Knowing we’re going to see Keaton tonight, I wonder if I should give him a heads up after Eastlyn asks me to come to their house a little later, so she can talk to him alone first. Then I think better of it. He deserves every bit of his sister’s wrath for this one. Eastlyn needs to get it off her chest, so I decide to stay out of it. If I were her, I’d admittedly be pissed—and a little hurt, too—if my brother had kept something like this from me. Hell, I’m both of those things, anyway. Mostly because Keat didn’t tell me either.
Still, it’s Keaton, so of course I’ll fall for his reasoning and if it’s due to the reason I think it is, I might even agree with why he did it, after all is said and done. And, of course, because I’m leaving soon and because I do feel something for Keaton, my stupid mouth opens of its own accord. Before my brain can stop it, I ask East for a favour while I’m gone. “Oh, and promise me something, East?”
“What?” she says, seeing I’ve become serious.
“Make sure Keaton doesn’t get permanently under anyone else while I’m away?” I ask, a little uncertain.
“That I can and will do,” she says, and smiles in understanding. “Now get out. We have a ton of stuff to clear away before we can get the hell outta here.” She points at the door, just as it swings open.
Oh shit, here we go.
“Ms. Hatfield. I’d like a word, please?” McCoy’s strident voice says from the hallway, just outside her classroom door.
And so it begins…
21
You Got Yours, Now I’m Getting Mine
Keaton
Walking into Inkredible on my day off, the last thing I expected to see was Kami standing at the counter, reaching to take a receipt from Beck’s hand then giving some cash to Imogen, who goes solely by Mo.
Mo. Our resident piercer.
What the fuck did Kami just pay for?
“What are you doing here?” I ask, coming right up behind her. Her ass rubs up against my front, I’m that close.
Kami’s breath hitches and I grin—knowing it’s from my closeness—and also at being busted paying for whatever it is she’s paying for. And whatever that is, I’m sure as shit going to find out.
“You have secrets? Well, I have secrets, too, Keat,” she practically singsongs, bouncing on the soles of her feet, the friction teasing my cock.
“Kami,” I grit.
“Keaton,” she mocks.
I let out a long breath. This girl is exhausting, sexy as hell, but so damn exhausting. And I can’t let this go. Even if she did have my back last night when Eastlyn tore a thousand strips off me for keeping the secret about McCoy from her, I’m angry that Kami’s gone behind my back and put one of my employees in a compromising position. Again. I look to Imogen and see her cheeks flush, her gaze avoiding mine, while Becks stands there grinning like an asshole.
“I apologized and explained myself yesterday, about why I did what I did. And aren’t you always saying you’re the bigger person?” I prod. “Shouldn’t you be leading by example right now, and not playing tit for tat?”
“Yeah, well, I wanted to remind you that you don’t get to know everything. Maybe one day I’ll decide to tell you what I had done, but not today, buddy,” Kami says, with so much bravado that I contemplate letting it go—for a nanosecond. “Thanks so much, Mo.”
“And that’s my cue,” Mo says, pushing off the counter and calling Roger, who’s been sitting and waiting for his turn, to come follow her, all the while giving me a pleading look. Which is fine, she knows damn well we will be having a conversation later. I nod, giving her a weak smile, because really this isn’t her fault and I don’t want her stressing. Since she’s a single mom, the last thing I want is her thinking is that her job’s in jeopardy, just because Kami Sutherland is trying to test my resolve and I’m kind of getting off on it for some twisted reason.
Frustrated Kami’s not answering me, I turn her around to face me. “What the hell did you get done, Kam?” I ask, my eyes zeroing in on every piece of exposed skin her baggy, baby-blue T-shirt doesn’t hide, which isn’t much. My gaze drops from her unblemished face and ears to her bare legs, showcased by her denim shorts, and black flip-flop-covered feet, looking for evidence of a tatt or piercing. Damn, even under that baggy T, these curves of hers are quite inconvenient right now, distracting. Rather than continuing to search for evidence of whatever misdeed she did to her body, all I can think about is touching her. I practically groan when I come up empty-handed.
“It’s really none of your business, Keaton,” Kami snaps, interrupting my perusal. “I just wanted something special for myself. Something I could enjoy, for me. And wanted it before I left town. Was worried I might chicken out if I thought about it too long. And I knew you weren’t here to play keeper.”
I go to speak but she cuts me off. “And no. Don’t say that you thinking I’ll just end up chickening out anyway is the reason you won’t give me a tattoo. Just don’t.” Her amber eyes flare with seriousness.
I nod, unable to hide the smile tugging at my lips. She knows me too damn well. That’s exactly what I was about to point out.
“Anyway, I’m all packed for PEI,” she says. “Flight doesn’t leave until later tonight, and Mo was free. So, I took a chance, stopped in and she happened to be in-between appointments. I had to beg her, no thanks to you. It took me almost fifteen minutes to convince her she wouldn’t be in shit, ya big bully. I had to dig deep into my arsenal of girl power mumbo jumbo to persuade her to leave the Dark Side and come to the right side. Don’t you dare get pissy with her.” She pokes her finger at my chest. “It’s not a tattoo, I will tell you that much. Lucky for me, you neglected to ban me from the other methods of decorating my body, so I found a loophole. Besides, Mo is the best at what she does, therefore you’re not allowed to be mad about who I asked, either. If you’re looking to be mad at anyone except at yourself, you can’t, it’s you who didn’t think this little game of yours through. And that’s on you,” Kam says, giving me a satisfied smile and a wink.
A fucking wink! It takes all my might not to pick her up, toss her fine ass over my shoulder, then walk us back to my suite where I can kiss the fuck out of her while inspecting each and every inch of her body until I find exactly where Mo’s handiwork lies.
“That was quite the monologue. You about done?” I ask, our gazes catching and holding. God, she’s beautiful. Game-changingly so.
“I am if you promise to leave Mo out of this, and to stop asking me what I had done. If I want someone else to know, I’ll show them.”
The hell she will.
The idea of another man seeing her body makes me savage. Kami better not plan on showing off whatever it is to anyone else, ever. Chrissakes, this girl is turning me into a ticking time bomb. I run my hand down my face, stressed with both the idea and the fact that I care way more than I’m ready to admit.
I need distance. I need Kami to go away so I can clear these thoughts out of my head and get us back to being the normal Kami and Keaton, the Kami and Keaton I understand. Seems to me we’ve been drifting into unknown territory for longer than I realized. And what I need even more than distance right now is to be on good terms. The tension is becoming too great. I need to rein it in, and prove to myself that I can be the bigger person. What’s more, although I might be ready for a little distance, I’m not ready for it just yet. Not when I can try to steal some us time before she leaves tonight for the next month.
“Let me take you for dinner?” I ask.
“Are you going to be an ass?”
“No more than usual,” I beam, causing Becks to roll her eyes at me from where she’s been watching Kam and me with a shit-eating grin on her face. “Becks. Hold down the fort?”
“Only if you bring me back an iced coffee.”
“Can do,” I say, never once taking my eyes off of Kam’s face.
“And not from Tim’s, I want Planet Bean,” Becks tacks on, and I almost bite my tongue. Almost.
“How
does José deal with you?” I ask, referring to her husband.
“You really wanna know?” she asks, leaning over the counter, ready to settle in and school me.
“We need to leave. Now.” I say to Kam, who thinks it’s hilarious.
“Pizza?” Kami asks.
“Let’s go,” I smile, shifting to let her pass, then following her out the shop into the early evening.
“You can stuff me with all the pizza you want, Keaton Hatfield. You’re still not going to get what you want from me,” Kami says, as we walk across the street to Buon Gusto.
I try my best to ignore the feeling in the pit of my stomach of just how much I do want to stuff her right now, and not just with pizza.
“I always get what I want, Kam. Especially from you,” I smirk, holding the door open for her, the scent of fresh garlic and baked dough wafting out at us from the restaurant.
And I think what I want from you, is you.
As if reading my mind, she utters a firm, “You wish,” swatting my arm as she passes.
I do. More than we both realize…
22
Why Aren’t You Picking up What I’m Putting Down?
Keaton
“Welcome to Buon Gusto. Table for two?” the bubbly hostess asks, as Kam and I approach the podium.
“Please,” Kam says. “Could we possibly have a booth?”
“Of course,” the dark-haired woman says, grabbing two menus and leading us to the back of the busy restaurant. “Your server will be right over,” she says, nodding, then leaves us alone.
“I’m ravenous,” Kam says, picking up her menu, eyes scanning its contents.
You and me both, I think, when I watch her trying to decide what she wants. She definitely wants pizza while, more and more, I think I just want her.
My staring is interrupted when our server arrives.
“…Hi!” The woman’s eyes widen when she sees me. “Oh wow, sorry! I’m sorry. Hi…” she giggles.
I catch Kam rolling her eyes. This isn’t something new. This type of thing happens from time to time, and not just to me, but to Kami, too. Kami definitely garners her own brand of attention when we’re out, so I know it bothers her, just like it does me.
“You caught me off guard. Let me try again. Hi, I’m Amber, can I start you off with something to drink?” our server asks, her gaze never wavering from my direction.
“Hey, Amber, I’ll have a pint of Barking Squirrel, please. Kam?” I ask, because I’m not so sure Amber has noticed her sitting there yet.
“I’ll have a pint of the same, please,” Kam smiles politely, despite how blatantly Amber is ignoring her.
“Of course. I’ll be right back.” She almost curtsies before she turns to go.
“Every damn time.” I look up from my menu to find Kami looking at me with a glint in her eyes. “Poor girl. If she only really knew you. She’d run far, far away.” She laughs, and I gently nudge her with my foot under the table.
“Take that back, I’m a catch.”
“You’re definitely something, Keat. Like I’m always saying.”
“The word you’re looking for is ‘perfection’.”
“Ha.” She leans in closer. “You wish.”
“Come on, admit it. You know I’ll be the perfect ending for someone one day,” I blurt, and immediately regret it. Kami’s cheeks flush, and I know I’ve fucked up. Said too much. I need to back this the hell up. “You wanna share a pie? Or you gonna scarf down your own then eat some of mine, too?” I tease, hoping she doesn’t ask me to explain what I meant about endings.
Our eyes meet and hold for a beat. Kam’s mouth opens then closes, then she tilts her head. Whatever she’d wanted to know, she’s decided better than to ask about it.
“I am not a scarfer, I happen to be a connoisseur of pizza. We have a codependent relationship. It’s yummy, and I gorge,” she beams, and I feel my shoulders relax. Of all the things I could have said today, I picked that?
“Here you go,” Amber says, dropping our beers in front of each of us. “Ready to order?” She taps her iPad.
“Sharing?” I give Kami a quizzical look.
“Never,” Kam snickers. She proceeds to order a personal-sized cheese, pepperoni, and pineapple pizza, then upgrades my Spicy Meat Lovers to a medium with a wink in my direction, making me burst into laughter and drawing a glare from Amber.
We spend the rest of the evening laughing, flirting, and exchanging glances, our hands accidentally touching from time to time as we fight over who gets which piece of pizza.
Everything is going perfectly, until we get the bill. We argue about who’s going to pay. I win. It’s not that that does it, it’s the fact that my dumb ass let Kami see me pocket Amber’s number. The number we both saw Amber slip to me along with the bill.
A number I don’t even want, but I felt I needed to prove something.
Yeah, that I’m a dumb-ass.
I might not have asked Kami again about her piercing, but I definitely did act like an ass even though she’d explicitly asked me not to.
23
Date Schmate
Kami
The Urban Dictionary is an asshole, I decide, scrolling down one last time before shutting down the site I’d pulled up on my phone. I’ve been perched on the arm of my brown leather couch, lost in the interwebs, trying to decide what the hell tonight was between Keaton and I. I’m waiting for my parents to get here, and while waiting, I got bored. Being the masochist I am, I decided to see if the Urban Dictionary could shed some light on the question that’s been rolling around in my head since I got home from my dinner with Keaton a few hours ago.
What is a “date”, exactly?
However, what I discovered—after spending the equivalent amount of time I sometimes spend when I get lost scrolling through Pinterest—is that not only is the Urban Dictionary an asshole, it’s often quite full of shit, too. All I got out of my query was confusion, and a trip through a whole spectrum of emotions.
It started with excitement, when my eyes honed in on the results page’s first definition:
Date: An activity between two mutually-attracted people which very often ends in one or both leaving sexually frustrated [The story of my life around Keaton].
I was excited at first because, honestly, tonight with Keaton felt different right from the start. Even at Inkredible when he was pissed, there was something different—heavier than normal—between us. Sure, we were us, but there was an intensity behind his eyes. He let me stand my ground, and didn’t push me to the point where I wanted to strangle him and his bossiness. It almost was as if each of us was kind of waiting for the other to say something more. To push the boundary, forcing us to either choose to cross the lines of friendship, or draw them even deeper in the sand.
Maybe if our server had been a guy instead of that stammering Amber, I could have bought into this first definition but, alas, things didn’t pan out like that. Therefore, I pressed on in search of a more accurate definition for whatever tonight was.
Date: An audition for sex.
Was it the second definition? Maybe for Amber, our fabulously fun and ballsy server, it was. For me? Not so much. I’d sat there like a wallflower, watching her fumble all over Keaton right in front of me. Sure, it happens to me from time to time; a guy I know might wander over when I’m dancing, or occasionally purposely bumps into me at the bar and flirts, but not nearly as often as it happens to Keaton. What is it with some women having the gall to flirt with a guy even when he’s clearly with another woman? All throughout the meal, Amber paid way too much attention to Keat and zero to me. She’s lucky it wasn’t me leaving the tip tonight. Honestly, if Keat hadn’t mostly ignored her, I might have left. He knows better. Well, right up until the end he did.
The third definition stood out even more.
Date: Two people getting together for an activity when the possibility of romance between them has been broached but not ruled out.
I liked what th
is one implied. Or I would have, if it weren’t for Keaton turning into Keaton at the end of the meal and pocketing Amber’s number.
Everything had been going great, even when we were joking around, or when it had gotten weird for a minute when he talked about being someone’s “ending”. I died nearly a million deaths when he said that. It took me a moment to process his words, and it took even longer to not take them at the same face value my eighteen-year-old self had when I’d used Eastlyn’s terminology to admit how I’d felt about Keaton to the girls during Truth or Dare at that Labour Day pool party. Even still, we trucked on, shaking off that lapse and resuming our usual flirty banter, while I proved him right by not only eating my four pieces of pizza, but also one of his, and following it up with a few of his crusts. My visit with Mo had made me ravenous.
Thinking back to our time spent at Buon Gusto, it’s obvious there was the potential for what we were doing to fall into a “date” classification, some dabbling into a mix of all three of these definitions, sure, but according to the UD the potential to call it a date was there.
Until it wasn’t.
Until Keaton did what he did best—reminding me of why I don’t take the leap. Why I’ll stay crouched, doing a balancing act on the damn pot for who knows how long.
I still can’t believe Amber slipped him her number in front of me, and that Keaton actually pocketed it with me sitting two feet away.
Clearly, I must have been reading more into our dinner than there was.
I should know better.
In all honesty, I should smack myself upside the head for thinking it could be classified as even a near-date.
“As if I could ever have the nerve to ‘broach’ the subject of being more than friends with Keaton, like that last definition suggests. Damn inverted balls,” I sigh, sticking my phone in my purse, annoyed at myself for bothering to even consider that we might have been on a real date. At least the pizza tasted good (hopefully, Amber hadn’t spit on mine).
First Love (Winning at Love Book 2) Page 15