Skyler
“I’ve missed this,” I say on a wistful sigh, drawing circles on Kip’s chest while he plays with my hair.
I’m balanced on one elbow, looking down at the masterpiece that is his body.
It’s early in the morning, and the sun is casting the hills and valleys of his abdomen in shadows and bursts of light.
Perfect.
“What, staying up all night having sex?”
“Well, yes, that,” I admit. “But I mean this — lying next to you, cuddling, talking.” I tap his nose. “Getting to see you in these specs.”
Kip smirks, adjusting his black-framed glasses higher on his nose. “I can’t see your beautiful face without them.”
“You wore contacts a lot this weekend.”
I pout with the realization, and Kip laughs, leaning up to kiss my lips briefly. “I didn’t realize you loved my glasses so much.”
“My four-eyed blond thief.”
“Thief?”
“Yeah. You stole my heart.”
Kip smiles, shaking his head before he pins me in the sheets and slides between my legs, kissing all over my neck. “That was so fucking cheesy.”
“But you loved it.”
“I did,” he agrees. And then he props himself up on his elbows, his sea blue eyes watching mine. “And I love you.”
I answer with another long, telling kiss, inhaling him in and wishing we could stay just like that forever. But my plane leaves in four hours, and by the end of the day, I’ll be across the country again.
My chest splits with the anxiety of being away from Kip, especially after having the most perfect week together.
He showed me around the UCLA campus, let me get a sneak peek of his current film project, introduced me to all his brothers — who he complained liked me more than they did him.
We played beer pong and flip cup and had a very college Thanksgiving, complete with pizzas and whiskey instead of turkey and wine.
We spent time at the beach, taking a surf lesson that made me realize I much prefer the warm water of the Atlantic to the freezing water of the Pacific.
Not that we don’t get glimpses of cool water during the winter months, but for the most part? It’s perfect.
Here, you need a wet suit. And that’s not nearly as much fun as a bikini.
As much as we saw over the past week and as much as we did, my favorite moments were the ones just like this — me and Kip in his bed, holding each other close, saying more with silence than we ever could with words.
I met Rick the second day I was here, and once we became quick friends, I told him I’d book him a room downtown and give him five-hundred dollars if he’d get lost for the week and not tell Kip what I did.
Let’s just say I’m a little selfish when it comes to this boy, and I wanted all the alone time we could get.
Kip groans when we break our kiss, holding me tighter. “I don’t want you to go.”
Another zing of my heart.
“I don’t want to go, either.”
We both sigh, then fall silent, knowing there’s no other choice.
“What if you came to semi-formal in a couple weeks?”
Kip brushes my hair from my face, frowning. “I wish I could, babe. It’s finals time, and I’ve got to submit this project. It’s going to take up every hour of my day once you leave.”
“Did I distract you this week?”
“Yes,” he says quickly, kissing my nose. “But it was worth it.”
I sigh, tracing the muscles of his shoulders and traps with my finger. “I’ll ask Bear. He’s always down for a good time. Although, he’s been sort of distant this semester.”
“Family stuff?”
“I think that’s part of it. But I also think there’s more.” I pause. “I know it sounds crazy, but… I think something might have happened between him and Erin.”
“Erin?” Kip asks, arching a brow. “As in Ex?”
“The very one.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know. They just… look at each other weird. I know that sounds stupid, but they formed this random friendship, which was odd enough, and now they barely talk and when they’re in the same room, it’s awkward. I can’t explain it.”
“Well, let me know what you find out on that.”
I sigh. “I will. Erin and I have been talking more, hanging out more… we have a lot of stuff still to work through, but it’s getting better.”
“Have you made up your mind about the presidency?”
I smile then, my stomach flipping for a completely different reason. “Yeah. I’m going for it.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “I really want to be president, to continue our family tradition. Not even for that reason, honestly. But because I think I could make a difference. And I love KKB. I want to leave a mark before I go.”
Kip kisses my neck, tickling my ribs as I giggle and kick him away. “You’ll leave one hell of a mark.”
From all my writhing, my legs are tangled around his waist, and even though we’ve been insatiable all week long, I feel him growing hard between my thighs.
I hum my approval, sucking the skin of his neck as I climb my way up to his mouth. But just as we lock into a needy kiss, my phone rings.
“It can wait,” I murmur against his lips.
But before we can even get some heavy petting going, my phone rings again.
“Okay, maybe it can’t,” I groan, rolling over until I can swipe my phone off the nightstand. I frown. “It’s Ashlei.”
“Answer it.”
I nod, hitting the green phone button and putting Ashlei on speaker. “Hey, babe. Kind of indisposed at the moment. Everything okay?”
“No.”
As soon as I hear her choked voice, her sobs, I shoot upright. “What happened?”
She cries for so long that I debate texting Jess and telling her to get her ass to wherever Ashlei is — and fast. I’m texting it out when she finally speaks.
“I fucked up. Bad, Sky. I don’t know what to do.”
“Whatever it is, we can figure it out. Take a deep breath.”
She does, but then she’s crying again. “Sophie… the intern…”
I freeze, Kip and I exchanging glances. I’d filled him in on that whole situation when I first got here. “What did she do?”
“She… she kissed me.”
“She what?”
“I shoved her off me as soon as I realized what was happening, but I can’t even believe it happened at all.
And when I pushed her back, she had this shit-eating grin, like she’d won something.
I have been trying to make sense of it all week, trying to figure out how to tell Brandon.
And this morning…” She pauses, a sob breaking through. “This morning, I realized…”
“What, Lei?”
She sniffs. “She was interviewing me for her project. And I just forgot…”
“Forgot what?”
Another pause. “She was recording it. She had her phone set up on a tripod to record so she could pay attention to what I was saying.”
My heart tripled its pace in my chest, Kip and I sharing another look. I know what she’s going to say before she can even get the words out, and the way Kip is looking at me, he knows as well as I do that this is bad fucking news.
“She has our kiss on video, Sky.”
Ashlei lets out a long, painful sigh as I scrub a hand back through my hair, trying to think.
“What do I do?”
“It’ll be okay. I have a plan,” I lie, kicking the covers off and hopping out of Kip’s bed. “Just… call Jess. You don’t need to be alone right now. And don’t talk to Brandon yet. I’ll be home by seven tonight, and we’ll figure this out.”
“I can’t lose him,” she whispers, her voice breaking again. And I look at Kip, knowing that if I were in her shoes, I’d be ripping at the seams, too.
“You won’t.”
And I pray that that’s not a lie, too.