Chapter Twelve
They sat at the outside table on the street watching people filter by.
It was easy when she thought it shouldn’t be.
If she took away her situation and it was just her with Bogs, it still shouldn’t be this easy.
After all, she was sitting across the small table from the hottest man on the planet, who was the best sex she’d ever had in her life.
He probably ruined her for any man who would come after.
He was smart, successful, gorgeous, funny.
He was everything. She should be freaking out but instead she sat quietly, eating her ice cream cone with complete ease.
He was leaning back in his seat with his legs extended straight, ankle over ankle, licking his cone. His eyes shifted to her as she licked the drop of ice cream sliding down the cone. It wasn’t meant to be erotic but his eyes heated and narrowed.
She gave him a small smile and winked.
He sighed. “No more ice cream cones in public.”
“Why?”
“’Cause with you it’s like foreplay. I’m imagining all the ways you could lick that cone.”
“Change of subject.” She averted her eyes to a couple walking by with their dog.
“What’s your family like?”
She turned back to see he finished his cone and had balled up his napkin, tossing it on the table.
“Awesome.” She grinned and watched him tilt his head.
“You wanna elaborate, or is that all I’m gonna get?”
Kenzie shrugged, ignoring the spark of excitement. She liked him wanting to know more about her outside the bedroom. “How much do you want?”
“I want it all.”
“Are we talking about something else now?”
Bogs chuckled. “No, we’ll get to exactly what I want when we get to my place later. For now, let’s keep it PG.”
“Okay, well, my dad is a bit of a hard ass but he’s amazing.
My mom died when I was younger, so he kinda had to take that role of Mom and Dad.
” She chuckled. “Poor man. Bought me my first tampons when I was too embarrassed to go buy them myself. Took me to get my first bra. I think he’s still scarred from the experience.
But, uh, he’s always been there, ya know, for me and my brother. ”
“Was your mom sick?”
She stared back at him. This had always been a hard topic, not just because she died, but how she died. She’d come to terms with it years ago, but most people became unnerved and uncomfortable when she talked about it. Kenzie shook her head, uncertain if she should tell him.
“Don’t like talking about it?”
She wasn’t even sure how to answer him. She didn’t know if it made her uncomfortable to talk about her mom because she never got the chance.
Once people found out how she died, they immediately shut down the conversation.
Maybe it was out of respect for her, or their own uneasy feeling about it.
Either way, the conversation always ended.
While most families were able to reminisce about someone they lost, her family seemed to shut out the memory. It was hard on her dad and her brother was so young, the only memories he had of her were in pictures.
“I don’t know…” She shrugged. “No one likes to talk about it. It makes most people uncomfortable.” She sighed.
“She was murdered when I was twelve.” She expected surprise and shock.
Instead she got silence. This was another common response she had grown to expect, then sympathy, then an immediate change to the subject.
“I’m sorry.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. She always hated when people said they were sorry. Saying thanks seemed awkward. She shifted in her seat, glancing up.
“You must miss her a lot.”
She nodded, fighting back tears. Losing her mom cut her in ways she hadn’t thought possible, and the first year without her was heart wrenching.
To say she had come to terms with it was true, mainly because she pushed her mom and her death to a dark corner in her mind.
The tears welled in her eyes and she drew in a deep breath.
“You look like her?”
The question caught her off guard. Aside from Taylor, no one had ever asked about her mom.
Sure, there were questions about exactly what happened, but those usually came from people who were only interested in the sensationalism of murder.
They didn’t care about her mom personally. She dodged those questions.
Bogs was different. He wasn’t asking about the murder, he was asking about her mom.
She sat back in her chair thinking about her mom.
Whenever she did, which wasn’t very often, the memory of her on the beach during vacation popped in her head.
Sitting on a chair with a book in her lap though she wasn’t reading, enthralled with the pitiful sand castle Kenzie had constructed.
It was awful but the best she could do at nine.
Her mother’s wavy hair flying around her face.
Kenzie didn’t even realize until she looked back at Bogs and he was smiling at her that she, too, was smiling. “Yeah, I look like her. Same hair, same eyes.” She chuckled. “My dad always said I was her mini me.”
“Then she must have been beautiful.”
“She was,” Kenzie whispered wondering what she would have looked like today. Older, definitely, a few gray hairs, maybe a few more pounds and wrinkles, but in her head, she would have been beautiful.
Remembering the beach trip again she giggled.
“What?”
Kenzie glanced up at Bogs. His head was tilted watching her, his face calm. She shrugged. “I don’t know, I was just thinking of her and…” She stopped. This was the most she’d talked about her in so long.
“Tell me.”
“It’s nothing really.”
“If it gets you to smile like that it must be something. Tell me.”
She chuckled. “I was just thinking about a beach trip we took. My dad was bummed because there wasn’t any wind to fly our new kite.
My brother and I were so excited, and then it was a major let down, too.
My mom kept insisting the wind would pick up we just had to be patient.
But seriously,” She smirked, shaking her head, “No wind, the air was still, hell, not even a friggin’ breeze but she kept insisting that the wind would come.
Hours later when we were packing up, she announced it was time to fly the kite.
Her and my dad went back and forth bickering but like they always did.
With a bit of humor.” She grinned. “Then boom, it got windy. Like outta nowhere.”
Bogs chuckled. “Mom was right, huh?”
Kenzie laughed, feeling her wide smile spread.
“Yep.” She bit her lip and stared down at her feet.
“We flew that kite for hours. Probably my most vivid memory of the four of us together.” She gazed back up at him.
“Now, every time I feel a big gust of wind, I think of her. Like she’s nudging me saying, “Hey baby girl.” Kenzie snorted. “Kind of silly, right?”
“No.”
She glanced up to see him staring at her without any mocking just a soft smile.
It felt good to think of her mom. Thanks, Bogs.
“One brother, right?” he asked.
“Yep. Carter, he just turned eighteen. He graduates from high school in June.”
“You get along with him?”
“Yeah, better now that we’re older. He was a pain in the ass when we were kids.” She chuckled and smiled thinking of her brother that she didn’t see too often.
“Most little brothers are, just ask T and Stone.”
She snorted with a vision of a young Bogs popping in her head. “I bet you were super annoying.”
He burst out laughing, “That’s putting it mildly. Man, the shit I used to pull with them, it’s a wonder they didn’t kill me and hide my body behind the house.” Bogs lifted his brows with a cocky grin. “Once they started dating, that’s when the real fun started.”
Kenzie laughed imagining all the shit he must have pulled. “So, you’re the youngest?”
He reached for his water and shook his head. “Of my brothers. Ethan’s the oldest, and I got a little sister, Roxanne.”
Rox would be short for Roxanne. There was a burst of relief spreading over her chest. The purchaser of the placemats wasn’t an ex, it was his sister.
“Five kids? Damn...” She smirked. “You mom and dad are troopers, huh?”
“Troopers, saints, glutton for punishment. All of the above. There’s only seven years between E, the oldest, and Roxanne. We were a handful, lucky for them they missed the toddler years. That would have been brutal, I think.”
Missed the toddler years?
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“We were all adopted when we were around ten to twelve. Except Rox, she was five.” He was quiet. Then he continued. “I was nine, almost ten, when I was adopted.”
“Oh.” She almost cringed at her response.
She didn’t know what else to say. He caught her off guard.
She had never met anyone who was adopted.
What was the protocol? Could she ask him questions or would it be awkward?
He didn’t seem uncomfortable talking about it but it was kind of sad.
If he was adopted that meant his real parents weren’t around. Did they die?
“I’m sorry.”
A wide grin, spread across his face. “Why ya sorry?”
She shrugged feeling extremely awkward. She wasn’t sure why she’d even said it. “I don’t know, I mean…” She stammered to think of the right way to put it but now it seemed whatever she said would come out wrong. “I j-just mean…I don’t know what I mean.”
Bogs chuckled. “Kenzie, it’s fine. No need to be sorry, but I think I get what you’re trying to say.”
“Really, ‘cause I’m not sure I even know.”
“Are ya sorry that I was adopted because I don’t have my biological parents?”
She slowly nodded. Why the hell couldn’t she have just said that instead of looking like a complete jackass who couldn’t form sentences? “I’m sorry.”
“I feel ya. You feel bad ‘cause I didn’t have my real parents like you did but the thing is, mine weren’t good like yours.
Don’t even know my dad, not even sure Cheryl, my biological mom, knew who he was.
She was really young when she had me. I was raised by my grandparents until they died when I was about seven. ”