FAYE
Kit wasn’t kidding about taking me to breakfast. Nor was he kidding about the freakishly large sausages at Crêpe You Later.
It’s only a Wednesday, so the café isn’t too packed. Crêpe You Later is a staple in Philadelphia. Low-light sconces line the walls of weathered bricks, tables are draped in checkered cloths, and a motif of wired whorls intricately weave themselves into the backs of chairs. Sunlight fans across the wooden floors, spilling down from a huge skylight in the ceiling. A plant fixture hangs from the pyramid shaped glass, a forest of green vines twisting over an auburn-colored, potted rim. Today, the display case is overflowing with a variety of pastries, from brown-butter raspberry tarts to maple-cinnamon muffins.
I always stop here before heading to work for a pick-me-up. Usually by myself. But I’m not by myself this morning. I’m sitting across from a famous NHL player who has crowds of fans screaming his name. I have a classroom of kids screaming mine. Kit doesn’t belong here, just like I don’t belong in California. I’ll let myself have the summer, but the minute the leaves turn brown, this little fantasy of mine will be over. Kit and I would never work in the real world.
God. Never in a million years did I imagine this is how my life would turn out, in some weird situationship with my brother’s ridiculously attractive teammate.
“Earth to Faye?”
My gaze scrambles up from my strawberry and Nutella crêpe to reach Kit’s eyes, and I do my best to ignore the spot of cinnamon lingering at the corner of his lips. As if receiving some telepathic mind waves from me, his tongue peeks out to clean the skin, and I involuntarily squeeze my thighs together.
“Sorry, uh, I was just thinking.” I pick up my fork and stab at the golden-crusted flour, spearing a cloud of whipped cream in the process.
Kit digs into his one of many breakfast plates, piling up squares of crêpe, syrup-slicked strawberries, and a spoonful of freshly ground cinnamon. His whole spread takes up the majority of our table—three crêpes, a side of sausage, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and a giant glass of pulpy orange juice. And he’s already hoovered up most of it.
“Are you having second thoughts?” he mumbles through a mouthful of food.
The thought of consuming any more sugar makes my stomach clench. “No, no. I was just…”
“Because you can always back out, okay? I don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped. And I definitely don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable at any point.”
A wash of pink seeps into my cheeks. “I’m excited, Kit. Really. It’ll be good to see everyone,” I say, reaching for my water in hopes that it’ll cool my burning throat.
“You know it’ll be a two-day road trip, right?” Kit reminds me.
Two days. Two days being trapped in a car with the man who I want to ruin me in every thinkable way. It’s always been hard for me to have sexual feelings when it comes to guys. I haven’t even been sexually involved with anyone since the rape. But with Kit, it’s a different story. Everything with Kit is a different story.
“I think I can survive two days in the car with you.” I laugh, though it’s nearly impossible to tame the quaver in my voice.
Kit doles out a blinding grin. “You know, I’m a pleasure to be around. Funny, handsome, conversational, a great big spoon. You’re getting the meet and greet without having to pay me anything.”
“I didn’t realize you were pursuing an escort job,” I joke.
“Oh, Faye. I would never charge you. You can have all this”—Kit gestures to his romance novel-esque physique, making a show of flexing every muscle he can—“for free.”
My mouth waters, and it’s not because there’s a half-eaten dessert on my plate. The pressure in my chest shifts a bit, now determined to crush my lungs.
“Please, you’re no Brad Pitt.”
“You’re right. I’m way better looking than that guy,” he drawls, snatching a strawberry from my plate and popping it into his mouth.
“I can think of some departments you could work on.” Lies. He probably exceeds in every department there is.
Kit stretches his arms above his head, making the hem of his shirt rise above that magnificent V arrowing down to the promised land in his pants. “I’m all for bettering myself. But I have to warn you, I’m more of a hands-on learner.”
He has the fucking gall to wink at me. WINK!
I roll my eyes as a diversion, but my resolve doesn’t last long when I get a quick glimpse of the dark hair trailing from his navel. Then his shirt billows back into place, and it’s goodbye, muscles.
“I don’t remember you being this cocky,” I tell him skeptically.
“That’s because I’m only on my best behavior when I’m around you.”
I snicker. “Is that what you call it?”
Voice molasses thick, Kit waggles his eyebrows, the lust in his eyes breaking through the surface, like a delicate fog lifting. “Considering you’d have a heart attack if you knew what actually went through my mind, it is definitely my best behavior.”
Gulp.
I need to stop talking before I enter unsafe territory that I can’t escape—i.e. talking about how dirty of a mind Kit has and then asking him to spell it out with his banging body.
The conversation stalls for a bit, only the murmur of the café filling the space between us. I’ve been too busy picking at my napkin to notice that Kit’s been staring at me for God knows how long, an indiscernible expression looming on his face.
My spine immediately straightens, mental sirens going off in an obnoxious wail as embarrassment captures me in an icy grip. “Oh, God. Do I have something in my teeth?” My hand flies to my mouth, and I run my tongue over the front of my teeth.
Kit shakes his dark locks, little curls of ink knocking against his temples. “You have something…uh…on your face.” He points vaguely to my mouth.
“Kit, if this is one of your, ‘Oh, that’s just your face’ jokes…”
Kit snorts, then quickly composes himself. “No, no. It’s right by your lips.”
My finger gravitates toward one side of my mouth, but I don’t feel anything.
“Your left.”
“This is my left.”
“My left.”
“So, my right.”
I’m pretty positive I’ve touched every square inch of my face at this point, and yet, no “something” to be found.
“Let me get it,” Kit offers, and before I have the chance to screech and disappear into my chair, he leans across the table, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip. His touch stokes a fire deep in my belly, one that only grows brighter every time we’re together.
A dot of chocolate decorates his digit, but instead of wiping it off like a sane person, his lips suction around his thumb, and he sucks it with a skilled mouth. Oh my God. Is thumb sucking café appropriate?
As attracted as I am to Kit, it’s weird how my body—which has been conditioned to flee or fight whenever in a sexual situation—feels no danger in his presence. Getting intimate with another person has been hard for me given my past, and every time I allow myself to indulge in my fantasies, I always come away feeling shame and guilt. Sometimes I can’t even get my body to cooperate with my mind. I view every pursuer as someone capable of hurting me, so I close myself off, never letting anyone get close enough.
But Kit’s bypassed all my fortifications. Heavily defended fortifications, at that. And now he’s in the heart of my kingdom, and I don’t think he’s planning on leaving any time soon.
“Got it,” he announces with a lopsided simper, quickly shoving his hand back in his lap.
Still slightly shocked, any articulate sentences wane on my tongue. “Thanks.” My heart’s pounding like crazy, and if I was hooked up to a hospital monitor right now, that little zig-zag line would be zigzagging all over the place.
Kit stacks his empty plates and wads his napkin up. “So, we need to stop by your place and get your things, and then we can head out. I told the guys we would be on our way soon.”
The guys. Right. The secret. One wrong move, and this entire summer blows up in my face.
I stare down at a little lake of syrup. “I don’t have much to bring with me. Just the essentials. I don’t want to take time out of your day—”
“Hey, there is no rush. I want to do this, okay? I want to be here with you.”
Believing that someone genuinely wants to spend time with me is hard. I’ve always felt like a responsibility to Hayes. I just imagine how much better his life would’ve been if he didn’t have to look after me. He could’ve been a teenager. He could’ve gone to parties and dances and done fun and stupid things. But instead, he spent his weekends at home, making me dinner and helping me with homework. I can’t help but feel like I’m just a responsibility for Kit too…one I burdened him with.
Kit’s brownie batter eyes drink me in, every hard line of his features softening. “You’re getting in your head,” he says.
I violently shake my head, as if that will somehow fling me out of my depressing mindscape. “I’m sorr—”
“And you need to stop apologizing.” His tone is growly, brooking no room for argument, and I can feel the bass vibrate all the way in my bones.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve always felt the need to apologize. You know, as a woman in society.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you need to around me,” Kit says quietly, and suddenly, it’s like the whole café has been submerged underwater, chatter warbled and images distorted, with me and Kit in our own pocket of air. Crisp. Untainted. Something entirely our own.
“How do you always know just what to say?” I ask, and I don’t think I’m fully aware that the question took on a life form of its own.
A gulp ripples down Kit’s throat. “I don’t. When I’m around you, I usually can’t find the courage to say anything. You…intimidate me.”
I intimidate him? Is he on crack? Kit—six foot five, who has never cried at a Disney movie in his life and is covered head to toe in tattoos—is intimidated by me, Faye, five foot five, who cries whenever she sees roadkill and has never done anything permanent to her body?
The math doesn’t add up.
I frown, wishing human emotions could easily be decoded through some universal equation. They can’t. Trust me, I’ve tried.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Kit shrugs a shoulder. “Nothing makes sense when it comes to you.”
His admission has my insides turning over. His words—tender as a bruise and just as lasting—echo in the cavern of my mind, and I bark out a fake laugh.
“Yeah, I can be a lot to handle,” I murmur under my breath.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I have two hands. Big hands. Hands big enough to handle a sweet little thing like you.” As if to prove his point, Kit crosses his arms on the table, the large hand in question resting against the crook of his elbow.
And now that I’m aware of how big his hands are, I can’t stop thinking about them acquainting themselves with every curve and dip of my body. Our kiss alone awakened the feral animal inside of me, and now it’s doing everything in its power to claw itself free.
I crinkle my nose. “I’m not that sweet,” I huff.
“Princess, you’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.” Something heady falls into Kit’s eyes, darkening them, and there’s an imperceptible tic of his jaw.
Princess? That’s new…and I don’t entirely hate it. If I was called that by any other guy, it’d be an instant turnoff for me. But when Kit calls me that, it does unspeakable things to my ovaries. Things that I feel like I should only admit in confession.
I pray that my blush isn’t that noticeable, but considering the lights wash me out, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was as red as a cherry tomato.
Kit roughs his hair with his hand, the faintest groan catching in his throat. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous when you blush,” he says.
I know the socially acceptable response is to thank him and smile, but I can’t get myself to do either of those things. Nobody’s ever complimented me this much before, nor did they mean it as deeply as I know Kit does. He’s so certain of everything. He always has been. Even after admitting how nervous I make him, how lost for words he is sometimes, he speaks with a decisiveness and truthfulness that comes from the heart.
The farther I fall down this Kit rabbit hole, the more likely I am to get stuck. Something festers deep within me, warning me that I need to think with my head instead of my heart. I’ll never forgive myself if our friendship experiences irreversible damage. Not to mention that I couldn’t live with myself if I betrayed my brother’s trust.
With a conflicting mess of emotions inside me, I slide out of my chair, extending an outturned palm. “Come on, Casanova. Let’s get this show on the road.”
