“Sure.”
I pop the pizza in the oven and then reach for her hand, before leaving the kitchen. I start with the main level which is our family room, my dad’s office, dining room, kitchen, and the indoor pool. I press the button, opening the automatic roof and she stares at the pool, steam dissipating off of it in the cold, spring air.
“Holy shit,” she exclaims. “You can swim year round?”
“Yeah, we can as well if you’re interested, later.”
She turns towards me and I can see that look in her eyes. She doesn’t make a move, and since I know I need to eat, neither do I. I show her the rest of the house, the basement, and then upstairs.
“What’s this room?” she asks.
Shaking my head, I don’t answer her question and walk off. She follows me into the kitchen and just when I pull the pizza out, she says, “Come on, Bain, you don’t need to keep things from me.”
“It was my sister’s.”
“Did she move out?”
Tilting her head to the side, she looks at me. I don’t know how to say the words without breaking down. On the fridge is her memorial card and I pass it to her.
It takes Arion one glance to know right away what she’s holding and a sheen of white covers her face. “Oh God, Bain. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here, into your home like this without calling you first. I can go.”
“No, no, it’s fine, you didn’t know and I didn’t know how to tell you. Trust me when I say I want you to be here, I really do. Please don’t leave.”
She stares down at the picture and runs her thumb over Kinsey’s face. “Jesus, she was so young. Was she older or younger?”
“Younger, by about a minute and a half. We were twins.”
“Shit. If I could ask, how did she die?”
“It was her decision, Arion. Listen, I don’t know if I can talk about this right now.”
She nods her head in understanding and places the card back on the fridge. “Jesus, life can be so fucked up.”
“Can it? Or is it the people around us who make stupid ass decisions?”
She doesn’t answer me and an awkward silence takes over the kitchen. I fear I’ve said something wrong, but sometimes, I don’t know how to talk around her.
“Come on, let’s eat. I know you came here for business.”
She smirks at me in only the way Arion can.
As the rest of the class floods out, I get up and pretend to head that way. Although Anthony asked me to stay after, I know I shouldn’t – he’s my teacher and I don’t want to get him in trouble.
“Kinsey, can I see you?” he asks. I turn and see him walk towards me. “Where were you going?” he whispers.
I shrug my shoulders looking into his alluring eyes, they are the color of the sky and lighter than any I’ve ever seen.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“How could you get me in trouble? I’m allowed to ask my students to stay after class.”
“Anthony, it’s more than that. Maybe it’s just me, but I sense a tension between us.”
Taking my hand, he briefly holds it and says, “No. It’s not just you. That’s why I wanted you to stay. Will you have dinner with me, tonight?”
Tilting my head, I look at him quizzically. “You won’t get me in trouble, I promise. I’m only here for the week, then Snell will be back and if I don’t get to know you now…Well, I’ll always regret it.”
“Okay, just dinner though.”
He winks at me, kissing the top of my hand, and I almost come undone. I guess it’s because I’ve never had anyone show me attention like this. Of all the people I’ve been involved with, it’s been purely sex. There has been no romancing to get us to home base.
Watching Bain devour his pizza has to be one of the sexiest things ever. I mean, how do you even eat pizza and turn someone else on? It must be my dirty sex-filled mind watching his tongue and mouth, imagining the things I want him to do me.
I love how the simple things with him distract me from the reality and the pain of what I’ve gone through. Knowing that Bain has been through a similar loss so recently, comforts me in a way, it’s like he can relate. Since losing Nate, I haven’t let anyone aside from his parents and Aubrey, know what I’m really going through. But with Bain, he knows; he’s been there himself.
Looking at him, my pain is replaced with a need, a need for the pleasure of something. It’s something I really can’t control.
He mutes the TV, which is on ESPN, and turns towards me. “Do you have a curfew?” he asks sarcastically.
I shake my head. “No, definitely not.”