Page 22 of Keeping Kaitlyn

Fuck.

Heart pounding in my ears, I push myself toward the sink. “You’re late, Castinetti,” I bark over my shoulder while I flip on the tap. Hitting the soap dispenser with the heel of my palm, I rub them together, focusing on washing my hands so I can give myself a few more seconds before I have to look at them.

At her.

“And you’re wearing a shirt,” Tess tosses back on a laugh. “Look, it’s not my fault—I was on time. If you want to yell at someone, yell at Nurse Ratchet. She’s the one who had to be dragged to the limo by her hair.”

Nurse Ratchet.

That’s what Ryan calls Kait.

What they all call Kait.

Sticking my hands under the water, I scrub them together, rinsing them thoroughly before I straighten. “I don’t make ahabit of yelling at women,” I remind her while I turn the tap off with my elbow. Shaking the excess water off my hands, I reach for the stack of paper towels next to the sink. Snagging a few, I use them to dry my hands while forcing myself to turn around. “Especially women I don’t know.”

When I say it, Tess—who’s sitting on my display counter again, a bottle of Jameson beside her—gives me an incredulous look before she aims it at the group of women behind her. A very pregnant Cari is sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs I keep in my lobby, while Grace hovers over her with a worried look on her face. Across the room, Henley and her sister, Maeve, talk quietly in front of one of the drawing that line the walls. Standing in the middle of the room, all alone, is Kait in a pair of dark wash, skintight jeans and a red lace halter top.

Jesus Christ, she looks good.

Too good.

So good that I can’t look at her.

Not if I want to keep breathing.

“You two have never met?” Tess says, aiming her question at Kait. When Kait shakes her head, Tess looks at me like she doesn’t get it. “You walk Grace home from work, every damn night.” She says it like she’s reminding me. “She lives across the hall from them.”

“He never walks me inside,” Grace pipes up from the other side of the room. “He just walks me to the back door.”

When Tess’s stare goes from mildly confused towhat the fuck, I give her a shrug. “The security system Con installed is tighter than Fort Knox,” I remind her defensively, suddenly aware that everyone in the room is staring at me. “Walking her all the way to her front door is a waste of time.” Saying it makes me a liarandan asshole. If not for my agreement with Kait to stay away from the center, I’d walk Grace all the way to her door.

Is that really it? Do you ditch Grace at the back door every night because of a promise you made to Kait… or is it because If you walk Grace to her door, you know you’d turn around and knock on Kait’s and beg her to let you in?

Like she knows I’m lying but can’t seem to figure out why, Tess shakes her head. “Wow… okay.” Looking at Kait again, she flips her hand in my direction. “Kaitlyn, this is Went.” Dropping her hand, Tess hops down off the counter. “Went, this is Kaitlyn.”

Forcing myself to look at her, I give Kait what I hope to god looks like an indifferent chin tip. “Hey.”

Kait’s blue-eyed gaze locks onto my shoulder while she pushes a vague, polite smile onto her face. “Nice to meet you.” As soon as the words leave her mouth, she turns away from me to join Henley and her sister on the other side of the room. As soon as she’s gone, Tess gives me an eye roll.

“I bring you an intelligent, hard-working,singletattoo virgin with gorgeous eyes and an amazing ass and all you can muster up is ahey.” When she says it, Tess lowers her tone and gives me the same douchey chin tip I gave Kait. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m feeling fine,” I say, lying through my fucking teeth while I pluck a couple of black latex gloves from the dispenser above the sink. “Who’s first,” I ask in an attempt to change the subject. Surprisingly, Tess lets me.

“We talked about it on the way over,” she says, pushing herself off my display counter to plant her boots with a dull thud. “Grace wants a set of dog tags with Ryan’s name on them and Maeve wants a pair of brass knuckles.” Tess is a regular in my chair and I gave Henley her first and only tattoo about a year ago—a Claddagh with daisies woven into the crown and some weird number that hold some sort of significance for her and Conner. He gets off on numbers. Always has.

“What about her?” I give Kait another douchey chin tip before I can stop myself. She’s moved away from Henley and Maeve to stand on her own in front of one of the drawings I have framed around my shop.

There’s no way in hell she doesn’t know it’s a drawing of her. Even if, by some stroke of luck, shedidn’trecognize herself, she’s sure as fuck recognize her own horse.

“She didn’t say.” Tess gives me a frown before lifting the bottle of Jameson she brought with her off the counter. “She didn’t say much on the way over.” Cracking the seal on the bottle, she unscrews the cap. “You’ll have to ask her yourself.”

Suddenly, I’m back at Northpoint. Sitting on the dock with Kait in front of me, her shoulder bare. The curve of her jaw angled over it while I lean forward to press my lips against the sun-warmed slope of it.

What are you going to draw?

What do you want?

Surprise me.

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