Page 58 of Keeping Kaitlyn

“And maybeyoumissed the part where I said I saw the two of you together last night.” Finished chewing, Conner shakes his head. “I can read a helluva lot more than lips, man. Trust me when I tell you—the two of you aren’tover.”

“She tried to fuck my best friend,” I remind him, hands wrapped around the edge of the table in an effort to keep myself from ripping the knife out of his hand and using it on him. “That feels pretty fuckingoverto me.”

“Says the guy who actually fuckedmybest friend.” Letting the hypocrisy of my statement sink in for a bit, Conner cuts off another chunk of his ribeye and feeds it into his mouth. “Besides—Kait didn’t want to fuck me. She didn’t even want to be there. She approached me that night because her friends goaded her into it. If I’d taken her up on the offer—which Ididn’tbecause Henley was already home and that meant there was no way inhell I was getting it up for anyone but her—she would’ve bolted out the door before I even got her to the bathroom.”

“And then a few months later she asked you out for coffee.” When I say it, I realize that’s the part that bothers me. That’s the part that twists me up and makes me want to kill him. If it’d just been an anonymous hook-up in some bar bathroom, I’d be able to move past it but it wasn’t. She asked him out. Wanted to spend time with him enough to ask and he wanted to spend time with her enough to say yes.

“I’d just ended things with Henley and I was trying like hell to move on,” Con tells me, his tone uncharacteristically serious. “I think she recognized that it was something we had in common and saw it as something we could do together.” Leaning into me, across the table, he looks me dead in the eye. “And we were. Neither of us were even close to ready but we were trying… and if Henley hadn’t finally come home for good, there’s a real possibility that we might’ve gotten there and this—” He toggles the knife in his hand between the two of us. “would be a very different conversation the two of us are having.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a shit job of it.” I shake my head, gaze narrowed down to a glare. “All you’re doing is making me want to bury that steak knife in your fucking neck.”

Conner gives me a grin before very intentionally setting the knife in question on his plate. Turning the handle in my direction, he shrugs. “Andthat’swhy it’s not over between the two of you.”

Fuck.

The anger that was steadily building into a rage drains out of me in a fastwhoosh, the sudden absence of it leaving me more than a little dizzy. “She left me, remember?” Shoulders slumped against my seat, I shake my head. “As a matter of fucking fact, all she does is run the second I turn my back.”

“I know what that’s like...” Con laughs again, only this time, the sound of it is commiserating. Almost sad. “Henley gave me a run for my money. Pushed me away every chance she got. Couldn’t believe that I loved her because she didn’t even know what love was. What it looked like. What it felt like because her mother spent her whole life convincing her that no one ever would.”

Do you think he loves you? Is that what he told you? He doesn’t love you. He can’t love you. No one can.

That’s what her father said to her the day he came for her. That I didn’t love her. Could never because she wasn’t worthy. I never contradicted him. Never told her how I felt because I was afraid that saying the words out loud would somehow turn me into my father. Make me fickle and selfish. I never understood that by keeping my feelings from her, that’s exactly who I became.

No wonder she ran.

I’d have run from me too.

“Okay…” Swallowing hard, I nod. “So what do I do?”

“Decide if she’s worth the work,” Conner says with a faint smile that tells me he made his decision a long time ago and never regretted it. Not once. “Because it’s gonna be work, every goddamned day.” His faint smile turns into a wide, lopsided grin. “My dad always says that nothing good ever comes easy and nothing easy is ever worth having, so you gotta decide.”

“And if she is?” I’ve already made my decision. I made my decision six-years ago. From the first time I saw her waiting for me on those porch steps, I knew.

Conner tilts his head and gives me a shrug. “And then you spend the rest of your life making sure she knows it.”

THIRTY-THREE

KAITLYN

I can’t stop lookingat the picture of the drawing Went sent me. When I texted him yesterday morning and tried to give him an out about keeping the date we made to have dinner tomorrow night. I told him it wasn’t necessary. That I knew he only made the offer because Ryan and more than likely Conner were watching and he wanted to make the truce we’d agree on believable.

His response was to send me a dirty drawing of the two of us together. Below it was a text.

Went: See you Monday, Sunshine.

Like all of his work, the drawing is beautiful. He told me once that under normal circumstances, a single drawing could take him months to finish, the length of time depending on how obsessed he is with his subject.

I suspect that I could finish a drawing of you in less than a week.

He must’ve stayed up all night working on it because the picture of the drawing he sent me is new and it’s of us, fucking in his shop. In it, he has me bent over his tattoo table, the clothesI wore last night in a heap at our feet, the tattoo he gave me, clearly visible on my shoulder. Went is behind me, bare chested, pants jerked down around his hips like he couldn’t wait to get inside me. Cock buried deep. Rough, tattooed hand fisted in my hair, lifting my head so I can watch while he fucks me from behind, one of his thick, blunt-tipped fingers pressed between my ass cheeks.

I know what my greedy little cock slut wife wants… you want me here.

Still staring at the picture on my phone, I feel my face go up in flames when an incoming text flashes across the screen. Fumbling with my phone like I got caught with my pants down, I back out of my text thread with Went and open it.

Henley: Family dinner is canceled tonight. Instead we’re taking a day trip to the Cape house for a wedding rehearsal.

Wedding rehearsal.

---