Page 61 of Under the Texas Sky
“I think the reason he left us the money was because he doesn’t trust us enough to use his kitchen,” I say.
It’s true. Mitch has let us live with him since that day in the gas station parking lot, but the kitchen is the one place typically off limits. It’s been almost eleven months since we’ve moved in, but the one thing Mitch is adamant on is ordering pizza if he’s going to be out late.
“It’ll be so much fun, Ki! Just think–chocolate chip pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Oh! Maybe some hash browns. I picked some up from the store last week, and I’ve been waiting for the right moment to eat them.”
I chuckle and he nuzzles his face further into my hair.
“Please Ki, for me?” His voice turns soft, and I know I’ve lost.
I turn to putty in his hands when he uses that tone or when he pouts. They’re so at odds with thebad boy personathat he has at school. He’s not a bad boy, just one who’s been dealt a shitty hand in life. But he’s mine. Mine to take care of. Mine to protect, even if he thinks he always has to protect me.
“Fine, but if you catch anything on fire, I’m telling Mitch this was all your idea,” I warn. Then I shriek as he turns me around and tosses me over his shoulder, twirling me around the kitchen. “Put me down! You’re going to knock something over!”
His laughter is contagious, and no matter how much the spinning in circles makes me sick, I end up laughing too.
He puts me down on the counter, and I have to hold on to the edge until my knuckles are white. I might throw up, or I might fall off. There's a high chance of both.
Standing in between my legs, he leans in toward me to reach our shared phone on the counter. His fingers fly across it, and then he’s handing it to me. I don’t recognize the app he has pulled up.
“It’s a new app, just for music,” he says. “You can listen to it ad free, create playlists, listen to radio stations. We just started using it at the store, but it’s kinda neat.”
“Okay?” I question. Because that’s great and all, but what am I supposed to do with it now?
“We’re going to make a playlist, and then afterward we’re going to listen to the playlist while we cook. You pick a song, and then I pick a song. It’ll help me concentrate more if I have music going.”
I shrug my shoulders while I scroll through the catalog.Hmm.We normally only listen to music in the car, so I’m not sure what to pick. Or what he would like.
Ugh, I’m going to pick something so cheesy, and he’s going to hate it. But I’ve heard it on the radio a few times, and I think it would be the perfect song to listen to while me and Trent cook.
Just talking about cooking makes me feel… older, in a sense. Like we’ll be doing this even when we have no teeth left to eat with. We’ll be in the kitchen, listening to our playlist and remembering all these times we’ve had together.
Well, here goes nothing. I have to ask Trent to walk me through how to add the song to a playlist, because I don’t want him to see what song it is.
It prompts me to title the playlist, and without too much thought, I put K<3 T.
He goes next, and we go back and forth until we’ve both added five songs each.
“We can add on to it, too,” he says. “The app will save it for as long as I have this account.”
Trent presses play, and I start grabbing the ingredients for our breakfast for dinner. My song comes up first, and Trent plasters himself to my back, swaying us back and forth, gently singing with Jason Mraz to “I Won’t Give Up.”
And that’s how we cook dinner, attached to one another and serenading each other with our playlist picks.
We finish cooking, and Trent plates up the food for both of us. He sets the plate down in front of me and immediately dives into his food.
It’s a heartwarming sight to see how much Trent can really eat when we both have access to food. It was so rough on us there for a while, but just like always, as long as we have each other, we’ll be okay.
CHAPTER 52
KIAN
The sweat drips down my body, making my shirt clingto my back. The material feels disgusting against my skin, but I’m sure if I took my shirt off, the gym employee would have a conniption. Back in Arizona, it wouldn’t have been a problem, because the worker used to ogle me. He also subscribes to my OnlyFans, so I know he was enjoying the free content.
Especially when I would pull the front down on my drawstring shorts, not enough to be indecent, but enough to reveal the patch of trimmed hair covering my groin.
Whatever, I know I’m attractive. Ever since that day I left Texas, I’ve been working on bettering myself in every way. And that started with me going to the gym, and making it my life’s mission to have a six-pack. Now, I have abs, a V-Line, and I think I’m pretty dang hot, if I do say so myself.
The only problem is that if I go for too long without the gym, the muscles slowly go away, and I’m back to that skinny kid who ran away two years ago. I refuse to go back to him.
