I used my finger to tip her chin back up to me. “Kenz, baby, I’m glad you enjoyed it.” I grimaced at my own words, stroking my finger behind her ear to capture some of her hair. Enjoyed was a terrible word to use to describe what we’d shared. I hadn’t enjoyed being with McKenzie—I was whole, for the first time in my entire life. I hadn’t even realized I’d been walking around with a part of myself missing, but I had. Being with her was like beginning again. Everything was new. The feel of her skin against mine was like nothing I’d ever experienced. The gratitude I felt for the gift she’d given me was overwhelming. Everything was different. “But this isn’t the end. This is just the beginning.” She smiled at my words then pressed in close again.
We’d never bothered to put our clothes back on and there was something soothing about lying naked with McKenzie while the morning sun filtered in through the window. I trailed my hand up and down her spine, and eventually I fell asleep again.
When I woke McKenzie was missing from my bed, but I heard the shower running. I rolled over, stretching, feeling the strain of a few muscles I hadn’t used in a while, groaning about the use of them the night before. I wanted nothing more than to sneak into the shower with her, but the need to protect her overruled my wants. I didn’t want to hurt her.
Instead, I snuck into David’s room to use his bathroom, and then started a pot of coffee. Coffee was just about all there was in the house. David always spent a lot of time at Kristen’s, and since I’d been gone, the fridge was bare.
When Kenzie emerged from the hall with only a towel draped around her, it was all I could do to continue sipping from my mug and not throw her over my shoulder and march back into my bedroom. She walked straight toward me, stopping only when our chests were pressed together. I put my mug down on the counter and placed my hands on either side of her neck while her arms wrapped around my waist.
“Hey,” she said, a dreamy smile on her face.
“Hey.” I let my thumbs smooth a trail over her jaw.
“I love you.” Her words were soft and it looked as though saying them made her almost as happy as hearing them made me.
“I love you too.” She moved in closer, resting her cheek on my chest, so I wrapped my arms around her and pressed a kiss to her hair, which smelled like my shampoo. Then I pictured her in my shower, using my shampoo, and I knew we had to get moving or else I really would drag her back to my bed. “Feel like grabbing some breakfast somewhere and then heading back home?”
She tilted her head back to meet my eyes. “Do we have to go back?” Her lips moved into a pout and I’m sure she didn’t mean it as such, but it was sexy as hell.
“Unfortunately.” My mind wandered to my mom and I hoped she was doing okay with Mrs. Harris. “We can come back soon. We’ll figure something out.”
She sighed and then rested her face against me once more. “I can’t wait until we can just be open about everything. I hate having to hide from everyone. I love you too much to keep it to myself.”
I cupped my hands around her face, making sure her eyes were looking into mine when I spoke. “In a few months, when I’m done teaching here, and you’re out of high school, and my mom’s better, we’ll be able to act just like any other couple. It’s complicated now, but I wouldn’t trade last night for the world, McKenzie. Maybe we had to drive two hours away, and maybe we had to bend the truth to a few people, but being able to hold you in public, to kiss you, dance with you, to take you home to my apartment and make love to you, that was worth everything to me.”
“Just a few more months?”
“Then it’ll be different,” I promised.
“Okay,” she whispered. I kissed her, softly but deeply, and then we both got ready to head back to reality.
Still not wanting to be apart, we figured her mom wouldn’t be too suspicious if we told her McKenzie had called and asked me for a ride home from her sleepover. And we were all prepared to tell her mom our fabricated story when we got to my house, but instead we were met with a worried Mrs. Harris.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she said as soon as I put my bag down by the door. “I was just about to call you.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my panic striking fast and hot.
“Everything was good overnight. We even played some cards and watched a movie. We went to bed and I thought we’d had a good time. But now, I went to check on her and she won’t talk to me. Won’t even acknowledge me. I don’t know what happened.”
I looked back at McKenzie, who’d stopped just inside the door, hoping to get some invisible strength from her. She looked just as worried as I felt and I wanted to feel her arms wrapped around me, her voice whispering in my ear that everything was going to be all right. Instead, I turned and walked down the hallway toward my mother’s bedroom.
I knocked gently on her door, but then pushed it open. She was sitting in the rocking chair she’d placed by the bay window when my brother had been born. We’d heard the stories a million times about how he was a terrible sleeper, so she’d rocked him in that chair all night sometimes, because it was the only place he would sleep.