Her cheeks burned with embarrassment after admitting that to her friends, and the tears she’d been fighting fell down her cheeks. Kai brushed them away, his eyes sad as well. Harmony laid a hand on Jessie’s arm and Jessie turned to look at her. Harmony’s eyes were surprisingly moist as she watched her friend’s pain.
Feeling encouraged, Jessie expanded on her torment. “We both felt like we’d done something so wrong…so horrible. But we loved each other so much, we knew it would happen again if Kai stayed in Denver…” Her voice trailed off, and she couldn’t finish. She was so grateful that that future wasn’t happening.
Resting his head on her hair as he pulled her in for a hug, Kai finished the part she couldn’t. “I made plans to head back to Hawaii, to distance us with space, since nothing else was working. I found out who I really was today, when I met with my…biological father, when I turned in my notice.” His voice thickened with emotion. “I couldn’t deal with the truth. I came here, to see Jessie. She helped me through it, and when we realized…”
Her eyes teary, her face wistful, April clasped her hands together. “When you realized that you could be together, because you weren’t really cousins, you finally got to express the love that’s been building between you.”
The entire room quieted as everybody stared at April. Finally, Harmony laughed and slung an arm around her shoulders. “God, you really are a closet romantic.” Jessie felt her residual sadness roll off of her as she laughed along with Kai. April sighed and shrugged.
Wiping her cheeks dry, Jessie looked between her roommates. “So…are you guys going to be okay with this? With Kai and I dating?” She felt like crossing her fingers. If her friends understood, if they accepted the two of them, then maybe she could get her family to accept them, too.
Harmony sighed and looked over at April. April shrugged and glanced back at Jessie. “I got drunk at a party once and French kissed my cousin. It happens.”
A muffled chortle escaped from Harmony, and all eyes turned to her. Her cheeks turned rosy as she shrugged. “I lusted after this guy at a family reunion once, thinking he was a friend of my second cousin. We were halfway through ‘show and tell’ when I finally figured out that he was an actual cousin.”
A light laughter filled the room as Harmony shrugged again. “Obviously our experiences weren’t as severe as yours, but…” she sighed and stepped forward to give Jessie a hug, “I guess I get it. You didn’t know. You tried to stop once you did.” Pulling back, she looked between Kai and Jessie. “But love is a hard thing to shut off.”
Harmony’s grin turned mischievous as she patted Kai’s shoulder. “I’m really glad you aren’t actually related though, because listening to the two of you having sex would have seriously grossed me out.” She grinned. “Sorry. I can only be so understanding.”
Jessie flushed as April laughed. “God, Harmony, we wouldn’t have…” With a sigh, she let that one go.
After a few more questions about what had really been going on for the past couple of months, April and Harmony finally let Jessie and Kai go back to her bedroom. Jessie felt light and airy as she closed the door and leaned against it. Her roommates knowing and accepting, had been more cathartic than she’d thought it would be. Releasing all the pent up lies she’d been telling had lifted a mammoth weight from her shoulders. She finally felt like she could breathe again.
Smiling, Kai sat on the edge of her bed. “Do you feel better?”
With a grin as wide as her heart, she nodded. “Yeah, so much better. You?”
He nodded in turn. “Yeah…it feels good to let April know the real reason why I couldn’t be with her.” He leaned back on his hands, opening his chest in a delightful way. “She just wasn’t you.” The edge of his lip curved up in a sexy half-smile.
Jessie gave him her sexiest smile in return. She felt so relieved that the truth was finally out, that she wanted another round of their earlier bliss; she even felt her body begin to tingle at just the idea of Kai being inside her again. Jessie was immensely grateful that her friends had come to terms with the idea of them having sex under their mutual roof; she had a feeling there would be a lot of sex in her near future.
His crooked grin stayed on his face as he looked her over. “And what are you thinking about?” he asked softly.
She pushed away from the door. “I was just thinking that you should get dressed.”