Chapter Seven #2
The elevator dings and I step off onto the third floor, bouncing from table to table looking for Kennedy.
I don’t see her at any of the tables in the center of the floor and head to the right in order to walk the perimeter.
It doesn’t take long to spot her. She's at a table by herself, with a text book and a backpack in front of two chairs, reserving them for me and Miranda. Her hair is pulled into a braid that runs down her back, and she’s wearing a tank top that exposes her upper back and shoulders.
She startles when I pull out the chair next to her and take a seat.
One hand is over her chest, eyes big before she realizes it's me and replaces her look with a smile on her face.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she whispers.
I scoot my chair in and lean over toward her, bumping her shoulder with mine and shrugging at her.
“Sorry,” I mumble, pulling out my materials from my backpack and placing them on the desk in front of me. Kennedy reaches over me to grab the textbook she placed there to save my seat, brushing her arm against mine.
“How’re you so warm? It’s not natural,” she says so quietly I almost don’t hear her.
I turn my body toward her and hold my palms open, “Give me your hands.” A flash of surprise moves over her face before she goes back to a neutral expression, one eyebrow raised.
She doesn’t protest or make any comments, instead she places her hands in the cradle of mine.
I curl my fingers around hers and she’s right, her fingers are like icicles.
A quick image of her ice cold hands rubbing over my knee floats through my mind, shocking me, and sending a pulse to my dick.
I squeeze her hands a few times before dropping them, “Better?”
“Much. Thank you,” she says, turning away from me and back to her work.
I feel a little frozen in place, body turned toward her, looking at her profile as she situates herself in her chair.
Kennedy faces forward and looks intently at her textbook, but I spot pink creeping down the side of her neck, and feel the edges of my lips curl up.
Making Kennedy blush is too easy and I like it, I always have.
“Why are you looking at me?” she snaps over her shoulder, shooting me a look.
“I’m not,” I say, feeling strangely caught, jerking my body forward. “I was thinking,” I say, heat now creeping up the back of my neck. And I was; thinking about her hands rubbing up and down my legs and other places.
I close my eyes and shake my head, attempting to literally shake this crazy thought out of my head. Kennedy is objectively very attractive, yes, but I’m not attracted to her, I remind myself.
She rolls her eyes, “Mmhmm,” and luckily for me, drops it.
Not even a full minute after I arrive, both of our phones light up with a message from Miranda letting us know she’s not coming to the library after all.
A strange satisfaction at Miranda canceling washes over me and through my chest. I like the fact that Kenny and I are hanging out alone.
It's not like we never hang out alone, we have. But that was before, when we were younger and didn’t have significant others.
When I think about it, we really haven’t hung out alone much since we came to college.
I had a girlfriend who seriously did not like it when Kennedy and I hung out, period, even with Miranda there, and then Kennedy dated Carter, and then she stopped hanging out with anyone for a while there.
She glances at me over her shoulder, looking extremely kissable. What the fuck?
I clear my throat, “Since it’ll be just us today…what about helping me with my personal statement?”
“I can’t right now. I have to finish these logic problems,” she says. “But–”
“But?”
“If it doesn’t take longer than I expect, I should be done in the next hour. And I can help you then, if you’re still here.”
“Deal,” I say. “In that case, focus.” I narrow my eyes at her, taking two fingers and pointing from my eyes and then to the work in front of us. She purses her lips, rolls her eyes, and faces forward, but I catch the smile that dances across her lips.
Kennedy and I work in near silence for the next hour using her timer method and I get little to no work done while she seems to be getting massive amounts of work done. I keep getting distracted by Kennedy, something I am not used to.
I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye, or hearing her flip a page in her text book, or God forbid, smelling her citrus and vanilla scent.
Every time I’d glance over at her, I’d find myself staring at the pen she has cinched between her teeth.
Sometimes when she’s reading, she’ll tap the end of her pen against her plump bottom lip, chin resting against her other fist.
It’s completely distracting to be next to her when she’s fidgeting with her pens like that. It's borderline obscene the way my body is responding to her.
She flips the page of her textbook, catching my eye, again. I’m practically staring at her when she looks over, gawking at her and that damn pen. The back of my neck feels hot and I open my mouth to say something.
“I’m done,” she says. “Want to show me what you’ve got so far?”
I pull up my personal statement document and hand her my laptop. It has one sentence.
She looks at the nearly blank document and reads my one sentence aloud in a whisper.
““I want to be a physical therapist.” That’s all you have?
Will, seriously? That’s not even a good sentence.
It’s implied you want to be a physical therapist by just applying to the school.
I can’t help you if you have literally nothing. ”
I run my hand up over my eyes and through my hair, groaning, feeling like I have two braincells.
“I know.” She hands my laptop back to me and I close it.
“I don’t know how to get started. I’m not a good writer like you.
I don’t know where to start. I’ve read about a hundred example essays,” I say.
She looks at me and my pulse is speeding up and my neck is hot and that feeling of having no brain cells keeps getting bigger, pressing in on me.
“I need help,” I blurt out. “I’ll help you with your list.”
She stops, taken aback, glaring at me. “What?” she says.
“I’ll help you with your list in exchange for helping me with my personal statement,” I say.
She purses her lips and lets out a sigh, “Fine. Let me do some research on PT personal essays and then I’ll try and help you,” she says, and for some reason it's causing my stomach to swoop and an image of me with flowers picking her up from her apartment flashes through my mind.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her. “You have no idea how much I need help with this.” It's technically true, I really do need help. I was debating trying to find someone I could pay to help me. She blushes and looks down, starting to pack up her things and put them into her bag. My tongue feels too big for my mouth and my pulse isn’t slowing down.
Giddy, I realize. I feel giddy at the idea of Kennedy agreeing to let me help her with her list. I want to ask her to get started on the list right away, as in right now, but instead I ask her, “What do you want to do first?”
She looks serious and nervous and I know that I need to be careful with how I respond to whatever she says.
“The swimming one,” she says between gritted teeth, clearly embarrassed. I nod my head, “Okay. This weekend at my place. We can have a pool party. Do you want me to invite the whole team, minus fuckhead of course, or just be a chill thing?”
“Chill thing, please. No more than ten people, and no one I don’t already know. I haven’t been—” she cuts herself off before finishing her thought. I want to press her about it, but I don't. She continues with a huff, “you know what, it doesn't matter. Small and chill pool thing please?”
“You got it. Easy,” I say, my stomach tightening.
“You want to go get some food?” I ask her, not wanting this to end.
I like being alone with her. I like making her blush.
I like the idea of helping her with her list even if she never ends up helping me with my personal statement.
She doesn’t immediately respond so I add, “Adrian has a girl over right now, and I do not want to be at home while they’re having sex. ”
She smiles and nods her head, “Yeah, but we have to go somewhere kinda quick, I have plans with my work friend at six.”
“Serendipity?” I suggest, and that strange feeling low in my stomach clenches again as I wait for her response.
When she nods her head yes and heads toward the elevator, a nervous excitement spreads out from my stomach and up through my chest for what feels like the hundredth time tonight.
It's not a date and you don’t like Kennedy, I remind myself over and over as I trail behind her.