I was done caring about what other people thought about my choices. But there was still the question of how I felt about them. And I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t had enough time to sort it out before Kaitlyn came walking in like she owned the place.
“You came three hours to bring me muffins?” I asked incredulously, lifting the mug to my lips casually, trying not to make a face at how cold it was. Knight didn’t say anything as he got up from the table and brought the pot over, topping me off and warming it up. I didn’t even look at him, because I was too much of a coward.
He’d done nothing wrong this time, so what was my excuse? Why was I still determined to keep him as a bad guy in my head?
Self-preservation, a voice whispered. Knight doesn’t do serious.
He didn’t do it, and I shouldn’t expect it of him. I knew what I was getting myself into. I couldn’t let the sweet little gestures make me second-guess everything or I wouldn’t know what to believe.
Kaitlyn shrugged, and I was annoyed at how put-together she looked at this hour of the morning — after driving all the way here. How did she manage to have everything tidy and in order when my life was such a mess? It was infuriating. Especially when she tried to act like it was my fault that things weren’t as easy for me as they were for her.
“It’s a peace offering,” she said, sounding offended. “I wanted to apologize for telling Mom and Dad about your… relationship,” she said, looking at Knight like he was something on the bottom of her six-hundred dollar red-soled heels.
That one word got a reaction out of both of us. Knight squirmed — predictable — and I felt my whole body warm up with a flush that I tried to immediately shove down. Knight’s reaction was all I needed to see. He was acting exactly how I’d expect him to. He couldn’t help it. The guy might be allergic to commitment for all I knew.
It was my fault for wanting something that he could never give me. My fault for being upset that it couldn’t happen. I was the one that knew I’d never be satisfied with what Knight was willing to offer, and yet I still went into it. I still didn’t walk away the way I knew I should.
“Seriously, Day? What are you, fourteen? Relationship,” Kait said again, like she was teasing him with the boogieman.
He glared at her, then flipped her the middle finger, not saying anything at all. I wasn’t sure what to make of that interaction, but I had so much going on in my head that I didn’t know what to make of anything to be honest. It was all too much. Too crazy. Too hard to sort out. I just needed to be alone, but I hadn’t been alone… pretty much ever. Not for any substantial amount of time anyway.
Kaitlyn set the basket down on the table between me and Knight, and then swiped one off the top, breaking off a piece with her perfectly-manicured nails, popping it in her mouth.
“My nephew upstairs?” she asked, earning a glare from me.
She shrugged. “What? You guys look like you have an awkward conversation to have and I don’t think I really need to be here for it, do I?”
“You don’t need to be here at all,” I growled, sure my grip on the mug was going to crack it any second.
Kaitlyn huffed and rolled her eyes. “You’re so difficult. I’m just going to pop in and say hi to him and leave, I swear.”
“And don’t come back until you have a freaking invitation,” I called back to her as she scurried up the stairs.
Knight was just looking at the basket of muffins, his face dark, eyes shadowed. He had a conflicted and I was sure that he was trying to figure out a way to let me down easy. He’d had to do it with other girls before, but not me. And I figured he was worried about messing things up with Cal with this complication.
Part of me wanted to wait for him to say it. For him to admit it and say it out loud that he was too much of a chicken to try something for real. That he couldn’t settle down. But the other part of me was wondering what I’d do if he did want that. I’d spent the last twelve years hearing — and telling myself — how awful and wrong for me he was. This being angry at him wasn’t real. It was just rebellion all over again. I wanted to prove to everyone that he was better than they thought. I wasn’t thinking about being with Knight for the right reasons, and I knew it.
He took one of the muffins and broke off a piece, eating it thoughtfully. “So, she told your parents, huh?”
I didn’t know what I was expecting him to say, but that wasn’t it. That was a surprise, and it was enough of one that I laughed.
“Yeah. You can imagine how well that went over.”
“Like shrimp alfredo at a synagogue, I’d imagine,” he chuckled, eating another piece of his muffin.
I snorted and grabbed a muffin of my own. It looked like poppy seed and was deliciously moist and lemony. For a moment, I just enjoyed that we were joking and having breakfast like that. I forgot about all the drama that had happened between waking up and this moment, and just pretended it was how we’d gotten up instead. That it was just the continuation of last night.
It was better that way.
“Cal told me what you said about them,” he said, looking across the table at me pointedly. I squirmed, his intensity too much for me. I could feel his eyes tracing the neckline of my robe, peeling it back with his imagination. And it was working on me. I was trying to sit still in my seat even though he was making me wet with just that look.
“Oh?” I asked, so distracted I didn’t even remember what he’d just said. His eyes were like icicles, cold and harsh, but they were lit up from inside, almost glowing with this fire that always took my breath away.
Always.
Damn him.
He nodded, and I didn’t know what it was for, because I couldn’t focus on conversation. “I appreciate that you didn’t badmouth me to him like the rest of them,” he said.
I swallowed, my mouth dry, and nodded. “It didn’t seem right.”
“It would’ve been easy though.”
I laughed softly, looking down at my muffin. “Not sure if you remember, Knight, but I’ve never really done things the easy way.”
“Guess you haven’t, have you?” he said, just as soft. He looked across at me, and I thought he was going to reach for my hand. I wanted him to. I wanted this to be more, but I couldn’t open myself — or Cal — up to getting our hopes up. I couldn’t open that door and I knew it.
The stairs creaked as Kaitlyn came down, shouting something I couldn’t understand back at Cal. Knight and I both straightened up like we’d been doing something wrong, but we hadn’t. It was just old habits, I guess.
Kait poked her head into the kitchen. “Everything good here?” she asked, looking at me, then Knight, then me again.
“Get. Out,” I grumbled, half-tempted to throw something at her. If it was my house, I might have.
“Fine, fine,” she said, holding her hands up like she was innocent as she backed away and left through the front door. I waited until I heard her car door, then the tires leaving the driveway before I let out a sigh and looked across the table at Knight.
It’s just like pulling off a Band-Aid, I told myself. You just have to get it over with before this gets any worse. Don’t let him in any further.
I said that to myself like there was any stopping it. Like Knight hadn’t already rekindled the old flame I’d always kept burning for him. I might be trying to tell myself that it was just nostalgia and old time’s sake, but I knew deep down that wasn’t the truth.
The real truth was that I was scared.
Because I came back to Rockford and found a guy that was different from what I expected, but still so much of what I remembered. That was scary. I didn’t know what to expect. He kept throwing me for loops and it was almost worse than if he was just exactly the same as he’d always been. Seeing the little glimpses of his improvement just made me question my judgment, made me wonder if I was really doing the right thing.
But I had to do what I had to do. I couldn’t let Knight destroy me again. Not now that I had so much more to
lose. I had to put space between us, and there was only one way I knew how to do that.
23
Knight
The front door closed after Tenley’s sister left, and it seemed like the sound echoed through the house forever. I got up and poured another cup of coffee, just for something to do, even though I was already feeling jittery enough without it. I didn’t know what was going on right now between me and Tenley, but I knew I didn’t like the feeling in the air. There was tension mixed in with the smells of coffee and muffins, an underlying current of uneasiness.
I looked over at Tenley, and before I could say anything at all, she beat me to it.
“Why don’t we just do the fuck buddy thing?” she said quickly, quiet enough that Cal wouldn’t be able to hear.
I wasn’t sure what to say. That wasn’t what I expected her to say, so I was left speechless and floundering for words.
Tenley sighed and shook her head. “Look, you don’t have to argue… It’s fine. I get it. You’re not the kind of guy to want more than that and I know that. I don’t want to complicate this any more than it already is… But this was fun, right?” She shrugged, not really looking me in the eye.
Fun.
That’s what it was to her. Just a bit of fun. A little roll in the hay with the guy from her past.
She didn’t see anything real happening. She tried to blame it on me, but I knew the truth. It wasn’t me blocking this from happening. It was her. Her and her judgmental family.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by how much it hurt for her to act like this was nothing more than sex, but it was. And it did. It hurt like she’d wrapped my heart in barbed wire and pulled on it.
I’d been fucking stupid to think that the night before actually meant anything. But it felt like something. It felt like we were kids again. Like we had that spark, that fire, that crazy all-consuming passion between us. And not just that, but we got along. We were still able to make each other laugh. I could still read her like a book, whether she wanted to believe it or not.
But she didn’t. That much was clear. She didn’t want anything to do with me.
No.
That wasn’t right.
She wanted one thing from me. She wanted to use my cock for her own pleasure while keeping me her dirty little secret.
“Right?” she asked again, licking her lips nervously. Guess all those years of having no one left Tenley feeling a little deprived. She didn’t want to go without, but I wasn’t good enough for anything more than that. Fucking beautiful.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” I said, pushing back from the table in a hurry. I was still in my underwear, and I’d walked here yesterday, but I didn’t even care. I just wanted to go home. I had to find my pants though, my keys were in the pocket. Never did find my shirt before I walked out of there. Tenley was just standing in the doorway of the kitchen watching me as I walked to the door buttoning up my pants. She was frowning, like she was trying to figure out what I was doing, but she never said anything, never asked if everything was okay.
Not that I could have told her the truth.
She just stood there, her forehead wrinkled with a deep frown.
“So… I’ll talk to you later?” she asked, swallowing, the muscles in her throat working, her delicate neck so tempting, still with the shadow of my kisses on her skin.
I forced myself to look down and push it away. To forget about how much I loved doing everything we’d done last night and grunted in response as I left.
I couldn’t commit to what she wanted from me. I couldn’t promise that I could be just fuck buddies with her. Not with Tenley. Someone else, maybe. But her?
I didn’t think I’d ever be able to keep feelings out of the equation. That had always been my problem with her. My weakness. Tenley touched me on a level deeper than anyone else did. She grabbed hold of my heart, my emotions, my hopes and all that dumb shit I tried to forget existed in all the years since she left.
Then she shows up out of the blue and it was like I had another chance. Maybe a shot at redemption. But I was a fucking idiot for ever actually believing that. For believing she would have given me another chance. This was always going to be a way for her to scratch an itch and leave me in her dust again.
When was I going to learn?
The morning sun was bright and hot on my skin as I walked down the sidewalk. I didn’t even care that I was shirtless, that people might be watching. I’d had enough girls do the walk of shame out of my house that it only seemed fair it was my turn.
Fucking Tenley. She was the only girl who could do that to me. Who could get me so twisted up that I didn’t know what to do with myself. With everyone else in the world, I had a handle on it. But when Tenley was around, I didn’t know which way was up.
And it had always been that way. Ever since we were the smallest of kids. We couldn’t have been older than six the first time I met her at recess on the playground. I didn’t remember anymore what had started the whole thing, but I remembered thinking she was the cutest girl I’d ever seen, and that meant I needed to chase her.
Tenley didn’t appreciate being chased. She appreciated me pulling her hair even less. She had been busy screaming at me and telling me how bad I was when I just went for it. Not a damn clue what I was doing, I kissed her right then and there.
Of course, it didn’t go well. Tenley had shoved me away and spit on the ground, crying that I had cooties as she ran away from me.
But I never gave up. All through elementary school, even into middle school, my constant teasing and flirting with Tenley was relentless. It wasn’t until later that I realized she didn’t know what was going on. Because sophomore year of high school, she’d had enough.
She marched right up to me with fire blazing in her eyes, breathing heavy and hard, and jabbed a finger in my chest…
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tenley all but screeched, people all over the school yard turning away from their lunches to pay attention to the interesting development happening between us.
I shrugged, folding my arms across my chest, smirking at her. She was so damned cute all fired up like that, cheeks flushed, ears red, her nostrils flaring ever so slightly. “What makes you think there’s anything wrong with me?”
She huffed. “Do you have a problem with me or something?”
“Not exactly,” I said, grinning.
She squinted her eyes and glared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing really,” I said, another shrug. “Just that you sure did take long enough.”
Her jaw dropped, eyes going wide, almost bulging. “What?”
I shrugged again, trying not to outright laugh at her, but she was so cute when she was angry. Like a pissed off little field mouse.
“I mean, you’re supposed to be the smartest girl in our grade, but you seem kinda slow to me, to be honest.”
I thought she might slap me, but she was so speechless that I just barreled on before I lost my chance.
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for what… ten years now?” I smirked.
“You… what?” she asked, the color draining out of her face, her mouth hanging slack.
“See? This is what I’m talking about. Anyone with a pair of eyes can tell I’ve had a thing for you since first grade, and you’re still here acting like it’s a surprise.”
She blinked, then looked around, like she was trying to figure out if this was an elaborate prank.
“You… Me?” she asked, incredulous.
I chuckled, stepped closer to her, holding my breath that she wouldn’t haul back and smack me. “Yes. You,” I said, my voice low as I looked down into her eyes, swirling with confusion.
“I’ve been thinking about our first kiss, hoping for a second one all this time, and you never gave me the time of day,” I said, tracing the outline of her plump lips with my eyes. They were slightly parted, just waiting for me, begging for me to take them the way I’d been dreaming about
what felt like my whole life at this point.
Her teeth dragged over that bottom lip, her eyes going down to the ground, uncertain. “Our first…?”
“You don’t remember?” I asked, taking a chance, putting a hand on her hip. Her eyes flicked down in a panic, then she looked all around the quad at our audience and seemed to freak out even more.
“This… We can’t…”
“We can,” I said, looking around, dropping my hand for her sake. “But we can be more discreet, if you want,” I added, giving her a half-cocked grin. My heart was racing, palms sweaty. I never thought in a million years I’d have a chance with the girl of my dreams, but there she was, looking at me with this curiosity that I was sure I could help sate.
She licked her lips, then worried one between her teeth again before slowly nodding. “Meet me at the greenhouse fifth period.”
I stared at her dumbfounded as she walked away and joined her goody two-shoes friends, not knowing what the hell had just happened, but I had never been more excited for fifth period.
And when the time rolled around, I was sure she was going to chicken out. Or worse — that this was going to be some ploy, that she was setting me up somehow.
But she was there, already waiting for me in that cute little dress, twisting the extra fabric of her skirt up in her hands.
“Hey,” she said, not making eye contact.
“Hey,” I said, stepping right into her personal bubble.
She looked up at me, looking as surprised to see me in front of her as I was to see her in front of me.
“Did you mean all that you said earlier?” she asked, making a face like it was hard for her to ask that.
“That depends,” I said. “Are you going to let me have that second kiss?”
The way she was looking at me, the way her lips were parted, her head slightly tilted to the side — I didn’t have any experience here, but I felt like I could read her mind. And I knew without her saying anything, that she wanted me to kiss her.
A Baby for the Daddy: Boys of Rockford Series Page 14