Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Oh, he thought they should talk, did he? One toe-curling, reason-annihilating, brain-melting kiss later, and the man thought he was calling the shots? After his constant and demoralizing refusals to have any kind of rational conversation with her over the last week?
Someone else might well have allowed the magic of the moment to erase any semblance of practicality, but she was thinking a lot more clearly now and yes, they needed to talk. Because she had a lot to say to him.
She remained silent as he bundled her out of the car and effortlessly carried her up the porch steps, musing that she was starting to enjoy the whole damsel thing a little too much.
She quickly unlocked the door after he carefully deposited her on the welcome mat, handling her like she was precious cargo.
“I’ll get you some towels,” she said as she went to work switching on lights.
Another crack of thunder made her yelp and jump a little. Because the town was situated between mountain and sea, each thunderclap echoed and rolled for at least thirty seconds before fading.
Even Smith swore shakily when the window panes rattled along with the thunder. The wind began to pick up, eerily whistling its way into the house via the sliver of space beneath the front door.
Their eyes met in mutual shock and unease.
“I’ve heard that the storms could get a bit intense in this part of the world,” Smith said. The first words he’d spoken after his decree that they should talk.
“I’ve heard that about winter here, but, I mean…” Kenny shrugged a little helplessly. “It’s late January.”
“Yeah.” He was starting to shiver a little now, and small puddles were forming around his feet.
“Um… I’m going to take a quick shower,” she said. “You can have one after me, if you’d like. To warm up.”
He nodded his appreciation.
“That would be great. I’m also pretty rank after the game. I don’t know how you can stand to be in the same room as me right now.”
Kenny actually didn’t mind the way he smelled. The mixture of aftershave, sweat, and rain was a heady combination, and if she wanted to kept a clear head during their talk, it was best for her sanity if he showered.
“You can borrow one of your old T-shirts and shorts, if you’d like?” she suggested, choosing not to respond to his previous comment.
“Exactly how many of my T-shirts and shorts have you stolen?”
“I haven’t stolen them, merely acquired them. Via the laundry.”
“It’s blatant theft, and you know it.”
She eyed him askance, wondering how much of that disgruntlement was genuine.
Well, if they were going to have this talk, they might as well ask a baseline question the way polygraph testers did.
“Are you really pissed off about the T-shirts?” she asked.
His eyes homed in on her face and she could tell the blunt question surprised him.
His gaze turned inward as he considered it and then shook his head, his lips tilting upwards.
“Not really. Honestly? I kind of like the idea of you sleeping in my shirts.”
“Even The Smiths shirt?”
“Especially The Smiths shirt.” His eyes took on a gleam of possessiveness that stole her breath away.
“Because it has your name on in?”
“Yeah.” His voice roughened, deepened, while his pupils dilated until a splinter of green was all that remained of his irises. “In fact, it would be perfect if we could somehow erase the The and add an apostrophe in front of the second s.”
His eyes were dark and turbulent as the storm raging outside.
Kenny gnawed at her bottom lip.
Okay, then. Baseline set.
“Why do you like wearing them?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed, caught in a trap of her own making. She couldn’t blame the man for wanting his own baseline.
“I started wearing them shortly after you moved out of our room,” she admitted.
“The first one did accidentally find its way into my laundry. But after that, I admit, my means of acquiring them involved sneaking around and larceny. Not my finest moments. But I liked wearing your shirts. They comforted me. Made me feel close to you.”
As baselines went, it was a doozy.
Way too nakedly honest.
Kenny felt exposed, stripped bare of every defense. But defense was overrated. All her defenses had done for her in the past was keep her isolated from everything and everyone.
She kept her chin up and her eyes on his face, watching for any signs of displeasure or rejection.
There was none. There was just a spasm of raw emotion on his face. It looked like pain and she hated that. Hated that she’d somehow hurt him, even if she didn’t know how.
Hurting him had never been her intention.
“I was right fucking there, Kenna. You didn’t need my shirts to feel close to me.”
“You moved out of our room,” she reminded, voice low and teeming with remembered pain.
“Christ, what a fucking mess this is,” he muttered and raked a hand through his wet hair. The gesture reminded Kenny of how soaked they both were. The cold was starting to seep into her bones, despite the relative warmth and humidity in the air.
“Look, we’ll talk, okay? But we need to dry off first. I’ll get those towels,” she stated and fled.
“Would you like something to eat? I can make a couple of sandwiches, or—”
“No. Thank you,” Smith interrupted her.
Kenny swallowed nervously and twisted her hands together as she stood behind the counter in the small open-plan kitchen. Smith was sitting on the only easy chair, considerately leaving the more comfortable sofa for Kenny to occupy. Only she couldn’t quite bring herself to sit down yet.
They’d both had showers and were wearing fresh, dry clothes. Smith was in one of his pilfered T-shirts and while she was in the shower, he’d found a pair of clean sweatpants in his gym bag which had apparently been in his car since yesterday morning.
“Thirsty?”
“Kenna, please sit down.”
She nodded grimly and limped to the sofa on leaden feet. The cast made her movements awkward and jerky.
She sat on the edge of the seat, back rigid, quaking knees pressed primly together.
She was wearing a pair of comfortable black yoga pants and a red hoodie, both of which she’d bought on her shopping trip yesterday.
She didn’t have many lounging around the house clothes, simply because she rarely had the time or inclination to lounge.
Her choice in clothing had been tactical. She wouldn’t have felt comfortable having this conversation with Smith in his clothing; it would have felt like a disadvantage. Kenny needed every advantage she could muster to get through this.
“Your eye looks terrible,” she said, wincing at little at the sight of his bloodshot and bruised eye. “How do you feel? Headache? Dizziness? I should probably have driven us here. That was negligent of me.”
“Kenna.” His voice was patient. “I’m fine.”
“Why do you call me that?” She didn’t know why she’d never asked him that before. She’d just always liked that he did. “Nobody else ever has.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he considered her question, and she had a moment’s doubt that he would answer.
“Why have you never asked me before?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe because I didn’t want you to think I didn’t like it.”
“Do you like it?”
“Very much. I just always wondered.”
“I like the way it rolls off my tongue, the soft rhythm of it. It matches—matched—the way I felt about you when we first met. I also liked that it was mine alone. It felt intimate. Special.”
His words so accurately reflected how she felt whenever he called her Kenna, that she took a moment to absorb the quiet revelation.
They lapsed into silence while the storm raged outside, filling that silence with violent winds, booming thunder, and torrential rain.
She nervously picked at a cuticle before catching herself and dragging her hoodie sleeve over her hand.
She stared at him for a long moment, wondering how to start things. Should she wait for him to speak first? Permit him to decide the direction their talk would take?
No. She was sick of allowing him to control every interaction between them. This was her time to talk, and she wasn’t going to let him hijack this conversation.
It was too important.
She sucked in a deep, cleansing breath and exhaled amid a cascade of words.
“My mother and I were extremely close. Did I ever tell you that?” He shook his head, looking a little bemused.
She sighed, the sound laden with regret.
“Of course I didn’t. It’s just one of the many things I have a hard time talking to anyone about.
” She shook her head in self-disgust, wishing she weren’t like this but not knowing how else to be.
She took a moment to gather her thoughts.
“Uh…we were close. We kind of had to be in a houseful of males.
I was about six, nearly seven, when my parents separated and my mother moved back to Cape Town.
I was so sure she would want me with her.
But they—she and my father—decided that we would all be better off staying with him. In Edinburgh.
“No discussion. End of story. We were simply informed that we would stay with Dad. And Mom would get us during the holidays.”
He made a small, sympathetic sound and she flinched away from the compassion she saw in his eyes. She wouldn’t be able to get through this if he showed her any kindness right now. So she averted her gaze, focusing on the wall behind him, as she continued to talk.
“I know you think he’s autocratic and a domineering pain in the arse, but I love my father very much.
He’s just not very good at showing affection.
” She laughed, a desperate mocking sound, and allowed herself a quick glance at his face.
“I know, that’s really rich coming from me, right?
Dad was even more distant when he was younger.
He was always so preoccupied with work. Cade and Nox tried to emulate him.
Of course, this was just their way of trying to win his approval and gain his attention.
They stopped laughing, stopped playing and became mini versions of our father.