9. Chapter Nine #2
"Walk Sarah upstairs like some Victorian gentleman?" Aiden's already pulling on his jacket. "She literally lives above where we are standing right now. Come on. One drink. Then you can go home and text her all night long."
Kevin looks at me. The question in his eyes is clear.
I should want him to stay. Should want him to walk me up. Should want to actually have the conversation we keep avoiding. But if I do, I know everything changes. He’s on my board. His dog-sitting job pays half my bills.
Status quo needs to be maintained.
"Go," I say, even though I don't want him to. "I'm fine."
He studies my face for a second longer, then nods reluctantly. "Text me when you're upstairs."
"I will."
I watch him leave with Liam and Aiden. Watch the door close behind them.
And I feel like this evening didn't end the way it should have. Like I just let something important walk away.
Something about that hurts more than it should.
I'm in my apartment for maybe thirty minutes when my phone buzzes.
??Sunshine
You home safe?
Literally climbed one flight of stairs. I survived.
??Sunshine
Good.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
??Sunshine
This isn't working.
My heart stops. Just completely stops. Like someone hit pause on my entire cardiovascular system.
What isn't?
??Sunshine
Pretending that having Liam and Aiden drag me to a bar was fine.
Oh.
Ohhh.
I stare at my phone. At those words. At the honesty that Kevin does better than anyone I know.
I’ll just tell him it was all a mistake. He’d had a bad night. I’d tried to help, but Blanton’s clearly wasn’t what either of us needed. I’ll fall on the sword, take the blame, tell him I’m fine if he’s fine.
Yeah, that’s what I need to do. Just get it out there so we can put this behind us before the next road trip.
Come over
??Sunshine
Now?
Now. We need to talk.
??Sunshine
Give me twenty minutes to drive back.
I spend those twenty minutes pacing. Changing my shirt. Changing back. Folding his hoodie to give back to him. Running my fingers through my hair. Staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and wondering what the hell I'm doing.
Right on time, there's a knock at my door.
I'm fumbling with the lock because apparently, I've forgotten how hands work. Again.
The door opens and Kevin's there, filling my tiny doorframe, looking impossibly tall in my apartment that's roughly the size of his walk-in closet.
"Sarah—" His voice has more than a hint of sandpaper as he says my name. His hair is a mess like he's been running his hands through it. So, we have that in common.
His blue eyes are dark and intense and focused entirely on me.
"We need to talk," I blurt out. Worst greeting ever. "Because if we wait until tomorrow, I'm going to keep making excuses. And we both know I'm really good at excuses."
Something shifts in his expression. Relief. Hope. Maybe a little fear.
"Okay, good," he says quietly. "Let's talk."
I open the door wider. He steps in. The door closes behind us with a soft click that sounds so much louder than it should.
And suddenly we're alone and all those reasons I needed to talk are fighting with the reality of Kevin St. Clair standing just feet away from me, looking at me like I'm air and he's been holding his breath.
"So," I start. My brain is completely empty. "We're okay, right?"
"Yeah. Yeah, sure. Of course. We're okay."
"Because it's been weird all day and I wasn't sure—" My voice is going up.
Getting faster. The way it does when I'm riding the bullet train to Overthinkville.
"Like you were already up this morning and I was going to make you breakfast and check your shoulder but you'd already done everything and then I ran away to see the photos with Paige and Lindy and—"
"Sarah." He takes a step closer. Just one. "We're okay. Why would you think we wouldn't be?"
"Because it's weird. We hooked up and now everything's different and I don't know how to—" I gesture helplessly between us. "This."
"We're kind of weird anyway," he points out.
That stops me. "What?"
"We co-parent a dog who's apparently going to need an agent. You live at my place like forty-something days a year. You steal my practice gear. I know you pretend to like cappuccinos, but you actually hate them. I know you don't want mayo on your chicken sandwich, but you do like aioli, even though it's basically the same thing. And I’m willing to bet Ranger’s follower count that you’d be wearing my sweatshirt that you stole this morning but five minutes before I got here, you decided that was too much.
" He gestures at what I'm wearing. "We can handle a little more weird, right? "
I look over at the folded hoodie on my tiny bed. Guilty as charged.
"When you put it that way..."
He steps closer. Puts his hands on my shoulders. His palms are warm through the fabric and I might melt. Might just completely liquify right here on my worn carpet.
"So yeah. We can do this. Whatever this is."
"We should probably have boundaries though," I say, trying to be responsible. Trying to be the adult who thinks things through instead of the girl who climbed him like a tree last night. "Right?"
"Boundaries. Definitely." He nods like this is a serious business meeting and not a conversation about whether we're going to keep sleeping together. "What kind of boundaries?"
"Well..." I realize I have no idea. My brain is currently offline. "We should probably not tell people? Until we figure out what this is?"
"Okay. Makes sense." He's so close now I can smell the beer from Wing Wednesday. Alcohol made me stupid last night. But I'm stone-cold sober right now, which means I have no excuse to do dumb things ever again.
Please don’t be stupid tonight, Sarah.
Then I remember the looks at Wing Wednesday. Aiden and Liam's knowing chirping. The way everyone watched us.
"Except... Liam and Aiden already know something, don't they?"