I looked at his smiling face and reddened. “October second. When’s yours?”
He grinned, the sexy dimple causing havoc to my insides. “March eleventh. Yours is closer, we should celebrate. Maybe we could do a few shots?” I stared at him open-mouthed and he chuckled. I wasn’t used to this version of Kyle. I liked this Kyle… A lot.
“Hey, I thought we were doing the friend's thing, no flirting,” I teased, even though I enjoyed his flirting almost as much as his kissing. Well almost…
“You should be in college princess.”
I clammed up inside, my body tensed as I pulled away from him. I slipped away from him and moved towards the door. “I’m pretty beat, I’m gonna go to bed. Night Kyle,” I mumbled. I thought I heard Kyle groan, as I closed the door behind me.
Kyle
Lee rushed out of the room so fast after I mentioned the college thing that I knew I must have touched a nerve. The kicked puppy look in her eyes made me want to kick myself in the balls. God I hated being the one to put that look in her eyes. I wanted to know why she didn’t finish school, there was more to this than she was saying. I was like a dog with a bone.
I didn’t know her mom had died when she was a baby. Damn Rachel and her razor tongue for bringing that up. I couldn’t believe I told her about my mother. I didn’t talk about my mom, ever. It was too fucking painful…
Touching her on the couch had been a bad idea, I was fucking riled up.
I shifted off the couch in frustration and went upstairs. I couldn’t believe I had agreed to this friendship thing. The thoughts I had of her were far from ‘friendly.' I shook my head, fuck I was going to do this. I could be her friend. I needed to run, get out of this house for a while, or take a very cold shower.
Lee was costing me sleep, every night I slept in the room next to hers.
Chapter Fourteen
Lee
Since Cam and Derek were a couple, I found myself spending a lot of time with Kyle when we were at home. I think I secretly used the couple card as an excuse to allow myself to be around Kyle so much. He made me feel alive and he was easy to be with. I had even gotten used to being around him without drooling…Well almost. He was still the most beautiful man I had ever seen in real life, I didn’t think that could ever be changed or altered.
We had even started hanging out outside the house, purely platonically of course. He gave me a ride home from work most nights if he was free and I tagged along with him to the library where he was a member.
It was heaven in that library. I loved reading and hadn’t had the opportunity to join a library since I arrived. I had always loved reading; it was my thing. Besides, I had never been in a library so well stocked; the library in my highschool was outdated, by about thirty years.
To be fair to him, Kyle had said no more on the subject of college and bravely faced the tufting of the elderly librarian on several occasions to check out romance novels for me. Girly porn’ he called them, I preferred the term ‘romance novels.' He helped me set up my own membership. He was great and we had become friends, good friends. I spent most of my free time with Kyle and with every day that passed, I became more and more enthralled with him.
Most days it felt like I had no balance in my life anymore. My plates had shifted and now focused entirely on Kyle. I lived for our private talks, when he sought me out at work, or when he touched me without realizing he was doing it. The one thing I struggled to deal was Kyle’s women. Every time I had a shift waitressing, he was there. He had a different woman at his table, every single time. It drove me crazy.
I tried to be rational about the whole thing; Kyle owned the hotel and many of his lady friends were business clients, but that didn’t stop my skin from crawling or stop the acid burning my throat every damn time he came in. I had already snapped four pencils taking his orders. Of course, we were friends now, so he always sat in my section, but some days I wished he could read just my mind and see how he was hurting me; flaunting these girls in front of me. The worst days were the ones when he brought Rachel to the hotel. When she was with him, he sat in a different section and ignored me. Those days I cried in the bathroom, because being ignored by Kyle Carter was about the worst feeling in my world.
“You with me princess?”
I jumped, startled from my reverie. We were sitting in his truck and Kyle was looking at me curiously as he unbuckled his belt. “Are we at the library already? Sorry, I was miles away.” I fiddled with the buckle on my belt, but it didn’t budge.
You would think, from the amount of time I spent in Kyle’s truck, I would have mastered unbuckling myself, but sadly no.