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“You make me a lot of things,” Kenzi non-answers and looks up at me from under her long eyelashes.
I rest a hand at the small of her back and take her hand in mine, leading us in a gentle sway.
“Is this okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she murmurs.
Close together like this, she feels small. The top of her head just comes up to my clavicle, and I cradle her against me. The need to protect her is a living, breathing animal beside me—but protect her from what, I haven’t figured out yet.
All I know is I want to make her feel safe. Always. When I feel her soften and relax against me, my heart tests the limits of my rib cage. I rest my chin lightly on the top of her head. She smells like strawberry shampoo, the kind of cheap stuff that you buy for kids, and I drink in the scent.
“I’ve changed,” I tell her.
“Well, you’ve shaved,” she murmurs into my shirt. “That’s not exactly a personality trait. It’s facial hair.”
“No, I mean…I know we’ve had fun tonight, but I want you to know that I’ve grown up.”
“Hmm. Stubborn, persistent, doesn’t know how to take a no. I don’t know, those all sound pretty familiar to me.”
I let out an exhaled half laugh. “Okay. Some things are the same.”
We sway together. She nestles in where my shirt splits, and I can feel the heat of her breath against my chest.
“I care about you,” I persist. “And Otto. Very much. When you came back to Hannsett, it was like…the light turned on again. Like there’d been a piece of me missing for so long and I had no idea. Now, with you here, it finally feels—”
“Whole,” Kenzi finishes my sentence.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
We lapse into silence for a minute, just savoring each other’s company.
“I don’t want tonight to end,” Kenzi finally confesses to me.
“It doesn’t have to.”
She buries her face in my chest. “Just dance with me, please.”
I give her hand a squeeze. “You’ve got it.”
We melt into the rhythm together, letting our bodies do the talking. As far as I’m concerned, we’re the only two people in the room.
62
Donovan
I watch from my post at the bar as Jason and Kenzi get lost in each other’s arms. I don’t think they even notice when the song switches and the room changes tempo.
The sight of them does something to me. It feels like a fist around my heart, squeezing too hard, too fast. My pulse quickens, but it’s something else, too.
Comfort, maybe. It’s hard to tell—the sensation is so fucking foreign.
Maria takes a break and folds her elbows onto the bar beside me. Her eyes land on the pair on the dance floor. “Aw. That’s sweet.”
“What? The two of them?”
“No. The way you look at them.”
I scrunch my eyebrows and put my wineglass to my lips. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
