He places both hands on my hips and moves me closer. Then he takes a quick peek toward where my brother and daughter disappeared behind the SUV before he leans in to kiss me. “Should we have that boyfriend girlfriend talk before it happens?” he murmurs, his lips still lingering on mine.
“You don’t feel like that should be a conversation we have somewhere other than a parking lot and with more than thirty seconds of privacy available to us?” I’m not murmuring. I’m more like sternly whispering.
“Nope.” His hands move from my hips until he’s got both arms wrapped around me tightly. “I think we should make it official. Thoughts?”
“Really?” Even he ought to know already that I have, like, a million of those.
“Just a yes or no will work here. It’s a pretty straightforward talk, Kenley,” he rumbles softly, face still so close to mine, he repeatedly brushes his lips over my mouth, teasing me, as if that will sway me to say yes.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine, let’s do the boyfriend girlfriend thing, I guess.”
It’s enough of a yes for him to finally kiss me again. Not that I was motivated by the prospect of his kiss. Not at all.
“See?” he says, slowly pulling away again, grinning in that sexy way he seems to do all the goddamn time. “Thirty seconds of privacy was plenty.”
“Are you going to treat all of our big conversations as a get in and get out sort of a situation?” I ask, curling into his side while his arm drapes loosely over my shoulder and we start our walk around the SUV to join my brother and Sloan again.
“Probably.” I’m not sure he even sees the issue here.
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” he confirms. Seriously. “Why waste both our time on a conversation we both know the contents of and you’re just going to pretend you forgot ever having in the first place?”
“Whatare youtalkingabout?”
“You know,” he says. But I clearly don’t know. “That thing you do, where we agree to something, and then later I act like we agreed to it, and you act all surprised in return.” He smacks a kiss on the side of my head. “I have a feeling it’s more a matter of not believing than forgetting, but either way, I’m learning a combo of direct statements and correlating actions is the most effective means of communication here. At least for now.”
I swallow down the sudden urge to cry. Two years it’s been, and no matter how much I think I’ve healed or how much work I’ve done to clean up the aftermath inside my head, every so often, I’m still blindsided by old wounds I’ve yet to tend to. “I’ll try to be better about that,” I force out as calmly as I can. “That’s really not very fair to you.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to me if you tried to suppress a need for something, especially if it’s something you needfrom me, and something I can easily, happily give,” he says, lowering his voice as we round the corner. “It’s not a matter of doing better, Kenley. I want you tofeelbetter. Secure. I want you know that when I say something, you can depend on it to be true. And consistent.” He turns, dipping his head down to look me in the eyes. “Got it?”
I nod. “Got it.”
He smiles. “Good.” Then he turns up and out toward Sloan. “Let’s see this rod you chose.”
CHAPTER TEN
KNOX
The two women Kenley warned me about aren’t nearly the overzealous fans she depicted, though they definitely recognized me even if they have yet to say so. Judging by the way they keep whispering and checking their phones before staring at me, they’re working their way up to it though.
“Are you famous?” Devin comes up beside me unexpectedly after we’ve been out on the open water, fishing for the last hour. Maybe Brianna and Jess aren’t working their way up to it after all. Maybe they’ve just recruited Devin to get confirmation for them.
“That’s a weird question to ask someone,” Sloan remarks from my left. “Also, kind of a rude one when you think about it. Because the answer is either no, and now you’re sort of rubbing in that he’s a nobody. Or, the answer is yes, but apparently not famous enough because you don’t know who he is.” She shrugs. “A bit of a lose-lose, if you ask me.”
“No one asked.” He gestures for her to go back to focusing on her line instead of this conversation. The he shakes his head at me, grinning. “I don’t know how you’re going to cope getting this shit double all the time. I only had to deal with one version of Kenley growing up and that was plenty. Now you’ve got the knockoff version to deal with too.” His gaze casts back in her direction at the end, and it’s pretty obvious from the way he’s smirking, he’s just trying to egg her on.
“Hey!” Naturally, she falls for it.
“I like to think I’m twice as lucky,” I try to smooth things over again.
“You totally are,” Sloan agrees, then she rolls her eyes. “But that was a bit heavy on the cheese for my liking.” She reels in herline. “I’m going to go try my luck over with Krissy and Owen. I’m not catching anything over here with you two chatting it up and scaring away all the fish.” She starts to make her way down the side of the boat, then turns back. “Oh, but I’m gonna wanna hear how the ‘is he or isn’t he famous’ chat plays out, so make sure I’m there when you tell mom.”
“Uh-huh.” I chuckle and watch her mosey off.
