“Bullshit.”
I shook my head. “Not bullshit. I’m allergic to anything that comes from water, and if it’s something from the bottom of the ocean, it’s bye bye, Kennedy.”
His face fell, and a soft laugh bubbled past my lips. “Why didn’t you say anything when you saw where I was taking you?”
“I didn’t know! I wasn’t paying attention when we walked in. When I smelled it, I was hoping there would be something else I could eat. Coming from Tampa, there are obviously a ton of restaurants with seafood, but more often than not, there are other things on the menu as well.”
His eyes widened, and he leaned over the table. “Don’t touch anything! We’ll get out of here, just try not to touch anything!”
I laughed at his panicked expression, but did as he said as I slid out of the booth. Our waiter was walking up as we got out, and after a short explanation from Liam, we were walking out of the restaurant.
“Strike two?”
Liam didn’t seem to find this funny; he was looking at me like he was waiting for something drastic to happen. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Liam, really, I’m fine. My allergy’s not so bad that I can’t be in a restaurant that serves fish. If my hands touch something that has had any kind of contact with anything I’m allergic to, then my hands swell up and start itching. If I actually touch a food I’m allergic to, then I’ll be sucking down Benadryl like it’s water. But if I were to eat it, then it would be really bad.” Lifting my hands for him to inspect, I wiggled my fingers for a second. “All I touched was the menu. I’m fine.”
He sighed heavily and wrapped an arm around my waist to lead me back toward the parking lot. “I swear to God, this night is already a fucking disaster.”
“You still have one strike left, don’t write off the night yet,” I teased.
Liam was mumbling about flat tires and trying to kill me when we got to the car and he abruptly stopped walking. Releasing my waist, he searched his pockets quickly before uttering a curse and trying the passenger side door. It was locked. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he groaned.
I laughed loudly and leaned forward to look into the car. When I saw the keys in the ignition, I started giggling so hard that I snorted, which made me laugh harder and hold myself up against his car so I wouldn’t fall. “How—how did—oh my God, I’m sorry. I can’t,” I forced out between hysterics. “How is it locked?”
Liam was looking straight ahead with an expression that had me laughing even harder, and doing everything not to pee myself. “If the car is turned off, the doors automatically lock after a few minutes.”
I was laughing so hard that no sound was coming out, and all I could do was hold up three fingers, indicating strike three.
After calling someone to come open the car, we waited for forty-five minutes in the parking lot until Liam sucked in air and whispered harshly, “Fucking son of a bitch.”
“What?” I asked in alarm, and looked around us.
“Don’t,” he warned as he left my side and went to the driver’s-side door. “Don’t say a damn word.” With his frustrated stare fixed on me, he pressed his fingers to the very edge of the driver’s-side door, and his door unlocked.
My brow furrowed before my eyes and mouth widened, and immediately I began laughing all over again. “Fingerprint sensors?”
“I’ve never used it before, I forgot about it.”
As soon as I heard my door unlock, I pulled it open and got inside. I wasn’t laughing anymore, but I couldn’t stop smiling—and that smile got even wider when I saw his face.
“This has been—” He started, but I cut him off by leaning over, grabbing his face, and pressing my lips to his.
“Tonight has been beyond perfect.”
“Perfect,” he said, his voice and face blank.
“I don’t think it could have gone better for us. Two people who don’t date can’t just have a perfect date their first time. It’s like when you buy a new car. As soon as you get it home, you kick it.”
“Kick it,” he stated, once again with no emotion.
“Yes! Because it’s all shiny and new, and if you don’t kick it yourself, you’ll always be worried about the first time anything happens to it—because eventually something will happen to it. So, we just kicked our first date. Now we don’t have to be scared for when something bad will happen on any of our dates after this. Like I said, perfect.”
Grabbing the back of my neck, Liam pulled me in for another kiss. This one was longer, and slower, and like tonight—it was perfect.
“I’m taking you home so nothing else can happen tonight. Three strikes are more than enough.”
“Or instead of that, I vote we go get ice cream. You can never go wrong with ice cream. Unless, wait, are you allergic?”
He huffed, but his mouth curved up into a smile. “I’m never living down this night.”
“Nope,” I agreed. “You’re definitely not.”
June 27
Liam
“SO YOU DON’T date, because you don’t like the ‘title’ of dating?” I asked a little over thirty minutes later.
Kennedy nodded and took another bite of her ice cream. “Pretty much.”
I looked at her with my brow furrowed for a minute. I could understand that to an extent. I didn’t date the girls I was hooking up with, but that’s because I didn’t want relationships with them, and I knew dates would lead them to think something would happen between us. But I also knew that once I found a girl worth pursuing—like Kennedy—that would all change. “But eventually you’ll find a guy you know you want to marry and spend the rest of your life with.”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “There’s no chance of that happening.”
“No chance of what? Marrying someone, or finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with?”
“The whole thing,” she answered, and waved her spoon in the air. “I won’t get married, and the other is just basically the same, without the husband and wife part of it.”
“I don’t understand what’s wrong with either of those things.”
Kennedy sighed, but paired with her expression, I knew it was because she was trying to figure out how to explain herself. “Both of those things are something people do because they think they’re in love with whoever they’re with. They like the idea of love and being with only one person, and that’s just not practical.”
“Being with only one person for the rest of your life isn’t practical?” I asked blandly.
“No. It’s a lie. It’s saying you want to be with someone so much that they’re the only person you will ever be with again. People only do that because that’s what they think love is—sharing your life with someone. And love doesn’t exist.”
I shook my head. No matter how much I wanted to laugh, I couldn’t figure out how to because Kennedy looked completely serious. “What about your parents? Your grandparents? Eli and Paisley? They’re all still together, aren’t they?”
“They are.”
“So you’re saying none of them are in love?”
“No, I’m not. Okay, let me rephrase. Love doesn’t exist anymore. Not in this day—not for our generation. You see how many divorces there are now? It’s just people who get tired of being with their spouse because they’re no longer in ‘love’ with them, or they ‘love’ someone else. If you actually loved them, that wouldn’t ever go away. You’d always love them. Now? All love is, is a dream. It’s something people want and pretend they find.”
I studied her for a second and asked, “How could you grow up around people like your parents and come to the conclusion you have?”
“Growing up around them is the exact reason I figured all this out. I grew up around perfect couples. All of them were happy, and I remember always wanting to have that someday.”
“And?” I prompted when she didn’t continue.
Kennedy just shrugged. “And then I found out it didn’t exist any
more.”
“Just like that? One day you just randomly decided that?”
For long moments, she just sat there watching me. After a while she finally said, “I had that. I was sure I had what they had. I was positive I was in love. And then I found out how wrong I was one day. After that, I stopped looking at the world through love-clouded glasses, and started seeing relationships for what they were. They look perfect on the outside, and inside, they’re just a disaster.”
“Is that relationship what happened to make you push me back?”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes before scooping up another bite. “It was a long time ago. I pushed you back because it wasn’t hard to see you wanted something I couldn’t give you because I don’t believe in it.”
“And yet, here you are. On a date with me, and you talked about future dates in the car.”
“Well, it’s not like you and Kira gave me a choice about tonight,” she said with a teasing tone. “But after everything I told you before tonight, I know you already know how I feel about an actual relationship. So I’m not worried about you waiting for this to turn into something it won’t.”
Looking around us, my gaze stopped on an elderly couple, and I leaned in toward Kennedy. Grabbing her hand, I nodded my head in their direction. “Look at them. The couple in the corner.”
Her eyes drifted past me, and I watched as her face softened. Turning, I looked at the pair too. Both had white hair and were permanently hunched, and the man had a cane resting against the table. There was a bowl of ice cream between them, and he took turns giving his wife a bite before taking one for himself. He was holding her hand across the table, and their fingers were curved around each other’s like they’d spent the last sixty-plus years never letting go of each other.
Looking back at the girl I was holding on to, I spoke softly. “I know I want that someday; there’s no way you can’t want it too.”
“I used to,” she admitted when her dark blue eyes met mine again. “But it just doesn’t exist for us anymore.”
“You’re twenty-two, Kennedy. You have a long time to change your mind.”
AN HOUR LATER, I was walking back into the familiar tattoo shop with a bag of food in my hand. I’d just dropped Kennedy off at her condo, and even though the rest of the night had been great, I couldn’t stop thinking about the beginning of our conversation at the ice cream shop.
“Little Chachi!” Brian called out from where he was wrapping someone’s leg. “What’d you bring me, and why are you visiting me again on a Friday night? Don’t you have better things to do than come talk at ol’ Bri on nights like tonight?”
“I just dropped Kennedy off.”
“Who?” he asked distractedly before telling the guy he’d been working on that he could pay up front and giving him a rundown of after-care instructions.
“Moon,” I said when the guy was gone and I was in Brian’s station.
“Oh, no shit! Like date night? Hell yeah! What changed since I last saw you—wait! Tell me what you brought me first.”
I tossed him the bag full of hamburgers and fries, and he groaned in appreciation.
“You just knew I was starving, didn’t you? That’s why you’re here?”
“Of course that’s not why I’m here. Kennedy doesn’t believe in love,” I said as I took a seat on his desk.
“So what?” he mumbled around a bite. “You don’t love her anyway—or do you now? I told you you would! See, LC! I know you. I know these things. I know how those faces of yours work; you were in love before you even knew it.”
“Still don’t love her, Brian.”
He kept talking as if I hadn’t spoken. “Just like with Chachi before you, I know what the fuck’s up. I should be Cupid’s sidekick or something.”
“Brian,” I barked, and kicked at his leg. “I don’t love her. But I want to know what you think about what she said about love.”
“You came to me for this, Little Chachi?” Brian made a face like he was about to cry, and wiped away an imaginary tear. “I knew it. Cupid’s sidekick. I’ve got this love shit down.”
With a weighted sigh, I decided against saying anything about the new title Brian had given himself, and told him all about my conversation with Kennedy. When I was finished, Brian sat there staring at me with a handful of fries half hanging out of his mouth.
“Again, so what? You’re still acting like you don’t love her.”
“I don’t, but I want to know what you think.”
Brian rolled his eyes, like I was asking him to stop eating again. “I think that she’s been hurt.”
“That’s obvious,” I said, cutting in. “She said she had a bad relationship.”
“Do you want me to tell you or not?”
I lifted an arm out and to the side. “Continue.”
“Anyway! I think she’s been hurt. Not just in a way people get hurt in normal everyday relationships. I think whatever happened in that relationship hurt her in a way she was never expecting to be hurt, and a way you probably can’t understand. So hurt that her only way to get past it is to make herself believe that love doesn’t exist anymore.”
I leaned forward and rested my arms on my legs. “What could’ve happened that was so bad?”
“Lot of things, LC. He could’ve hurt her physically. You just never know.”
“But she’s twenty-two, and she said this happened a long time ago. How could she have been old enough to be so in love with someone that she thought she had what her parents had? And knowing her personality, there’s no way she was ever the kind of girl to be in love with every relationship and boyfriend she had.”
“Your mom was eighteen when she fell in love and then had her entire world ripped out from under her in ways that I can’t begin to understand—and I was there with a front-row seat during it,” he said like that should’ve been explanation enough. And I guess in a way, it was. With a shrug, Brian said, “This kind of shit happens sometimes. If you ever find out, you’ll probably never be able to understand what your girl went through. But I have no doubt that it’s just going to take the right guy to make her believe in all that lovey-dovey shit again.”
“It’s not gonna be me,” I reminded him when he gave me a knowing look.
“We’ll see, LC. We’ll see.”
9
July 11
Kennedy
“KIRA, ARE YOU really not going to go?”
I waited for Kira to turn and face me, but she never moved from the fetal position she was in on her bed.
“No,” she finally grunted.
After waiting a few seconds more for her response, I walked over and sat so I was resting against her back. “Well then, I’m not going,” I promised as I played with her long hair.
Last weekend she’d started staying in the condo instead of going out with Liam and the people we’d been regularly hanging out with. During the week, she’d been mostly normal at work—although more than a handful of times I found her staring at nothing with a worried look on her face. Then yesterday at work she didn’t say a word the entire time we were there, and hadn’t left her bedroom since we’d gotten home.
“Just go, Kennedy. I don’t want to talk today.”
My forehead pinched, and for a second, my hand paused in her hair. Once I started up again, I shrugged. “That’s okay. We don’t have to talk. But there’s obviously something going on with you. I’m not going to leave you when you’re like this.”
“I don’t want you here,” she responded immediately with a monotone voice.
“That’s okay too,” I whispered.
“No, Kennedy, really. Please leave.” This time her voice shook with her words.
I heard the front door open with a knock and looked up, waiting until I saw Liam fill the doorway to Kira’s room. I shook my head slowly in response to his question-mark expression, and he just nodded.
“Hi, Liam. Bye, Kennedy and Liam,” Kira mumbled, and I sighed.
Give
n the way she was acting, I normally wouldn’t have left her. But we’d gone through a similar conversation last night, and I’d ended up backing out of dinner with Liam to stay with her—which had resulted in Kira shrieking for me to leave her alone until I finally left her room.
Kira and I could bicker like there was no tomorrow, that’s just how we were and always had been. Probably because my parents were the exact same way, and while Kira was just like Mom, I was too much like our dad. But nothing that was said in this conversation could have made me pick a fight with her. I was too upset for her, and I wasn’t even sure what was bothering her this time. If she and Zane were fighting, I wouldn’t have known because she wouldn’t talk to me about him anymore.
“Kennedy—” she began, but I cut in.
“Okay, I know. We’re leaving.” I stood and walked over to Liam, but called back to Kira, “Call me if you need me.”
When she didn’t respond, I looked up to Liam and pushed him away from the door so I could close it behind us.
“We don’t have to go anywhere,” he assured me.
“No, it’s fine. Once I left her room last night, she never said a word to me or left her bed. I sat outside her door most of the night, and she never even cried. There’s no point in staying here again. She’ll call me if she needs me.”
Liam didn’t move toward the front door, and with a deep breath out, he asked, “Are you sure? I really don’t care if we don’t leave.”
“I’m sure.” Grabbing his hand, I started walking toward the door, but he didn’t budge. “Liam,” I groaned on a laugh.
He took a few steps forward, closing the distance between us, and pulled me close. “Your sister’s upset. I’m not going to make you—”
Pressing my mouth to his to make him stop talking, I smiled and stood on the balls of my feet to wrap my arms around his neck when he deepened the kiss.
“Nice distraction,” he murmured against my lips, and I made an affirmative noise in the back of my throat.
“Kira will be fine. I want to leave the condo, and I want to spend time with you. Please, can we go?” When Liam just stared at me with a torn expression, I added, “I’ll text Zane.”