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And then he rips himself away from me with an impossibly pained groan, hands instantly going to the sides of his head, chest lifting and falling dramatically with his breaths, the bandage wrapped around one of his palms coming loose at the wrist.
“Fuck… that shouldn’t have happened.”
I don’t glance up into his face until I feel less like I’ve got cotton for brains and noodles for legs. He’s not wrong. This is probably as far from the time or the place for the kiss to end all kisses as you can get. I rub my tender lips together. But I’m not sure I’d go as far as sayingit should never have happened.
His gaze travels my face, and he brushes a rope of damp hair from my forehead before I can let his words sting too much though. “Kenzi…”
I shake my head. “It’s okay. You’re right, this is not the place.” My gaze drops to the ridiculously disastrous job my crunched up wet dress is doing of hiding myanything,let alone the reaction my bold, bold nipples had to his mouth. On mine.Mylo’slips on mine. It’s missing its top buttons and everything.
“Here. Wear this.” His deep rumble of a voice has goose-pimples flaring over my skin and my attention dropping to the shifting of his massiveness as he drags his hoody over his head, my gaze fixing on the slab of ab revealed when his T-shirt rides up with the motion. Even in the semi-darkness, his happy trail is. Fuck. Okay. Not the time.
“Thanks, thank you,” I whisper meekly as the reality of the situation prickles back in past the daze of being kissed back from the edge of head explosion. Felix. The accident. LAIA! I left Laia alone after everything she opened up to me about last night. After how mortified she was at even the thought of being alone with him.
Ohhhh, bad friend. I’m a bad friend. Barely sparing the still stupefied Mylo another glance, I drag his hoodie over my head, hop off the bed, and head for the door. I’ll deal with that, whatever that was, later.
I shove through the door next to the one I’ve just plowed out of, then skid to a stop. Felix. Laid out on the tiny hospital bed, a frown bigger than Mylo’s man bun on his face as his head snaps my way from whatever he was talking to a shell-shocked-looking Laia about. It’s like all of the tension leaves the back of my neck in one grand swoosh. He’s okay. “Fee, don’t ever do that to us again.”
He leans back into the pillows behind him and sighs, long and absolutely fed up. “Takes more than a tree to keep me down, Zi.”
It rushes me then. How close I was to losing another of my best friends to these damn Cluan roads. My chin trembles, my swallow thickens.
Mylo’s warm hands settle on my shoulders, pulling me back into his solid chest before my traitorous lungs can try and do one on me again, his clean-laundry scent momentarily blocking out the underlying hospital smells. Okay. No tears. Nobody died. I take a juddery breath in and then release a just as juddery breath back out. “Just… stay away from trees from now on. And cars.” I brush at my eyes roughly with the back of my hand.
Nobody’s more shocked than Laia when she offers to babysit Fee so he can get signed out going by the pinkness of her cheeks and the saucerness of her eyes. And I can’t even bring myself to roll my eyes. These two…well… they’re a whole other story… the kind of couple you just know are gonna begoalswhen they finally get their heads out of their asses and go for it.
So that leaves me. And Mylo. In the back of a cab. On the way back to the apartment block we live next door to each other in.
Hands tucked inside the sleeves of the hoodie I’m still wearing and clasped between my thighs, I rock forward, the seatbelt digging into my collarbone even through the thick jersey. Did I mention that he, and his clothes, smell like the best kind of freshly laundered hominess? Because they do, and honestly? It’s everything I had no idea I loved in a man-smell. “So.” I rock back and twist around to face him, my bare knee dragging on the leather of the seat between us, nervous energy rattling through my nerves after the worst, but weirdly most silver-lined night I’ve had in a long time.
“Should weeeee.” I scrunch my face when I take him in. He’s staring straight ahead, muscle in his jaw ticking double time. “Hey, Mylo, are you okay?” I reach over but pause before I touch the hand on the knee closest to me. He’s tapping the thumbs of both hands against each finger one after the other, his scowl even bigger and grizzlier than Fee’s was back in the hospital. He looks pissed. The silver of my lining slowly starts to tarnish. “Mylo?” I try again when he makes no show of hearing me the first time.
This time he does look, though, his head jerking around to me like he completely forgot I was there—like he wished I wasn’t, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “The kiss was to distract you from freaking out, Kenzi. Nothing more. The last thing I need is a woman like you…” His unreadable gaze moves over my face.
“Okay.” I run my tongue along the phantom tickle of said kiss on said lips, hurt, and embarrassment flaring no matter how much I try to stop it. A woman like me?
“—it was a mistake, Kenzi. Leave it.”
My brows skulk lower, every reason I put myself on a man-ban smugly telling me that they told me so, that all of the men I’m drawn to are assholes. Fool me once… he totally did. He’sMylo. I’d almost convinced myself he was one of the good ones.
Jabbing my tongue into the back of my top teeth to stop myself from saying something I’ll possibly regret later, I slouch back down into the cab’s worn seat and fold my arms around myself.
A woman like me...
ONE
Kenzi
Quotes, plans, budgets, and the sale pamphlet for the perfect plot of land.
I’m ready. Holy shit, I’m ready.
I scan the architect’s sketches I had mocked up. A beach-side restaurant.Mybeach-side restaurant. Open air, ocean views, classic Cluan dishes with a modern twist, and the understated luxury of dining under the stars. My list of scored-out restaurant names peeks out from beneath my laptop. I tap my pen against my chin but sigh before I can fall down that particular rabbit hole. A name will come. That doesn’t change the fact that now’s the time to do it—to get in before Clua island becomes the next big tourist destination.
Clicking my pen into action, I pick up the brochure I’ve been fawning over for the last week and flip through the pages. Locally hand-painted tiles. They’re pricey, but they’re pretty. And Cluan. And exactly the style I’m looking for.
A bang through the wall to my neighbor’s apartment has me pausing mid-circle of a white tile with a swirling, deep green design. The noises started up a couple of days ago. Bats. Or rats. Or both. I should probably call the big lump that lives there and let him know.
I pick up my cell from the sofa cushion by my leg. Then put it right back down. Right. Just like he called me to tell me he was leaving. We’ve barely talked in months. Who am I kidding? We were barely friends. A baby friendship that fizzled before it popped. That’s it. That’s all it was.
