under my alias “Monster Milker.” This time, I’d crossed a previously uncrossed line and made things personal. I wasn’t just taking sections of his book out of context. I was cross-referencing lines of dialogue with snippets of paparazzi reports and drawing false conclusions.
It was all hilariously bogus, but it was fun and also helped make me less pissed about everything that had happened.
I still wanted to punch Sebastian in his very punchable face, of course. I just wouldn’t let him being a dick ruin my day any further.
