Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Aaron
Me: Dinner?
Kendall: Already ate.
Me: It’s four.
Kendall: Yeah so.
I smile as I imagine her nonchalantly responding to my messages. She drives me crazy but in a good way. Her attitude is sexy, she may think it will make me run, but it only makes me want to grab on tighter.
I dial her number and wait for her to answer. Of course she waits until the last minute.
“Yeah?”
“Well hello to you too.” I chuckle and again am met with silence. “You ate, fine. So I’ll grab a pizza and beer and we can sit out back of your place or mine. Maybe light a fire?”
Silence.
“Kendall,” I push, “trying means we actually have to spend some time together.”
“We’ve spent time together,” she fires back triggering a smile.
“So you won’t mind if I stop by then?”
A few seconds pass.
“Great, I’ll see you in an hour.” I end the call knowing she is most likely cussing me at this point. When she tries to call me back, I don’t answer. When she sends a text, I leave it unread.
Placing an order for a pizza I swing home and take a quick shower. On my way back to Montgomery I stop by and grab some beer and as I am pulling up to her place the delivery driver is slowing to a stop right behind me.
“This you?”
“Yeah.” I grab the tip from my back pocket, take the pizza, and he is on his way. As I’m walking up to Kendall’s front door I notice a woman standing out in her front yard a few doors down. She has her hands on her hips staring in my direction and I realize this has to be the nosy neighbor.
Knocking on the door, the curtain moves to the side and Kendall stares back at me. Her brows are arched, her lips pressed in a tight line. I wait, and she stares.
Finally she unlocks the door and steps aside. “How do you know I didn’t already have plans?”
“I don’t, but I also don’t care,” I offer with a shrug and walk inside. Setting the pizza box down and the beer I turn around to face her. “You might want to shut that, your nosy neighbor was already eyeing me.”
Kendall looks back over her shoulder.
“Unless of course you want her to join us.”
“Maybe you should take all that,” she waves her hand at the stuff on her countertop, “and go spend your evening with her.”
“She couldn’t handle me,” I say with a grin and notice the way Kendall shifts on her feet. She swallows hard.
“You’re kinda full of yourself aren’t you?”
I walk toward her and she closes the door quickly then moves around to the opposite side of the counter. “I told you I already ate.”
“So don’t eat.” I flip open the box. “I brought some wood for a fire in case you didn’t have any and there is beer. I know you’ll drink that.”
“I have beer.”
“Well, now you have more.” She can pretend she doesn’t want me here and I’ll give her that. But I know it’s more of a show to somehow prove she doesn’t need anyone. I don’t want her to need me, but I do want her to want me.
Her eyes shift down to the box as I reach in to grab a piece and lift it to my mouth. She watches my mouth and I purposely lick the sauce slowly from my bottom lip. “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”
Narrowing her eyes at me she grabs her own piece and spins around walking toward the living room.
Her place is small and this is the first time I’ve been inside. There’s a small living room and an even smaller kitchen with an island separating the two. Slider doors go out onto a back patio and there are two doors, I assume one for the bathroom and one for a bedroom.
“I’m really tired tonight,” she adds, picking up the controller and turning the television on. “I was just going to take a shower and lounge around in my pajamas.”
“That sounds good to me,” I say as I sit down on the cushion next to her. “I’m a lounge around kind of guy.”
Kendall stares at me, blinking a few times.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Aaron.” She seems frustrated.
“Do what?”
“This, us,” she says, dropping her slice of pizza onto the plate and setting it on the coffee table. “I don’t date, I hang out mainly in groups. It feels foreign to me to be here with you and I honestly do not know what to do.”
“There is no playbook, Kendall. You hang out with the girls, right?”
“Hanging out with the girls and hanging out with you are two different things.”
“Why?” I ask and wait for her to work it all out in her head. When she says nothing I push her because I know it’s the only way I will get her to give me the truth. “You know why. You’re just too afraid to say it out loud.”
“I’m not afraid.” She glares at me.
“You seem scared to me.”
“I’ve told you this before, I’m not a relationship girl. If you want me to be honest since you think you know me so well, I prefer to get want I want from the guy and then him to move on. I don’t need all the sweet, Aaron.”
“Good thing I’m not sweet then.” I know how to treat a lady, that shit has been pumped into my head from the start. But with Kendall I have to play things differently. She is like a scared kitten, from what I don’t know. But what I do know is I have to move at her pace.
“I don’t want to ever get so comfortable in life that I forget what true unpredictable fun is. I don’t want to fall into some rut where I am playing house and becoming someone I’m not. I don’t want to wake up five years from now and regret my life.”
“But you want to ignore anything good, because you’re too afraid to love it and you are too afraid to let anyone in. Anyone besides the girls that is.”
She doesn’t respond.
“What happened to make you feel like you don’t deserve good?”
“I think maybe tonight was a mistake.” She stands and starts to move past me and I grab her leg spinning her around to face me.
“You don’t want to tell me fine, but don’t judge me based off someone else’s actions. You know me, even though you like to pretend you don’t. We’ve been friends for years. So why do things have to be different?”
“Why? Because friends don’t have sex with each other.”
“We aren’t having sex.” I shrug and the corner of her mouth tips up in a grin. “I mean we can, any time you want to.” His smile widens. “I’m just saying we don’t have to. I didn’t come over with the intention of getting you naked. Though you do look really good naked.”
“Pig.” She laughs, slapping at my hands. When she gets free she starts toward the counter, grabs a beer, and then pauses at the slider doors. “I’m going outside to start a fire.” And with that she opens the door and slips outside.