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“Thanks, Faye.” Kellan’s voice comes out low and thick, so he clears his throat, but his eyes are still heavy with emotion, his body still too close to mine.
“Shit! Did Kellan win?” Alessio runs over to us in pink bikini bottoms that barely hold in all the important stuff. “Did I beg Priyasha to switch swimsuits with me for no reason?”
“He has one more task left. Also, did you know you could’ve just switched flip-flops with someone? That’s what Kellan and Adam did,” Dylan says, flinching at Alessio’s pale exposed thighs.
The blood drains from Alessio’s face.“Seriously?”
Kellan shrugs, and Adam refuses to look at us from his spot on the lounge chair. I haven’t looked at him since the body shot.
“Now I only havekiss someoneleft, and the money is mine!”
Kellan exclaims, turning his heated gaze back to me, and I shiver.
It’s one thing to do a body shot in front of Adam, even a very sexy one, but can I actuallykissKellan in front of him?
“Don’t do it, Faye!” Alessio calls, “I’ll give you a hundred bucks from my winnings if you don’t!”
Kellan laughs. “You don’t have to bribe her; I’m not going to kiss her.”
“You’re not?” Alessio, Dylan, and I all ask at the same time.
If not me, who’s he going to kiss?
Kiara’s nearby and my stomach twists, but Kellan surprises us by grabbing Dylan’s face, turning his head, and planting a loud, exaggerated kiss on his cheek. Dylan groans and pushes him away. “Fuck, you just won.”
Kellan’s face lights up. “Yes, I did. I’ll collect my winnings later, though.”
Alessio and Dylan huff and puff about hating losing, but they still congratulate Kellan. The boys babble on while my mind spins with thoughts of Kellan. Apparently, he’s content with pretending nothing happened last night, but the gnawing in my stomach hasn’t stopped since then. I used to talk to Kellan about everything, and that shouldn’t change because I caught feelings. After Lori, and sometimes Dylan, Kellan’s my best friend, the person I’m closest to, the person I can talk to, the one who can make my problems feel like nothing.
So why aren’t you talking to him now?
The voice in my head is right. This is a problem, and it can be solved by talking to Kellan about it like I should’ve done in the first place.
I reach out and touch the smooth skin of his arm, just a graze to get his attention, then pull my hand back.
“Hey, Kell, you got a sec?” It comes out timidly, and I want to curse myself. I’ve never been shy and intimidated by Kellan before, but what I’m about to do scares me shitless.
“Yeah, sure.” He says something to Alessio and pats him on the back before stepping away from them to stand with me.
“What’s up?”
Alessio, Dylan, and Adam are all way too close for comfort.
Not that any of them are paying attention to us; Dylan’s got them all engaged in some story he’s telling, his arms flailing about as he talks.
I grab Kellan’s forearm and tug him along with me, trying to get some distance between us and Adam. What I’m about to do requires one hundred percent of my resolve, and I don’t want to falter because I can feel my brother’s disapproving glare burning through my skull.
I’m going to do it. Rip off the Band-Aid. Lori, Dylan, and evenKiaratold me I’m not acting like myself because I’m going crazy over Kellan and to tell him how I feel, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to muster up all the courage I have and apologize for being an ass yesterday and tell him what’s going on in my head.
Now that we’ve put some distance between us and my brother, I stop beside a table littered with discarded beer bottles and empty drink glasses, and release Kellan’s arm. He doesn’t say anything, only looking at me expectantly with an encouraging smile, waiting for me to explain why I dragged him away from his friends. I stare into his warm brown eyes and open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My throat squeezes and my stomach tightens with a feeling I’ve never experienced before: fear of rejection.
This is weird. I’ve never cared enough to be afraid before.
I’m about to tell him I’m in love with him and hope he doesn’t laugh in my face. But this isKellan. He’s the boy who takes me on three-in-the-morning drives to get Iced Capps from Tim’s, and we’d sit on the hood in the warmer weather and stare at the stars and talk about everything and anything. He’d tell me about the pressure he feels over student debt and needing to find another job and anything else that came to mind, and I’d tell him about how my deteriorating relationship with my brother breaks my heart and how sometimes I feel so small next to Lori’s greatness. Under the canopy of the tranquil night and stars, we’d be open and real with each other, and it always felt like there was no one else in the universe except for us. He knows practically everything about me . . . everything except how I feel.
My heart hammers in my chest as I clear my throat.
“You okay?” he asks, then his eyes grow wide. “Is it about back there? Shit, I’m sorry, Faye. I wouldn’t have done that in front of Adam if you weren’t okay with it, and I thought—”
