I stick my tongue out. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Considering it definitely wasn’t with me... no. No, I would not like to know.”
The other three laugh while I shake my head.
“I’m taking my bathroom.” Kingston points to Reed and Bentley. “You assholes can take one in the main house.”
“Fine,” Bentley grumbles, grabbing the sports bag he brought with him. “You’re lucky I had the foresight to bring a change of clothes. Although, I’ve never had any complaints about walking around in the buff.” He winks.
Kingston peels off his sweaty shirt and throws it at Bentley’s head. “Get out of here and go clean up, dick. The sooner you do that, the sooner we can all eat.”
I absolutely do not check out Kingston’s ripped abs or imagine tracing each ridge with my tongue.
Kingston points to the corner of his mouth as he’s walking to the bedroom. “Baby, you have a little drool right here.”
I flip him off. “Bite me.”
He chomps his teeth. “Anytime, anyplace, sweetheart.”
Ainsley hops off the couch. “I’m going to go change real quick too.”
Reed chuckles as he notices the giant stain on her shirt. “What’d you do?”
Ainsley scrunches her button nose. “Jazz made me laugh while I was taking a sip of my soda. Pepsi came out of my nose and dribbled all over my shirt.”
Now, he’s full-on laughing. “Sexy. I’m sorry I missed that.”
“Oh, shut up.” She follows Bentley out the door but pauses at the threshold when she notices Reed isn’t right behind her. “You coming?”
“Gimme a sec.” Reed and Ainsley share a loaded look.
She nods, seemingly picking up on whatever he was silently throwing down. “Just come up to my room when you’re done.”
I look at Reed questionably once we’re alone. “What’s up?”
He takes a seat on the couch next to me, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. “Ainsley told me that she told you about my... uh... preferences.”
“Oh. Um... okay. And?”
“I wanted to say thanks for your discretion. And for encouraging her to talk to me. I feel much better about the whole thing.”
I wave my hand dismissively. “It’s no big deal, Reed. Really. You make her so happy, and that’s all I care about. I’m just glad you believe that now.”
He clears his throat. “There’s one more thing.”
I raise my brows. “Yeah?”
“I... uh... wanted to apologize for the whole video thing. That night in Donovan’s pool house. I didn’t record it because I was being a perv, or I wanted to leak it. I did it for Kingston.”
I frown. “Why? So he could leak it?”
Reed shakes his head. “No. So he could see what we all saw from the start. That you’re different. That he’s different when he’s with you. But Kingston was on a mission to push you away as fast and as hard as humanly possible because you complicated things. I wanted him to have a reason not to do that. By seeing for himself how he looked at you, how you’re both so freakishly in sync with one another, even when you thought you hated each other. I didn’t want him to miss out on what could’ve possibly been the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”
I smile softly and squeeze his hand. “You’re a good friend, Reed.”
“So are you, Jazz.” He gives me a sad smile. “When Carissa died... Ainsley was a mess. She’d been burned so many times by girls pretending to be her friend, but they were really just using her to get closer to one of the guys, or me. But Carissa wasn’t like that. She was everything a best friend is supposed to be, the one girl in the world who truly understood Ainsley. Who didn’t want anything from her but friendship. They even had the ballet connection. When Ainsley lost Rissa, she was devastated. It killed me watching her break like that. And though she got better with time, I didn’t realize how much she was still hurting until the day she met you.”
I quirk my head to the side. “What do you mean?”