“I can make that happen,” I shout up over the live band that’s busy destroying a perfectly good set of speakers. Hell, I’d make any fantasy come true for Kenny.
Her tongue runs over the top of her lip, and she intensifies her gaze into mine like a promise.
“Looking forward to it.” She relaxes her elbows on the bar and rocks steady to the music.
“So what are you looking forward to tonight?” I lean in until our shoulders touch and order a beer I plan on nursing until Kenny passes out.
She scans the room and frowns. “I don’t know. I was thinking about having a fire sale with my virginity. You know, get it over with so I can start mishandling the boys at Garrison.” She gives a quick wink.
I think we both know she’s not that person—that she never really was. But maybe all she needs is one more push in the wrong direction to realize it. I just hope once she does—she also realizes she might have feelings for me. Because what I’m feeling is too wonderfully large, too fucking fantastic to ever be one-sided.
“Body shots.” I pull my cheek back, no smile. “Lesson for the day is letting some slopped-up, drunk, virally hormone-induced frat boy lick your stomach clean.” I try to hold back a laugh. If that doesn’t send her running for the hills, I don’t know what will.
“Body shots?” She looks around uneasy as she chews on her lips. God, how I’d like to chew on those full lips for her. “So you’d let some frat boy defile me that way, huh?” Her face deflates at the idea.
My heart gives an unnatural thump, alerting me to the fact I should probably say no. That I should pony up right here, right now at the bar, and fill her in on a few pertinent details about how I really feel—how I’d hang any frat boy by his shoestrings who tried to get anywhere near her, including my ex-pal, Cal.
She swallows hard at my omission of words and bolts over to the viper pit, teeming with profusely tanked Greeks, at the other end of the room.
“Kenny, wait.” I jump out of my seat just as the bartender sets down our drinks. Kenny hops up on the bar and sways her hips to the music like a seasoned stripper. Her jacket is missing, and her shirt is unbuttoned all the way to the bottom with the ends tied just under her rack, and I know damn well that’s country for fuck me.
“Shit,” I say, trying to squeeze my way through the crowd. “Kenny,” I shout up at her, but she’s avoiding me all together. Way to piss her off on her birthday.
“Body shots!” She yells over the music with the enthusiasm of a cheerleader during a Hail Mary touchdown. She lies on the bar and I lose sight of her due to the insurmountable interest she’s drawing from the boozers sporting their boners on their sleeves.
I try to wrestle my way through the crowd, catching a glimpse of her between drunken frat boys, only to find some idiot’s face buried in her chest, rocking his head side to side.
“Shit.”
Kenny sits up and tries to bat him away as I plow through the tangle of bodies. I lose any polite bone I may have ever had and blow through men and women alike before snatching the asshole by the back of his shirt and launching him across the room like a ballistic missile.
A pair of arms yank me backward—a fist crashes square over my lips.
Shit. Idiots usually travel in packs, so the barrage of unexpected limbs firing in my direction doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is the fact I launch my own assault and land three of the morons on the ground in a heap.
“Kenny?” I turn back and catch her buttoning her blouse. She looks over at me with a naughty smile pulling at the corner of her lips. My insides explode in a ball of lust at the sight of her. Nothing like a bar fight to confirm that the girl you’re going to spend your life with is staring you in the face.
My legs pull out from underneath me, and I land hard on my side, knocking the air from my lungs. A swift blow to the gut leaves me choking, followed by the more traditional kick to the nuts. Then, as a grand finale, a power blow to the head stops me cold from participating in the fine art of nursing my balls.
The world warbles in and out like a dream as the room fades to grey.
12
Kendall
The Gift
They killed Cruise.
I whimper as the bouncer dropkicks him onto the snowy sidewalk like a rotten sack of potatoes.
“Cruise?” I rattle him by the shoulders, demanding he come to because I’ll be damned if he dies on my birthday. “Cruise! Wake up,” I scream, slapping him gently over the face.
He pulls his knees in and winces. Maybe I should have left him unconscious for a little while longer. At least that way he could have staved off the pain of having his balls inverted.