“Kelsey! Stop. You’re overreacting.”
She spun on me, her eyes blazing. “There was a naked girl in your bed. I’m supposed to be cool with that?”
“She’s a friend from back home.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
I dragged a hand through my hair. What was Bree thinking? And why had she been naked? Because she was waiting for me? Hell, for all I knew she’d come to town, hooked up with one of my roommates, and fallen drunk into my bed. “I don’t know what she was doing there, okay? I didn’t know she was coming to town.”
Kelsey’s eyes glistened with tears and she sniffed. “I thought you were a nice guy, Kennedy. I thought I could count on you to not be an asshole like everyone else.”
“What do you want me to say?”
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as she studied me. “I want you to tell me that you aren’t attracted to her. I want you to tell me that if we weren’t together and you’d gone back to your room to find her tonight nothing would have happened.”
“But we are together,” I objected.
“I need to know that you would have sent her slutty, tattooed ass away, even if you didn’t have a girlfriend.”
“She was drunk, Kels. I don’t fuck drunk girls.” Even if the sight of the drunk girl in question had turned my whole body into a live wire.
She scoffed and lifted her chin to study the night sky. “You’re so noble, aren’t you?”
There was nothing I could say, so I shoved my hands in my pockets and waited as she fought some sort of internal battle. It took every fiber of my self control to stand here when I wanted to run back up to the room. Back to Bree.
“You’ll cut it off with her?” Kelsey finally asked.
“What?” Okay, it made sense why she’d be confused. “No, Kelsey, Bree and I are not together. We never have been. She’s an old friend. That’s it.”
“If we’re going to stay together, I need you to break it off with her. Tell her you can’t be her friend anymore. That’s the only solution here.”
Two weeks. Maybe two and a half. That was how long Kelsey and I had been dating exclusively. In what world were such demands acceptable after two weeks? “You want me to drop a lifelong friend because she got drunk and made a mistake?”
Her hand was soft as she reached up to stroke my cheek. “You’re so sweet, Kennedy, but that was no mistake. She was there to seduce you, and she’ll do it again. She doesn’t even care that she’s ruining your friendship, and she definitely doesn’t care that she’s threatening your relationship with me. So, yeah, it’s her or me.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“She’s been my friend since we were kids. She spent half of her high school nights staying in the room next to mine at my parents’ house. I’m not just going to throw away our friendship.”
She dropped her hand and backed up a step. “And yet she just proved how easily she was willing to throw it away. Goodbye, Kennedy.”
I watched her go, the leaves crunching under her boots as she scurried up the steps to her dorm. I waited for the hurt and regret to hit, but it never came. Our relationship was too new to feel like a loss.
I jogged back up to my quad. My roommate Ted was watching TV in the common room when I came through the door. I blew past him and into my bedroom, but it was empty.
“She left,” Ted called.
“Fuck!” I slammed my fist into the wall, and a sharp pain shot up my arm. I rubbed at the pain and squeezed my eyes shut. Leave it to Bree to pull something like that and run away.
When I looked up, Ted was leaning in the doorway. “No offense, man, but you chased down the wrong girl.”
I was soaking in the tub at home when I heard the pounding of feet racing up the stairs. I sat up, water sloshing around me and my heart kick-starting as I reached for a towel. After Kennedy’s almost kiss, I needed to be alone, but the sound of heavy steps in my empty house sent my mind back to the night I’d been here alone and those men had broken in.
“Come on, Bree! Where are you?”
The door swung open at the same moment I registered that it was Kennedy calling me.
He stepped into the bathroom, and I sank back into the bubbles, my hand pressed against my chest. “You scared the shit out of me,” I grumbled, closing my eyes.
“Why did you just run off like that? Don’t you think it’s time we finish this conversation?” His gaze dropped to the bubbles and the blood drained from his face, as if he only just realized he’d walked in on my bath. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’ll wait in the bedroom.”