AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Where the hell did that come from? Are you drunk? High? Way to screw up a great friendship, asshole. Plus, ‘Marry me’? Who proposes like that?
Her mouth dropped open. Then snapped shut.
That took a turn. Sharp left, straight into the fucking ditch.
What the fuck, Hendrix?
It was just like that time I’d fucked up and kissed her on the mouth instead of the cheek the first time we ever got drunk together.
I’d spent the last fifteen years pretending we were nothing more than friends, pretending I didn’t stare at her ass every time she bent over in front of me, pretending she wasn’t the reason I couldn’t date anyone longer than a month at a time, pretending any woman I brought into my life could remotely compare to her, pretending I didn’t want—no,need—to be her motherfucking Jerry. Now, I knew what it was like to touch and to be touched by Kennedy Shay. Pretending might not be so easy anymore.
Fuck it. The words were out.
“Quit wasting time with these randos and just fucking be with me.” I moved my hand to her cheek. “It’s us, Ken. It’s always going to be us.”
She blinked. Swallowed. Took a step back.
Well. Fuck.
“Is this some kind of weird demon possession thing? I mean, I get it. Gerard Butler and Jeffery Dean Morgan in the same movie wreaks havoc on my hormones, too. Are you okay? Did someone turn you down at the bar?”
“Kennedy,” I cut her off. “You’re rambling.”
“Hendrix—” She closed her eyes and blew out a sigh. “We’re friends. And I’m probably not in the best mental capacity for this conversation.”
I cleared my throat and smiled. “You’re right. You should probably sleep this off. I’m going to take a cold shower. We’ll both wake up in the morning and pretend this never happened. Deal?”
She looked up at me with those blue eyes and bit her bottom lip while she nodded her head. “Deal.”
KENNEDY
Apparently, I was as bad at reading signals as I was at filing my own taxes. Those were two mistakes I would never make again.
Hendrix and I flirted. We laughed. We fought.A lot.We had late-night conversations about everything from why Scooby Doo was named Scooby Doo to politics, religion and love. We even talked about sex. We did pretty much everything two people could do together. But no matter how blurry it sometimes got, we never crossed that line—the one between friends and lovers. Well, except that one time when I was eighteen years old and he got me drunk on Goldschlager, then kissed me on the mouth. We talked about it, moved on, and found our way back to being friends. Thatkiss was an accident, and so was this.
I didn’t mean to grab his dick. It was strictly impulse. I damn sure didn’t mean to put his hand on my boob. And Ireallydidn’t expect him to propose. We said we would forget about it, and I have tried. Dear God, have I tried.
In a summer edition of Cosmo or on a psychology blog somewhere, there had to be a study on what made completely sane women run from the embodiment of male perfection.
Because that was exactly what I did.
I ran.
I was a chickenshit.
I didn’t sleep it off.
It kept me awake every night for weeks.
It made me break out into a cold sweat every time I relived that moment in my mind. It made my heart clamor its way up my throat every time my phone rang and his name flashed on the screen.
And it made my chest squeeze so tightly it was difficult to breathe when I finally decided to text him back a week later.
Me: Hey! Sorry for being absent. Life has been crazy. Remember the job offer from the Del Monte in New York? They reached out again and I think I’m actually going to talk to them this time. We’ll catch up soon!
Hello, generic bullshit text.
It wasn’t a total lie. The Del Monte had offered me a job after I’d coordinated a wedding for a popular Instagram influencer who posted videos that went viral. Since then, my name was all over the wedding circuit.
