But…
This chica needs answers, so that instinct to put his feelings first can take a back seat.
“What kind of answer is You push me over?”
“A literal one,” he says around a yawn, a teasing smirk tilting the side of his mouth after.
Oh, be still my beating heart. You would think I would be used to this side of CK by now, but you’d be wrong. It’s the main reason why his literal response makes me grin like a fool despite my best efforts.
I narrow my eyes and snatch the Post-it from him, crumpling it into a ball and tossing it over my shoulder like I did with its predecessors back in my room. “Literal answers need not apply.”
This did not go at all like I hoped.
“You practically act like a fangirl at a Shawn Mendes concert whenever I’m sarcastic with you. Now you’re telling me you have a problem with it?”
“Oh, funny man’s got jokes.” I give his shoulder a playful shove, and sure, I may have snuck in a squeeze to the muscle. I’m a lovesick woman on the edge here, people. I’m allowed a covert grope here and there.
“These notes aren’t the place for your sarcasm, Superman.” My next sentence gets stuck in my throat, and I have to swallow twice before I manage to get it out. “You said you needed practice on how to evolve the prompts to an actual conversation. Sometimes sarcasm doesn’t always translate through text.”
Has perdido la maldita cabeza?
The status on whether or not I’ve lost my mind varies from day to day. To be honest, between the building sexual frustration and the guilt that comes with using a guise of…romance tutor?—Is that what I am? Holy shit, I’m an idiot—it’s not just a possibility, but an inevitability.
“Umm…so…” CK rubs a hand across his mouth, and it takes everything inside me not to audibly sigh at the unassumingly hot gesture. “If someone responds to it with their own sarcastic response…would you consider that a good…or…bad sign for a future date?”
If the date is with me, it’s a great thing.
Slow your roll, Quinn, before you scare him away.
Clamping down on my excitable tendencies, I take a beat. “Being compatible and having things in common are almost always good signs.” I grind my teeth to restrain the excitable We have so much in common I badly want to tack onto the end of the sentence.
He blows out a breath, sagging back against the headboard. He may not have checked out my chest when it was all heaving bosom earlier, but you’re goddamn right I check him out. CK isn’t like the other guys we live with who walk around shirtless with their muscles practically screaming Look at me, look at me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I love the beefcake parade on the reg, but CK is never a participant. It’s a crying shame given what he’s been hiding, too.
Mami is going to enjoy him all stretched out in front of me for all it’s worth.
“Okay…good.” He glances toward his nightstand. “That makes me want to puke a little bit less over this date.”
Umm…
Hold up.
I wiggle my ear, sure I heard him wrong.
He has a date?
Ermigod, what?
In the countless worst-case scenarios I considered, I never imagined…this.
Though…
I should have. A man like CK, one so obviously going places based on his own merit and accomplishments, would never settle for a woman who’s nothing more than window dressing.
#CHAPTER11
* * *
He’s going on a date.
C freaking K…
Christopher motherfucking Kent is going on a goddamn date.
And…
Not only is it not with me, I also somehow inadvertently made myself the catalyst behind it.
How the fuck did this happen? How did my plan to get to know him better, for us to grow closer without him realizing and inevitably running scared like he’s always been prone to do backfire so spectacularly?
I’m going to die alone.
Ay dios mío.
That’s dramatic even for me.
“Ugh!” I tighten my ponytail to the point of making my scalp burn and set off across the mat in a frustration-fueled tumbling pass.
Not wanting to risk ending up sitting in the dark, lying in wait for CK to return home from his date like some creeper, I fled the apartment for safer ground.
I know I’m probably risking sounding like a broken record, but thank god for Kay and Em. I didn’t know friendships like theirs existed in this world until the three of us and our fourth roommate, Bailey—don’t ask—moved in together at the start of last school year.
Now? These fly girls are an extension of my family. We take our girl Rose’s mantra of “You jump, I jump” to whole new heights. And no, I’m not talking about the air we get in our basket tosses.
Not once have either of them made me feel judged or even held others’ actions against me when it would have been easy to lump me in with them.
Still…they didn’t, nor did Emma block my number when she probably should have. Instead, she texted my neurotic ass until our communication was cut off by Captain Buzzkill Matthew commandeering her phone. Our group text thread with Kay may have been filled with swearing and sputtering voice memos after that, but him taking her phone was for the best. I’ll already have to put in a few extra hours studying to make up for not paying attention in class while texting her.
Then there’s Kay, the reason I have a place to escape to in the first place. The Barracks may not be the gym I spent my youth in, but there’s nothing like bouncing on a blue mat while surrounded by large bows and high ponytails to chase the blues away or help a girl find her zen when her crush is out with another woman.
I rebound out of the tumbling pass with a solid pop, my ponytail whipping my back as I straighten, my arms rounding down to my sides, my hands slapping my thighs with a resounding smack.
Brushing away the strand of hair stuck inside my eyelashes, I look to the sidelines and see eight pairs of anime-wide eyes staring at me in disbelief.
Kay is the first to pick her jaw up off the floor, asking, “Umm…excuse me, what the hell was that?”
“And you call yourself our tumbling coach, PF,” Tessa Taylor—JT’s biological little sister and Kay’s in every other sense of the word—says with a cluck of her tongue.
“Ooo, PF,” JT joins in, dragging out Kay’s gym nickname in a long Pfff instead of using the individual letters like everyone here does. “Coach Kris will take away your coach title if you’re not careful.”
Kay does what she always does and rolls her eyes. “You both suck,” she comments, then she turns her attention back to me, her eyes wary as they watch me cross the spring floor to join them all huddled together. “You know I wasn’t asking her to name the skills.”
“Suuuurrrrre,” JT drawls, and Mason shoves him until he topples over like some cross-legged stuck turtle.
“You’s the best boyfriend ever.” Kay twists in Mason’s lap, looping her arms around his neck and placing a smacking kiss on his lips in thanks.
Tessa clasps her hands over her heart, falling into her bestie Savvy King in heart-eyed bliss, the latter giving an indulgent headshake. A sitcom-worthy aww rings free from Tessa and is chorused by Mason’s younger sister, Livi, on her other side.