He had his hands on Kandy. My Kandy. That shit didn’t sit well with me at all, so yes, I whisked her off to a room and kissed her in the dark. Yes, I begged for her forgiveness and held her and kissed her. I needed her to remember what was important—that she was always going to be mine and there wasn’t anyone getting in the way of that.
She’d told me to meet her at noon, and I was parked at the gas station, waiting for her to arrive. I checked the dashboard for the time. 12:34 p.m. Maybe she’d changed her mind.
Shit, could I blame her? I’d gone weeks without speaking to her. She had plenty of time to forget about me. It may have only been a maximum of eight weeks, but people changed when something bad happened. Hopes failed and dreams crashed like planes and as humans, our only defense is to detach ourselves from the situation.
Had she detached herself from the idea of me?
I waited ten more minutes, ready to throw in the towel. I push-started the car and grabbed my phone, about to text her, but then someone knocked on the passenger window.
“Shit,” I hissed, looking through the window, spotting Kandy on the other side. She was waving with a soft smile. I unlocked the doors and she opened it right away, sliding right in. “Scared the shit out of me,” I told her, chuckling lightly.
“Oh—sorry!” she snorted.
“What took you so long?”
“I had to walk from the opposite side of campus. The walk was longer than I thought.”
“Well, I’m glad you showed up.”
She put on a bashful grin. “I’m glad too.”
I grabbed the wheel with one hand, putting the car in gear with the other. “I thought it would be best to have lunch at my hotel. It’s a little ways from campus, but there shouldn’t be any students there. We can walk through the back to be safe, though. How does that sound?”
“Good…but I hate that we still have to sneak around. So dumb.” She continued to smile.
My hotel was a twenty-minute drive away. During it, I could tell she was anxious. I was too nervous to comfort her. Instead, I asked her how her day was going so far—small talk, which I hated doing with her because it didn’t feel right.
It was fucking with my head. For some reason, after seeing her with that boy in the hallway, I felt like I had to win her back. Fucking ridiculous considering I was a grown-ass man and he was just a boy. It was a petty thought, but it was getting to me. It hit me that yes, she could move on from all of this and I thought I’d wanted her to…until I’d seen her with someone else.
When I parked in the hotel lot, I walked around to open her door and led the way inside. She kept close by, peering around like a hawk, like someone would notice her.
“Relax, Kandy,” I told her, pushing the button for the elevator. “The prices of these hotel rooms cost triple what a college student pays for rent.” I smiled down at her, grabbing her hand, and she nodded, exhaling.
“You’re right.”
I smirked. “When am I not right?”
She looked up at me, head cocking, ready to challenge that statement. “When you’re being a dick,” she answered.
“Here you go with the name calling,” I chuckled, and she bit a grin.
The elevator took us up to the top floor, and I pressed a hand to her upper back as we walked to my room. With one swipe of my key card, we were in. She was mesmerized before she could even get inside.
“Holy shit! This is where you’re staying?” Her eyes were wide with wonder, her mouth agape as she shrugged out of her coat.
“Temporarily.” I shut the door behind us and took my jacket off.
She turned, her ponytail flipping with her. “And you said you’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Yep. Tomorrow morning.”
“Oh.” A shadow of sadness ran across her face, but she brushed it off with ease, turning to soak it all in. “I’ve never been in a penthouse before.”
“They’re pretty spectacular.” I tucked my hands in my pockets as she flitted about, walking past the furniture and running her fingers over the leather. She went to one of the doors, pushing it open. “Nice, spacious bedroom. Beautiful duvet and glorious canopy.”
“Sounds like someone has been watching too many home improvement shows?”
She giggled. “It gets pretty boring here. I watch them with my roommate. Gives me ideas of how I’d like my future house to look.”
She was fucking adorable. I missed that.
She came back and stopped at the wet bar. “Been drinking?” she asked, picking up the half-empty bottle of bourbon.
“Did a little drinking last night when I got back from the seminar.”