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He sighed. “That’s not what I said.”
“Oh, I know. It’s just what you meant.”
“You know, with a mind like yours, I’d be curious to see what your writing is like.”
“Really?” I asked. My heart started pounding like he’d just asked me to lift my skirt in front of everyone. Sure, I’d basically done worse when I let him walk in on me naked, but this was my writing. I didn’t let people read what I wrote unless I was writing anonymously, and they had no hope of ever finding out it was me. That way, if it was too embarrassingly bad, I could always destroy my false identity and pretend it never happened.
“Well?” he said. “When can I read something you’ve written?”
I gulped. Don’t be a wuss, Kenzie. “Tonight, if you want. But I doubt it’s your style.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“Was this just a scheme to get me to agree to let you go back inside and stop being social?”
He shrugged. “I don’t reveal my secrets.”
28
Sebastian
I should’ve been tired. It had to be pushing two or three in the morning and Kenzie’s snoring ensured I wasn’t sleeping great. But the truth was I felt completely awake. I’d asked her to read her story aloud to me, which she’d blushingly agreed to do. Kenzie sat cross-legged on the bed with her laptop and I reclined on the couch I’d been using for a bed.
She’d started off reading quietly and without confidence, but gradually started using voices and really getting into the delivery of the comedic lines in her story. When she managed to get a few chuckles from me, she gained even more confidence and eventually had me laughing nearly every page.
I watched her read and found myself transfixed. She was beautiful. I could still remember my first impression of her. I’d thought she wasn’t really my type, but still felt strangely drawn to her. Now I couldn’t make myself see her that way anymore. She was simply perfect. The way her mouth favored one side just slightly when she smiled. The way she kept glancing up nervously to see if I was smiling or amused at certain parts of her story.
I was beginning to see that it didn’t matter what I wanted. I may want to be the kind of man who could choose his career over his feelings, but I wasn’t sure Kenzie cared what I wanted. She was going to keep being fucking irresistible, persistent, adorable, and obnoxious. She was going to make my feelings for her continue to grow, whether I liked it or not.
“Well?” she asked, eyes bright as she watched me.
I shook my head. “It ends there?” I asked.
She nodded. “Sort of. I’ve written more, but that’s the end of the part I’m willing to read to you. There’s a sex scene in the next chapter, and then I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to change a bunch because I screwed something up later. Plus, there’s this really weird ball stomping scene I’m probably going to just have to remove.”
I frowned. “Ball stomping?”
“It’s a long story,” she said dismissively.
“But you’re refusing to read me the sex scene? Are you worried about my fragile innocence?”
Her cheeks went red. “I’m worried about dying of embarrassment, actually.”
“Read it to me,” I said.
“No, I can’t.”
“Then let me,” I said, reaching for her laptop.
She slowly inhaled through the nose, then opened her laptop again and typed her login information. She got off the bed and passed it to me, then rushed back to sit among her pillows. I grinned when she pulled the covers up, like she was getting ready to hide.
I read the story aloud, getting through the pre-sex banter and into the good stuff. I was smiling as I read, but my smile faded when I started to recognize elements of the scene. There was the standoffish man who I now realized bore a description very similar to my own. Then there was the actual scene. The way it went and the things he did… She’d basically written about the first time we had sex, and I wasn’t just reading what we did together. I was reading the way it made her feel.
My voice caught halfway through, and I looked up to find her watching me with a pained expression. “I’m sorry. I can change it if it’s too weird that—well,” She pushed her fingertips to her eyes and grimaced. “God. This is so embarrassing. I wanted it to be real and I don’t really have any experience doing that kind of thing in a way that’s worth writing about. Except when… And well it was also kind of like therapy. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I really felt about everything. Writing it out like this helped.”
“Don’t apologize. Reading it helps me see how much of an asshole I was.”
