Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 217(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54148 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 217(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Has she already agreed to go home with Jeremy? I smile tightly and tell myself to let it rest. I’ve got no claim on her. She’s a grown-ass woman who can spend her nights with whomever she pleases. Just because she feels like mine doesn’t mean she is mine. It’s not my place—
“You’re really gonna fuck that weasel?”
Shit...
Kenzie balks. “Jesus... Not that it’s any of your business, but I plan to sleep on his couch.”
“Does he know that? Because he definitely wants to fuck you.”
She slides off the barstool. I know I’ve crossed a line, and she has every right to be pissed, but I can’t let her walk away until I find out why she’s even considering Jeremy’s couch as a viable sleeping arrangement.
I catch her forearm. “Kenz, wait.” She looks down at my hand, her expression conflicted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just don’t get why you’d want to stay at Jeremy’s when you could stay with a friend.”
“Because I’m tired of burdening my friends.” She extracts her arm from my grasp. “I’m trying to give Holly and Cal a night to themselves.”
“That’s it? You know you can stay at my place if you need to crash.”
She shakes her head.
“You already do too much for me, Austin.”
“Says who?” It takes all my strength to resist touching her again. “I sure as hell never said that.”
“You don’t have to say it to make it true.”
The look of shame on her pretty face cuts like a knife. I’m willing to bet something happened between her and Holly, something that has her questioning her place in their home. I imagine she might feel conflicted about the baby. Holly’s been her rock since they were teenagers. Now her best friend’s priorities are about to be rearranged.
Fuck keeping my distance. I skim my knuckles down the side of her face.
“Let me take you home, Kenz.”
She moves back a step. I drop my hand.
“I told you, I’m not going home tonight.”
“Then you can stay at my house.”
“God, are you even listening? I don’t want you doing me any more favors.”
“But you’ll take a favor from that prick?”
I nod in Jeremy’s direction.
“It’s not a favor if there’s a clear exchange,” she says.
“What exchange?” As soon as the question leaves my mouth, I realize she’s talking about sex. My whole body tenses. “I thought you were planning to sleep on his couch.”
“I’m not an idiot, Austin. I know Jeremy wants to fuck me. But I’d rather go where I’m wanted tonight, than accept one more person’s charity.”
She turns on her heel.
“Kenz!”
“Go home, Austin,” she yells.
She weaves into the crowd. I stand so I don’t lose sight of her blonde head bobbing through the mob. My pulse ratchets as I watch her rejoin Jeremy and his carbon-copied bros by the pool tables, just as a waitress appears with fresh shots.
Kenzie smiles and laughs, but I can tell from across the room that it’s all for show. She doesn’t want to go home with Jeremy; she just doesn’t want to go home.
As soon as the waitress turns her back, Kenzie teases the shot glass from Jeremy’s hand and pours the contents into her own cup.
My hands clench into fists as she downs half the drink in one go.
Well, that’s just perfect... Kenzie spending the night at Jeremy’s was a shit idea when she was sober. Now she’s gone and added booze to the mix.
I count backward from ten, trying to rein in my runaway pulse. This isn’t happening. I don’t care if I have to haul her ass out of this bar myself. She’s not going home with him.
Not a chance in hell.
I surge forward, and come dangerously close to running down a waitress who steps directly into my path.
“Pardon me,” I say, attempting to skirt around her. She blocks me again.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve coming in here, Austin Pope.”
“What?” I tear my gaze from McKenzie to give the woman a closer look. Black hair and hot-pink eyeliner. Ivy vines inked below her clavicles.
Lola. My brother’s ex. I’d forgotten she worked here.
“Can’t talk right now, Lo.” I move to sidestep around her, but she’s quick to jump into my path. She scowls.
“You haven’t come in here for so much as a basket of fries in three months,” she says. “Did Mike send you in here to check up on me?”
“Why the hell would he do that? And more importantly, why would I agree to get in the middle of your shit?” I ask the first question mostly to get her off my back. In truth, she’s not the first of my brother’s exes to inform me of his trust issues.
“Don’t gaslight me, Austin. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
I scrub a hand down my face. When Mike told me they’d split up, he didn’t offer particulars. If I had to guess, she probably discovered he’d been secretly tracking her phone. I don’t condone my brother’s methods but I understand them. After all, we grew up in the same fucked-up home.