Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Kit adds, “And if you can’t guess, we’re kind of on the down low, so—”
“I’m going to pretend that I never saw anything. In fact, I’m going to message Brady, tell him he has a package waiting at home for him, and then I’m going to go to the library to study and try not think about what he’s doing at home with …” He waves his hand in our general direction. “All of that.”
“We’d appreciate that. We’re so far on the down low his own brother doesn’t know about us.”
That makes whatever-his-number-is pull back in surprise. “Really?” Then an evil smile takes root across his face. “I’m always the last to know everything in this family. I finally have one up on everyone.”
“But … you can’t tell anyone,” I point out.
“I don’t even care about that. Okay, I’m getting out of your hair. Maybe I’ll even find a friend who got summer housing to crash with tonight so you can … catch up. Yes. Let’s go with that phrase. I am picturing drinks and board games and nothing else.”
After he picks up a laptop bag, he waves and tells us to help ourselves to the fridge. He’s gone a minute later.
I cock my head at Kit. “Should we be worried that it was so easy for him to trust us here alone? He basically said Brady has had stalkers.”
“Technically, he’s seen us both naked—”
“And balls-deep inside his cousin. How does he know that isn’t where our obsession began and now we follow Brady all over the country? Or how does he know we’re not blackmailing him with those photos? Maybe we should look at getting Brady a better security system.”
“Better … than his cousin? What, you want to volunteer to be his bodyguard? Besides, the superfans would be after his brother, not Brady.”
That’s true. But—
Kit steps toward me. “Look at you, worrying. It’s so cute. That’s usually my job.”
“Shut up,” I grumble.
“I still worry about him too, but Brady’s a big boy and can take care of himself.”
“You’ve always liked it when he makes you feel needed though,” I point out.
“I do. I like it when I feel needed, period. When we lived together, I liked that you needed me.”
I step closer to him and lower my voice. “Don’t you get it? I still need you. I will always need you, Kit.”
“Then why the distance? Not physical, but … whenever we’re together, it’s like old times, but when we’re apart, we barely speak.”
I avert my gaze because I don’t want to say that him deciding to move across the country hurt me. It broke me.
“Because I’ve been mad at you.” I’ve never had the guts to tell him this before, and now that it’s flying out of me, I can’t stop it.
“For leaving? For quitting the navy?”
“For wanting to get away from me.”
My admission hangs heavy in the air. I haven’t wanted to admit it to myself, let alone out loud, but Kit leaving was the wake-up call I needed. My anger that followed, even though I’ve tried to deny it, is because I’ve wanted something deeper with Kit for way too long.
Kit’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He can’t even deny that he left because of me. I don’t understand it.
“Why did you agree to meeting up once a year if you left to get away from me?” I ask.
He still doesn’t talk. I don’t even know if he can at this point. He stares at me, his pale eyes searching for an answer I’m not sure he has.
And now that I’ve made myself that tiny bit vulnerable, the walls are closing in, and it’s all becoming too real. So I do what I normally do—deflect. With anything. With humor, with sex, whatever I can.
“Should we snoop around Brady’s place?”
“Don’t do that,” Kit says.
“Do what?”
“Change the topic because the conversation is getting real.”
“What conversation? You weren’t saying anything!” I don’t like silence. It makes my skin crawl.
“Because I don’t know what to say.”
“You could start with telling me why you took the job at the Pentagon to begin with. And not the it was a great opportunity bullshit either.”
He hesitates, like he knows the answer will tear me apart. “I can’t lie.”
“So it was because of me?”
Kit winces and then all at once lets out, “It’s because I realized I didn’t know how to live without you, and for roommates, that’s not a good thing.”
When hope blooms in my gut, that maybe this is more, he clarifies.
“Codependent best friends is so overdone. I needed to leave to become my own person.”
And while I can’t fault him for that, I am disappointed that the distance between us now hasn’t given him the same clarity it’s given me.
We stand in silence, inside Brady’s New York home, at a stalemate. I can’t deny we were breaking all kinds of rules when we lived together. And that it would have to have stopped eventually. I just thought it would happen mutually.