Kendall #2
He glanced over to me, the corner of his mouth lifting in a quick and unpretentious grin, before it faded and a shadow passed over his eyes.
“Nah, not really. A couple of years ago I got kind of hooked on those DIY Tiktoks, and then I started streaming home renovation shows. Haven’t had much of a chance to really apply anything, though.
Hailey didn’t trust me to fix anything around the house, so she ended up calling someone in for every little thing. ”
“Well, feel free to fix whatever you can around the cabin and around the house when we leave,” Mom said, her lips pulled into a thin, unhappy line. Of course, she didn’t like the idea of his misery any more than I did.
Dad came back into the room waving the screwdriver like a victory flag, and handed it over to Rhys, who went right to work on the cabinet door.
I happened to know neither of the two of them were particularly handy either, so they’d probably be really glad for his help.
I had stuff around my apartment he could work on too, but it felt slightly inappropriate to voice that after I’d just imagined sinking my teeth into one of his ass cheeks.
When Benji and Josie returned from their inspections and declared they hadn’t found any issues, the four of us hauled our luggage to the back hall of the cabin where our three rooms were. The primary bedroom where Mom and Dad would sleep was on the other side of the cabin.
“You’re in the owl room,” I told Rhys, wheeling my bulging suitcase down the hall.
“Pardon?”
“The owl room,” Benji reiterated.
“All the guest rooms in the cabin have a theme,” Josie explained. “Benji and I sleep in the fish room because it has a double bed. Keke sleeps in the duck room, so y-”
“Keke?” Rhys interrupted her incredulously.
It wasn’t really his fault he wasn’t in the know about our nicknames and inside jokes. He’d been gone such a long time. I was incredibly lucky that the guy I’d been inseparable with since elementary school had married a girl I’d also become inseparable with.
“Keke,” she explained, patiently gesturing to me before hooking an arm around my neck and tugging me to her so she could plant a loudly smacking, affectionate kiss on the top of my head. In return, I wrapped my arms around her temporarily over-sized waist and laid my head on her chest.
Rhys stared at me in exasperation for a moment, before his eyes drifted to his brother, his dark brow raised.
“You’re going to let some guy hang all over your girl like that?” He asked.
Benji snorted, turning to stare at me. I blinked at him from his wife’s chest innocently.
“Somehow I’m not too worried,” he responded, and it was silent for several seconds before we all dissolved into laughter.
“You don’t have to be jealous, you know,” I informed Rhys, after we’d all finished dragging our luggage into our designated rooms. “You can call me Keke, too.”
“I’ll pass, Sparkles.”
The use of the nickname, something I’d once cringed at other people calling me, felt oddly intimate coming from him. It was affectionate, and strangely sweet. Something just between the two of us.
Later that night, after Dad had grilled meat and vegetables for us to chow down on and the two of them had retired to bed, the four of us sat out on the big porch, lounging on the ultra-comfy patio furniture. Citronella candles flickered on the tables in front us, keeping the mosquitoes at bay.
Rhys had asked a lot of questions about mutual acquaintances in town, and things that he’d missed out on in the decade he’d been gone, which we’d all answered the best way we could.
We talked about how the big, spooky house in the same neighborhood as the Kensington place, which had been abandoned since before I’d even met them, was in danger of being torn down.
It killed me. I’d loved that house for as long as I could remember.
It was the kind of place that kids dared each other to run up and touch in the middle of the night, because it looked like it should be crawling with ghosts and ghoulies.
But it wasn’t scary. It was just empty. I used to sneak in and hide out there when I didn’t want to bug Benji and Rhys’ parents anymore for the week, and just needed somewhere quiet I could sleep or cry without feeling judged.
I’d kept a diary there, under a loose floorboard, because I’d needed to be able to vent somewhere about the feelings I was having. And I was sure if my dad ever found it, he’d probably have killed me.
Things had gotten better after I’d finally tearfully confessed to Benji about how all the times he’d talked about the girls in our class that he liked and wanted to kiss, and I’d agreed and said I did too, I’d been lying through my teeth.
I’d been so scared of his reaction I’d nearly thrown up all over his Power Rangers sheets.
But he just let me cry and ramble about how messed up I was, and how no one was going to want to be my friend but I couldn’t help how I felt.
And when I was all cried out, he just told me not to worry and that he wouldn’t stop being my friend even if I liked boys, but not if I liked Garrett, our sworn enemy who led the bratty little gang that were always hogging the swings on the playground.
I promised him I didn’t like Garrett. I didn’t tell him who I really liked, but years later it would become so obvious that even he would figure it out.
And he still never made fun of me or judged me for that, even though he totally could have.
“Is your mom still calling you all the time?” Benji wondered suddenly, after a lull of peaceful quiet.
“I had to block her number, actually.”
My feelings for my mom were complex and painful.
She hadn’t screamed at me and knocked me around in an attempt to toughen me up and coax the effeminate traits to exit my body and disappear like my father had.
But she hadn’t made an effort to stop him or protect me either.
She was all about that part in the bible about wives serving and submitting to their husbands or whatever.
I didn’t know if I could forgive her, or when that would be.
I didn’t want to forgive her. She didn’t deserve it, and I didn’t need or want her in my life.
I’d been urged by people, always older boomers with no sense of empathy, to forgive her because I’d regret it one day if I didn’t.
They didn’t understand what it was like to be punished for something I hadn’t chosen to be, and couldn’t change about myself.
The implication that I was hurting her more by cutting her out than she’d hurt me by letting him abuse me nagged at me like a painful, bitter cavity.
Benji and Josie had never made me feel that way.
I glanced over to Rhys, who was watching our conversation with obvious interest, but he hadn’t commented.
My heart sped up in my chest, anxiety trickling into my blood as I realized how much it would hurt my feelings if he didn’t support my decision.
It was silly to feel that way, I knew. He didn’t owe me anything.
He was just my best friend’s brother. He was already nicer to me than he had any obligation to be. But…
He shrugged a shoulder, giving a sniff as he shifted in a more relaxed position on the lounger. “You don’t need her. Just do what makes you happy.”
My heart, already thumping like a rabbit’s in my chest, smacked up into my ribs and I had to bite down into the tip of my tongue to keep from saying anything too pathetic or revealing.
Like how I’d never cared so much about what a single person’s opinion was of me, but the thought of his disapproval sent chills up my spine.
My hand clenched into a fist on the cushion next to me but I forced a casual expression on my face and gave a little nod.
“Yeah,” I agreed lightly. “I don’t need her.”
THE NEXT MORNING, I slept in. By the time I pulled on clothes and stumbled down the hall, Rhys was the only one sitting in the kitchen. He had a bar stool pulled up to the island, looking somewhat bored as he scrolled on his phone.
“They’re at the store, grabbing some last minute stuff,” he explained at my questioning look. “There’s food for you in the microwave.”
Pleased to see pancakes and bacon had been left for me, I mashed a few buttons to warm it up before pulling up a seat across from him.
“You didn’t go with them?”
“And leave you here all by yourself?” He asked, lightly smirking as he glanced up. The barely-there rasp in his voice alerted me he hadn’t been up that long either. “What if a serial killer broke in?”
But when he pushed a scribbled note toward me and I skimmed it, I realized they’d left without us because they hadn’t wanted to wake either of us up.
“You think I need you to defend me against a serial killer?” I wondered, and he tilted his head, obviously amused by my answer.
His eyes were this heart-wrenchingly gorgeous shade of light blue, so fair they almost looked minty when the light hit them. I’d always loved them. And now framed by his glasses, they looked even prettier.
“I’m sure you could handle it,” he said. “As long as he was still a toddler.”
Scoffing, I swallowed the giant mouthful of syrup-soaked pancake I’d shoved in my mouth. “You don’t think I can fight?”
“No, Kendall. I don’t.” His response was so blunt and flat, I couldn’t help but snort.
“Okay, but I have other skills.”
“Not arguing that. You make a hell of a cookie.”
“I have other skills, too.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
Because he was so poetically handsome with the sunlight from the giant bay windows pooling in over his toned body, the only skills that were coming to mind were the kind that resulted in really good orgasms.
“I, uh, did a lot of theater stuff in college,” I finally said, because I couldn’t think of literally a single other thing I’d ever done.
He hadn’t shaved yet, and the stubble on his chiseled jawline paired with the way his long fingers were gripped around his phone were turning my brain inside out. “The Peter Pan show we did sold out.”