Everything in me breaks for Kenny. She fidgets with her backpack, and her perfectly painted nails shine like sirens. Her sweater slips off her shoulder, and her bra strap is showing. A part of me wants to fix it, fix everything for her. But she’s sexy as hell and perfect, and there isn’t a thing about her I want to change.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” A strong ache pulls in the pit of my stomach. Everything about today must have been pretty lousy for her, starting with me attacking her with my towel, the sad confession about her stepfather’s words, then the finale—baring her perfect body to fifty different students when I wish to God it were only me in that room with her.
Professor Webber makes her way outside, flagging us down in a panic. “I’m glad you’re still here.” She hands us each a check. “You’re both welcome back, anytime. Of course, you’ll have to be paired together. Your chemistry sizzled off the page.” She winks over at me before darting into the unseasonably clear evening.
Kenny and I emit giant white plumes with our heavy breathing as if we were on the cusp of discovering something far more intimate about one another than our bare bodies could ever reveal.
Kenny waves her check in the air. “Food and rent.” She tries to hand it to me, but I won’t take it. Kenny did that out of obligation to me. She wanted to help. “I thought maybe you could call someone to look at the heater, but it somehow magically fixed itself this morning.” She shrugs.
My stomach hardens like a stone when she says it. She wanted to repay me—help me fix the furnace I wouldn’t turn on in hopes she’d keep landing in my bed night after night. I’m worse than a predator, and I hate myself for it.
“Well”—she wraps an arm around my waist. I can feel her shiver as she tucks in close—“let’s get me to a bar and celebrate the fact I can legally inebriate myself. God knows I need a stiff one.” Her eyes spring wide as she realizes her Freudian gaff.
“Beer or wine?” I ask, trying to keep a straight face.
“Oh, honey, I think this calls for something much, much harder.”
I tick my head back a notch as I take her in. Kenny is a vixen in a league all her own and she doesn’t even know it.
Maybe that slip wasn’t so Freudian after all.
In fact, I do believe Kendall Jordan just propositioned the hell out of me.
“Happy birthday, Kenny.” I press in a gentle kiss, soaking in all her beauty as I pull away.
“Thank you, Cruise.” She bats those doe eyes at me and reduces me to a big ball of hormones just begging to detonate.
I’m going to tell Kenny that I love her on her birthday.
Who knew?
The night, glows in hues of purples and navy with fresh snow on the ground as we head out to properly inebriate Ms. Jordan. I followed Kenny home, so I could fulfill my role as designated driver.
The University Bar and Grill glows like a pumpkin lit up on Halloween with all the same devilish intent that particular night conjures—along with an assortment of pornographic implications thrown in for good measure.
“Drinks!” Kenny hops up and down. I’ve never seen her take a sip of anything remotely fermented or manufactured in a microbrewery, so the fact she plans on hitting something “hard” amuses me on every level. I predict I’ll be washing out vomit from the inside of my truck in about three hours.
We walk up to the pub and I lay my hand over the frozen door handle, pausing for a second.
“You want to talk about what happened in my class?” I can feel my Adam’s apple rise and fall as I swallow. “I know that had to be tough for you.”
“It’s my birthday.” It comes out far sadder than expected. “Maybe some other time.” She reaches up and cradles my face for a moment, and her lips part as if she’s about to say something profound, but nothing comes. I’m not sure what I expected. Hell I know what I wanted, but what I want and what I get seem to be two different things on a consistent basis.
I open the door, and the scent of perfume and tequila wafts over us, creating an equally intoxicating combination. A blast of rock music hits us like a volatile force field as we engulf ourselves in the questionably upright establishment. We play bumper bodies as Kenny leads us to the bar in haste as if she’s afraid they might run out of liquor before we get there.
This was the place to be on any given night when I was keeping myself physically entertained—“dick kicks” is what I lovingly referred to the time I spent trolling these unsacred halls.
“Sex on the beach!” Kenny chirps to the bartender before she hits the stool.