All I Ever Wanted

by Marilyn Brant, Caisey Quinn, Rhonda Helms

  The dance floor thinned as the judges made their way through.

  He pulled back and studied me. “Are we gonna try to win this thing or not?”

  Damn. Even he could tell I was phoning it in, pulling back when I should have been moving close, withdrawing from his touch when I should have been pressing into it.

  The DJ blended one song into the next and transitioned into a song with a faster beat.

  I flashed Kennedy a look over my shoulder and then I took his hand and pressed it against my stomach, rolling my hips to the beat. He spun me back to face him and we moved like that for a minute. The push-pull of the dance was so appropriate. I’d step away, and he’d pull me back in. He’d give me his touch and then take it away. We didn’t move in tandem so much as in opposition to one another, like some long, teasing mating ritual.

  The song worked its way to its crescendo and Kennedy drew my body against his. His hand wrapped around the back of my neck. His other hand found the back of my thigh, drew my leg up around his waist, and lowered me into a dip, his mouth inches from mine.

  The audience clapped and cheered. I knew the applause was for us, but all I wanted was for him to mean it. The song ended and the crowd cheered as the DJ declared us the fourth-year winners. Kennedy gently released by leg and turned to shake the judges’ hands.

  Then he turned back to me. He gathered me into his arms and swung me around. Again, the crowd cheered. Everyone loved Kennedy. He was the town golden boy, the football star, the mayor’s son. What wasn’t to love?

  When he settled me onto my feet again, there was a moment I thought he might kiss me. God, I wanted him to. So badly. I wanted him to delve his hands into my hair and crush his mouth against mine. I’d even settle for an innocent brushing of lips. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.

  I backed away, swallowing and reminding myself that indulging those fantasies did me no favors. “I had a long day,” I said. “I’m gonna cut out early.”

  “The winners are supposed to have one more dance,” he protested, tugging on my fingers to pull me back into his arms.

  I was too pathetic to protest. This was Kennedy, after all. Anytime he flashed a little dimple or looked at me through those impossibly thick lashes, I was a goner.

  We swayed our hips to the music and he lowered his head until his mouth hovered above my ear. His breath sent uninvited shivers of pleasure through me.

  “So, are we going to pretend it didn’t happen?” he asked. His voice was low and rough, and I wanted to rub against it, nuzzle it like a cat. You’ve lost your mind, some sane part of my brain told me. “Because I think we should talk about it.”

  My head snapped back and my eyes went wide. “Talk about what?”

  “October? You showing up unannounced? Naked in my bed? Ring any bells?”

  This was not the conversation I’d expected to have tonight. Didn’t he want to pretend it hadn’t happened even more than I did?

  His dark eyes softened as he studied me, and I stiffened at his pity. I hated that he felt sorry for me.

  “Yes,” I finally said. “Yes, we’re going to pretend it didn’t happen. I hardly remember it anyway. You know me. I get drunk and do stupid things.”

  “And then you avoid my calls for months? Fuck that, Bree.” I tried to escape his embrace, but he drew me tighter against him and whispered in my ear, “I’m not going to let you throw this friendship away just because you’re embarrassed by some dumb drunken mistake.”

  Dumb drunken mistake? Five years of unrequited love and he thought the night I found the courage to act on it was a drunken mistake?

  The vodka was getting to me. Or our dance was. Or both. In my half-tipsy state, I could almost imagine this conversation was going differently, going somewhere worthwhile even. Like my bed. Or fuck, against the wall in a bathroom stall here at the Juke’s. I wasn’t exactly picky at this point.

  Was it really only three months ago that I’d flown back to Ohio to surprise Kennedy at school? I’d been so lonely. Because I didn’t love my life in New York as much as I’d said I did. New York was just like Seattle, which had been just like Chicago. Same loneliness, same floundering, different skyline.

  I’d been dumped by another guy from my “revolving door of men,” as Kennedy liked to call them. The asshole had said I was “too unpredictable.” And all I could think was that Kennedy would never say that to me, that Kennedy liked that about me. I’d hopped on a plane and taken a cab from the airport to his dorm. I’d sipped peppermint schnapps the whole way there, and by the time I stumbled up to his door, my nerves had melted under the heat of too much alcohol. Slipping naked into his empty bed had seemed like a good idea.

  Kennedy hadn’t agreed.

  “Was she your girlfriend?” I asked now. “Or just a hook-up?”

  His fingers toyed with my hair, and I felt his body sag as he exhaled. “Girlfriend.”

  “Did I ruin everything?”

  He dropped his hands to his sides and studied me. We both knew I wasn’t just asking about his relationship with the girl. I’d put our friendship on the line.

  He shrugged. “These things have a way of working out.”

  My cheeks burned, but I wouldn’t let myself break eye contact. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  He nodded, but I still couldn’t make out his expression.

  The song found its end, and I found my excuse to escape. “I need to go home.” I forced a smile. “I’m exhausted.”

  I waved to our friends and pushed out of the bar, Kennedy’s eyes on me the whole time. The cold air whipped at my cheeks as I walked home, sobering me. Sober and realistic was more depressing than tipsy and pathetically hopeful.

  I hadn’t expected him to bring up October, but I guess if I had, I’d seen it going differently. Maybe I’d imagined that if we ever talked about it, he would confess that under any other circumstances it would have been a dream come true to see me in his bed. Maybe I’d thought he’d whisper in my ear how sexy I looked naked in his bed.

  How long was it going to take me to get over Kennedy Hale?

  Kennedy

  “Are you saving the next dance for me, handsome?”

  The sound of Bernie’s voice tugged me out of my reverie and made me pull my eyes off Bree’s form disappearing down the street. I should have offered to walk Bree home, but after that dance I didn’t trust myself to be alone with her.

  Bernie wrapped her hand behind my neck, not bothering to wait for permission before inserting herself into my arms. I took her hand in mine to keep some distance between us, but I didn’t have the heart to push her away again. Bernie was really harmless. She was just a lonely lady who drank too much. Not so different from Bree in some ways.

  “When are you going to make things official between you and that Baxter girl?” she asked, as if reading my thoughts.

  “We’re just friends.” It was an objection I’d been stating since we were teenagers, and it was true. I had no desire to have more than friendship with Bree.

  Okay. That was a lie. There were definitely parts of me—particularly parts farther south—that wanted more than friendship with Bree. But sex was cheap. Look what it had done to my relationship with Bree’s best friend Everly.

  No, I’d learned my lesson. The kind of friendship I had with Bree—or had had before she’d pulled her little stunt in October—was priceless. It was the good bet, every time. Something I could count on. I wasn’t selling it out just because the smell of her perfume could get me hard in point-oh-three seconds.

  “Probably better,” Bernie said, patting my cheek. “She’s too much like her mama. Can’t stay still. Always looking for the next adventure. Never happy to be in one place.”

  She was happy in Abbott Springs. She just moved because she thought she was supposed to.

  My phone buzzed at my hip, and I excused myself from Bernie’s arms to take the call. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Kennedy! Would you do me a favor and swing by Aubree’
s house on your way home tonight? Linus told me he had to leave on business, and I don’t like her staying in that big house all alone.”

  Was I seriously the only one who hadn’t known Aubree was coming into town? “Sure, but I saw her at Juke’s a few minutes ago. She said she was fine staying at her dad’s.”

  “She was just being polite,” Mom scolded. “Go get her and bring her here where she belongs.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I promised. My mom loved Bree like one of her own—perhaps more than her own. After Bree’s mom had skipped town, Bree spent many of her nights at our house. Her relationship with my parents made me jealous as hell. While my parents insisted I live life on their terms, their surrogate daughter got away with everything. Tattoos, drinking, older men. Mom had always just winked and let it slide. Maybe she’d never objected because she didn’t have any claim to Bree. Or maybe it was just because Bree was Bree, and stifling her boldness would be like blotting out a shining star.

  “Thanks, sweetie. And don’t forget, we have lunch with the board on Saturday. I know you want to spend time with your friends this weekend, but your dad is counting on you being there.”

  I groaned. The last thing I wanted was to go to some fancy dinner and have the men talk about my future like it was their own. Maybe if Bree came, she could keep the subject more neutral. Maybe if Bree came, I wouldn’t hate every minute of it. Further evidence that the best thing we could be for each other was friends.

  “Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but I put the air mattress in your room. Your sisters have friends over for the weekend, and they’ve taken up residence in the guest bedroom.”

  “You’re going to make Bree sleep on an air mattress?” I really wanted to ask if she was out of her freaking mind. What kind of mother put a girl like Bree in her son’s bedroom? Did she want me to screw up everything? I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out all of the all-too-vivid scenarios playing out in my head. Oh, the possibilities.

  “No, Kennedy,” Mom corrected, “you take the air mattress. She can sleep in your bed.”

  “Mom, I’m not sure that’s appropriate.”

  “Nonsense. We all know you wouldn’t do anything inappropriate.”

  Aubree

  The walk from Juke’s to my childhood home was short, but the wind was wicked. By the time I entered the house through the garage, punching in the code to disable the alarm, the cold had sunk deep into my bones.

  “Hello?” I called. I already knew my dad wasn’t here, but I wasn’t sure if the maid would be around.

  When my plane landed in Cleveland, I’d turned on my phone to find a text from him: Sorry, kid. I had to take care of some last-minute business in Hong Kong. I hired a limo to meet you and bring you to Abbott Springs.

  A limo. I hadn’t seen my father in a year—he’d barely made it home at last Winterfest before I had to leave again—and all I got when I came home was a fucking limo. That was my relationship with him. He gave me everything money could buy, and all I really wanted was a hug. So, you know, your basic clichéd poor little rich girl.

  I made my way through the servants’ kitchen to the back staircase and up to my old room. I knew what I’d find there. Furniture gleaming from a fresh polish, the bed, newly made with a fluffy down comforter, maybe even some fresh flowers on the dresser. And all the loneliness an only child could ask for.

  I hit the landing and my footsteps echoed through the empty space.

  God, I hated this house. I knew my father did too. There were too many reminders here. Everything was exactly as Mom had left it. I wished he would sell it, but part of him still believed she might come back.

  “Must run in the family,” I muttered, pushing through my bedroom door.

  I was exhausted from traveling all day and second-thinking my decision to come at all. The unexpected time with Kennedy had left me feeling blindsided. The memory of his hands on me during our dance had left me feeling something else altogether. I just wanted to warm up and wash the travel-yuck off myself before getting a solid night’s sleep.

  The bathroom attached to my bedroom was stocked with Aveda products for my arrival. Dad probably thought I used this stuff year round in New York, but I couldn’t afford it. He would have written a check if he’d known that, but I’d spent the last six months living under the delusion that I could make it on my own. It was bad enough that he’d financed every move without qualm, never making a peep about me settling down. Would that change when I told him about Paris? Maybe. Or maybe he’d be happy that I got her back in my life.

  I turned the water as hot as I could stand it and stripped while it warmed. When I stepped under the spray and closed my eyes, I let the water pressure hammer at my loneliness. I should’ve been used to coming home to an empty house. I should’ve been used to the push-pull tug of hope and disappointment being home inspired.

  We’d had a dog when I was a kid. His name was Paws because I’d gotten him when I was eight and apparently had no imagination when it came to naming pets.

  Paws would jump the fence and go down to Abbott’s Sweet Confections and raid their dumpster for day-old chocolate cookies and muffins and Danishes. He would get miserably sick every time, and he’d lie on the patio afterward and look up at me with those big brown eyes, just begging me to make it better. But despite his misery and our attempts to prevent his escapes, he did it again and again. As if he couldn’t resist the siren call of day-old chocolate baked goods.

  This trip home reminded me of Paws’s dumpster raids. An irresistible, joyful treat that would only end in misery and self-loathing.

  I had gone so far as to tell Kennedy I wasn’t coming home for the festival this year, but much like Paws, I was weak. When Everly called and told me she was going to perform here, I’d known it was the perfect excuse. I’d wanted to see my friends and remember the good old days. I’d wanted to see Kennedy and forget October.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to let me.

  I scrubbed my scalp and exfoliated my limbs to within an inch of my life, and by the time I turned off the water, my skin was humming.

  I grabbed a towel off the heated rack and ran the plush terry cloth over my skin before tucking it under my arms and heading through the bathroom door to the bedroom.

  “Did you decide to save some water for the rest of the town after all?”

  I jumped at the sound of Kennedy’s voice and clutched at the towel wrapped under my arms. “Holy shit! You scared the daylights out of me!”

  He kept his eyes on my face. Of course he did. But I was standing there in a freaking towel, and I would have thought he’d at least look at my legs or the way the towel clung to my breasts or…something. There I stood, weak in the knees just because he didn’t shave this morning, and he didn’t have the courtesy to sneak a peek?

  I was pathetic.

  So. Pathetic.

  “Get dressed. Mom is pacing the floors. She won’t sleep until she knows you’re safe in under her roof.”

  “Seriously?” Once, shortly after Mom had left, our house had been robbed while Dad was out of town and I was in my room. I’d heard them downstairs, scrounging through our stuff, and I’d called the police with shaking hands. After that, I’d started staying at the Hales’ while Dad was away.

  “Seriously,” he said, crossing his arms and not once dropping his gaze to my better assets.

  Paws, I thought, I totally get you.

  Kennedy

  Bree was gorgeous. A goddess. This wasn’t news to me. Despite what she thought, I’d noticed. Fuck, had I noticed. I’d noticed before seeing her in that little towel, and I’d noticed before she’d climbed into my bed in October.

  After her mom skipped town, she’d slept more of her high school nights in the room next to mine than she had in her own home. What guy in his right mind wouldn’t notice Bree? What teenage boy wouldn’t lie in his bed and imagine her sleeping in hers? What hot-blooded male wouldn’t notice the want to slide into bed with her and
explore her tight curves?

  Yeah. I’d noticed. I’d noticed the way she arched her back when she yawned and that she didn’t sleep with a bra. When she’d stay at my parents’ house, I’d see her light on at night and make up an excuse to come to her. She had no idea how hard I had to fight not to stare at the way her nipples pebbled under her T-shirt. And the nights one of her nightmares would wake her and she’d climb into my bed?

  Fuck, yes. I’d noticed everything, down to the look in her eyes when I’d told her to get dressed. Was it hurt? Vulnerability? Whatever it was, it had hit me hard, like a red-hot fist to the solar plexus.

  God, she was gorgeous. Icy blue eyes framed by thick, dark lashes. The hard angles of her jaw only accentuated the plump pink softness of her lips. Even the glint of the little stone in her nose piercing was sexy. She was always changing her hair, but this week it was dark with thick platinum streaks in the curls that hit her shoulders—plus, of course, her signature red streak through the bit that was perpetually falling into her eyes.

  Wanting her was nothing new. But somehow, until she’d shown up unannounced at my dorm, I’d always missed the way she looked at me.

  Eventually, Bree was going to quit moving around the country like a lost soul and move back to Abbott Springs. When that happened, we’d both be glad we hadn’t ruined our friendship by acting on this attraction between us.

  “You know how Mom feels about you staying here alone,” I explained awkwardly, struggling to act like her semi-nude state was no big deal as she scrounged through her bag for clothes.

  “Okay, okay,” she muttered. She strode back into the bathroom, and I squeezed my eyes shut, half-hard and wishing I hadn’t noticed the few drops of water slowly trailing their way down her thighs.

  By the time she emerged, I was already scooping her bag off the floor and throwing the strap over my shoulder.