Chapter 10 #2
“My mom hated the idea of me fighting, but she’d been a single mom for so long, making ends meet by cleaning houses and working her fingers to the bone, I didn’t want her worrying about money anymore. Fighting earned me enough that she wasn’t scraping her earnings for bills and food.”
“How is she now?”
“She moved out of the city,” I half smiled. “She was over the hustle and bustle, and now works as the manager of a nursing home.”
“Well done to her,” Kira said. “And the roof tiling job? Is that something you got into before or after Antonio?”
“After. He suggested we get day jobs so we had some form of legal money coming in. You know, to keep the IRS off our asses…” I watched her for a second longer. “What’s your origin story, Miss Scott?”
“Well,” she dusted her hands of the rainwater and stepped back to lean against the door too, her brown eyes sparkling.
“I’m an only child to two adoring mothers, I was homeschooled in Warwick until we moved to Brooklyn for Mom’s new teaching job; I started high school in Bay Ridge and met Lily; I am a complete nerd when it comes to anything environmental, animals, nature, and biology.
And I never went to college. Mostly because I couldn’t stand the idea of being in a classroom any longer.
” She grinned at me. “My life isn’t as exciting as yours unless we count the time Lily and I were caught trespassing in an apple orchard during a visit to my grandparents’ place in Warwick. ”
“Badass,” I smiled.
“I know. Just living on the edge,” she joked. Her eyes lingered on mine for a moment.
Despite being outside, something about being pressed against the door, encased by a wall of rain cascading from the awning above us, suddenly felt more intimate than it should’ve. We were caught out in the rain, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.
The smile on her face softened. “What?”
“You, uh— There’s an eyelash,” I said quickly before gently brushing my thumb across her cheekbone. Her skin was soft beneath my thumb, and the way her eyes dropped briefly to my mouth hadn’t gone unnoticed either.
There was no eyelash.
Too soon.
I took my hand back, pretending to dust the lash away as I plastered on a smile. “Got it.”
Kira needed a friend, not a rebound. Not that I would mind if I was her rebound. I was already fighting every urge to ask if I could kiss her. It wasn’t helping that she seemed to have moved closer. Or maybe I had.
Her eyes fell to my mouth again. “Seb.”
Don’t be a dick— Stop thinking with your dick. Be a friend.
“Maybe we shouldn’t?” My words cut through the air between us, and suddenly the rain seemed louder.
Kira blinked and stepped back. “Right, sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s my fault.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I lied about an eyelash,” I admitted. “I’m the one flirting.”
Kira smiled. “So am I, Seb…”
That smile of hers was dangerous. Beautiful and heart-stopping, but dangerous when it came to my thought process.
I cleared my throat. “Right.”
“Yeah.”
We looked at the street where the rain was easing. There was a pleasant kind of awkwardness between us. The kind that might end in laughter if we played it right.
I smiled at her again. “We should go.”
The ride back to her apartment was filled with tension of the good kind.
The good but dangerous kind that I should avoid if I wanted to be a friend.
But her legs in those jeans, on either side of mine as she held me from behind and we sped through the streets, wasn’t helping.
Neither was the way her hands were placed on my chest as she held on.
How many times had I picked her up from her SDV meetings without reacting like this? My body had suddenly forgotten how to act because of some heavy rain, damp clothes, and a cramped stoop.
It wasn’t her fault I couldn’t get my emotions or feelings in check.
A thought suddenly had me glancing at my lap. I sighed when there wasn’t anything obvious.
Yet.
“Shit,” I muttered against the lining of my helmet.
Just get her home, say goodbye, and leave. Easy.
As we pulled up outside her apartment, the rain returned, falling in fat drops across my visor as Kira climbed off the bike.
She pulled up her visor, squinting as the rain got heavier. “I can’t let you ride home in this. It’s too dangerous.”
I pulled up my visor and glanced at the road, now a sleek black surface.
“Come up and dry off. I could make us coffee or something.”
There was no twisting my arm when it came to her.
“Alright,” I shrugged, playing casual as I climbed off the bike and walked it into the one-way street running alongside the apartment building for shelter.
Every inch of us was soaked with rainwater, which caused the walk inside and into the elevator to be full of squeaking shoes and awkward adjustments to our clothes.
Kira was the first to laugh about it when we got into the apartment, ringing out her hair over a pot plant as she watched me struggling to pull my jacket off.
“Here,” she smiled, coming up behind me in the living room. She took hold of the jacket and tugged firmly while I pulled until the sleeves slowly released my arms.
She hung the jacket over one of the kitchen stools to dry before returning to me.
“Thanks.” I rubbed my bare arms, unable to think of anything to say. Me, the guy who could never shut up, had nothing to say to this pretty girl standing in front of me.
When Kira removed her knit sweater, revealing a top that clung to her body the way my T-shirt had done to mine, I suddenly didn’t know how to think straight either.
Kira was fit and curvy in all the right places, showcased by the tight wrap of her wet clothes. I knew she did yoga, and the yoga had paid off tenfold.
Why did everything have to look so good wet?
Stop thinking with your dick!
“I have a radiator in my room. We could dry off and get warm.” She gestured to her door, sitting on the right side of the living room.
“Yup, sounds good. Radiators are good.” What the fuck?
Kira half smiled and led the way into her room.
Almost every surface had a plant on it. From the shelf above her headboard to the dresser by the door.
Evidence of all her hobbies decorated the room too.
There was a crocheted blanket on a chair, macrame plant hangers on the window, colorful origami swans on her nightstand, and a giant collection of photographs on her wall.
Everything about her room was cozy and bright.
The radiator was under the window. She turned the dial on the side, and the heat came quickly. We huddled in front of it with an inch of space between us.
I stole a glance at her, and she instantly redirected her gaze off my wet T-shirt and back down to the radiator, holding out her palms to it to get warm. She had checked me out and was now looking like she was trying to find the right words to say.
I cleared my throat. That line of friendship was beginning to look blurry with every passing second. “Should we take off our shirts?”
“You know, I was just thinking that.” She swallowed hard, furrowing her brow. “We’d dry much faster.”
I nodded once. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
“Yup.”
“Great.”
“Awesome.”
I huffed a laugh, hesitated for a second, and then peeled my shirt off and plopped it on the floor before looking back at her.
She had the hem of her shirt in her hands but had paused to watch me take off mine, and now her eyes were subtly wide as they skimmed over my chest and stomach.
“Sorry,” she stammered and blinked before looking away, “I’ve never seen so much muscle this close.”
My lips twitched with a smile. “Did jerk face ever workout?”
A subtle crease appeared between her eyebrows, but it wasn’t for the mention of Aiden. She was trying to form a more casual expression without looking at me again. “Um, no. No, he didn’t… I’m going to take my shirt off now.”
I nodded once, smiling. “Okay.”
She hastily tugged the damp fabric off, revealing a deep red bralette that complemented her brown eyes. While I wanted to admire the way the lace hugged her skin, I couldn’t help but notice the blaring signs of the past written all over her.
My eyes tracked to the faint yellow marks on her arms and stomach from Aiden.
“Do they still hurt?” I asked.
She shook her head, inhaling shakily while a pink blush crept to her face. “Not anymore.”
Our bodies faced the window, but I couldn’t stop admiring her from the corner of my eye.
She couldn’t stop looking either.
I leaned sideways, brushing my arm against hers as I whispered, “Now what?”
Kira chewed her bottom lip as her eyes darted across every detail of my face.
And then she kissed me.
My eyebrows shot up, but I didn’t resist, allowing my eyes to fall shut. She tasted like rainwater and bubble tea as she let me in immediately, tilting her head while I gently took her hips and pulled her closer. Skin to skin.
I was melting and hard all at once. Our friendship was tumbling over the edge, bringing with it every reserved thought. My head was quickly filling with her. The way she tasted and felt. She smelled like magnolia and sweetened lemon, and I needed more.
She suddenly pulled away to take a breath, and I let go of her hips.
It took me a second to open my eyes again.
Her eyes were wide. “I shouldn’t have done that. You already said we shouldn’t—”
“What if I changed my mind?”
She shook her head but remained close. “I don’t want you to think you’re a rebound. Because you’re not. You mean more to me than that.”
“Then I’m not your rebound.”
There was a pause as she thought about it and took one step back. “We have seven seconds to figure out what we’re doing.”
“Why seven seconds?”
“It was the first number that came to my head.” She cringed slightly, raising a shoulder.
“Seven seconds is disappearing fast.”
“And we haven’t moved.”
“I don’t want to, Kira.”
Her pupils were dilated, her hair was a damp mess, and there was a faint curve in the corner of her mouth.
Those lips.
“Fuck it,” I muttered and closed the gap, kissing her as she grabbed my face.
My hands went to her thighs, and I hoisted her up to my waist to bring her to the bed.