Page 100 of The Sweetest Devotion

She had this way of changing the subject that I didn’t like, but I didn’t push. “A bar. Or more than likely, a strip club, it’s where we do all our male bonding.”

Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Strip club, huh?”

The green was hard to miss on her skin.Possessive. She wasn’t the type of woman cool with her man going to a strip club. Interesting. “Just something to do.” I gave a lazy shrug as I grabbed a pan from under my stove. “Maybe you could hire someone to seduce your boy at his bachelor party.”

She frowned. “He won’t cheat on me. I don’t know him that well, but I can tell he’s a man of his word.”

A faithful semi-abusive asshole? Huh.

I went about gathering items to make for our breakfast. Eggs, grits, toast, and some bacon for me.

“What’s grits like?” Kennedy wanted to know.

“It’s a Southern thing. My grandmother spent some time in the South. They’re really good, I promise. Some people eat them with shrimp even,” I said. “I like mine with butter, a little sugar, and shredded cheese.”

“Okay,” Kennedy said. “And your eggs?”

“I only really need salt and pepper for that,” I admitted.

“Ah, you’re one of those,” Kennedy teased, earning a slap to her ass. She loved it, I could tell as she grinned and poked her ass out a little for more.

My mother seasoned her eggs more than I did, but some things for me were just fine with salt and pepper. Grits being another one.

I heated the stove and showed Kennedy how I liked my eggs, mostly over easy. How I liked to make bacon, sometimes in the oven, but the air fryer was quicker. And how to make a serving of grits.

Kennedy was like a sponge, soaking up my every word, even stepping in when it was time to flip the eggs. Whenever I was at the stove, she was close by. Even more, she had to touch me.

Her arms were around me, her cheek on my back, and it all felt so homey and right.

I stepped away to put space between us, only she followed.

Kennedy would be the death of me.

She was extra clingy, lingering on me like a second skin. And I didn’t mind it as I covered where her arms locked with my hand.

“I should make you lunch,” Kennedy said after we’d eaten breakfast.

I was at the sink, washing dishes. “No.”

“Oh come on, it’s the least I can do,” Kennedy insisted. She was wiping down the table and focusing on the task.

A brewing headache ticked in my temple. I paused what I was doing, going and looking at her head-on. “We should talk.”

Kennedy stopped cleaning and faced me. “Okay.”

I shook my head. This had to be said. I had to putmefirst. I was the only one being burned in the end. “You said you wouldn’t love me, but I never said I wouldn’t love you. Don’t leave your mark on me, it’s not fair,” I told her. Being vulnerable and honest was the only way to get my point across. “Staying the night, cuddling, making me lunch for work—it’s too much.”

“Should I go?” Her voice was small, and it crushed something in my chest.

“Fuck. No, just…try not to be too cute, okay?” I loosened up, tossing her a smile.

Kennedy padded over to me, her worried eyes looking up into mine. “I can’t help but hug you. You feel good, Keith. I wish…I wish I could’ve met you sooner, to give you a fair shot. To not burden you by stringing you along.”

But she hadn’t met me sooner. She’d met me on the night she was running away from her fiancé and her engagement party. Oddly, Eden came to mind. She and her love of fairy tales. If this thing with Kennedy was written down, she’d be the princess and I’d be some guy in the background.Star-crossedwas what they were teaching us before I’d dropped out.

Pessimism was hard to shake, but as I looked on at Kennedy, knowing and seeing that she meant her words, I allowed that dreamer’s spirit to manifest some more. Who knew what the future could bring if fate existed.

I finished cleaning my kitchen and grabbed Kennedy’s clothes from the dryer. She got dressed and upon seeing that it was chilly out that morning as we stepped out on the front step, I immediately came back inside and found a baby blue hoodie of mine in my closet and gave it to her. She removed that silly hat and pulled it on, smiling as she smelled my scent on the material.

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