Tucker comes up from behind Kat and shoves his hand into the bag of Cheetos. She looks over her shoulder at him and frowns, pulling the bag away from him. “Get your own,” she growls. “Can’t I have anything without one of you stealing it?”
“Someone’s in a mood.” Theo makes a face at Kat to taunt her and steals another handful from her bag.
Narrowing her eyes at him, Kat takes a sip of her soda. A beat passes between them where she stares the boys down, before handing over their snacks.
“There you go, brats,” Kat says with a defiant smirk.
They thank her with a quick hug and walk away with their hand
s shoved inside the bags.
“Are you mad at the twins for something?”
She shakes her head. “No, of course not.”
“Well, they think you’re pissed at them. I thought maybe you were taking out your anger for me on your brothers when you wouldn’t talk to any of us.”
“You’re an only child, Dean.” She turns so that we are facing and stares into my eyes. “Imagine having four brothers always around to harass you.”
“Duke and Austin might give you a hard time about things, but they practically raised you. They’re just looking out for you, and so are the twins.”
“Yeah, I know, but if there’s one thing I learned in the past two weeks, it’s that I am the shadow of my famous family. We became friends because of my father. People treat me differently because of him and my older brothers. Even on campus, I’m the sister of the Baldwin twins, not the captain of the women’s hockey team who led her team to two championships. And if we were together—”
“You would be the shadow of another hockey player.” I’m so confused by her sudden change of heart. I want to reach out and touch her like I normally would, but I keep my hands to myself. The last thing I need is for her to back away from me again.
“Yes,” says under her breath. “If we were to take our relationship to the next level, then I would be Dean Crawford’s girlfriend. Not like that would be a bad thing. Do you get what I’m trying to say? I want to be my own person, not an extension of someone else.”
I never stopped to consider how much Kat gets overlooked because of her family. Even I made the same mistake, but it’s also the reason we became friends. “Do you remember the day we met?”
She smiles. “How could I forget? You thought you were so smooth.”
I lean down to whisper against the shell of her ear. “It worked, or you wouldn’t be here with me right now.”
She stills for a second and closes her eyes. “You still haven’t changed.”
I take a step back to gaze into her eyes. “I’m not the same man you met in freshman year.”
“You were a boy back then, not a man.” She finishes the rest of her Cheetos and chases it down with her mystery soda. Then, she throws the trash into the can a few feet away from us, coming back to run her hands down my arms.
“C’mon, Kat.” I peel her cheesy hands off my black Strickland Senators shirt that she covered with specks of orange. “Go wipe your hands on the twins.”
“That’s one thing that hasn’t changed about you. You’re still a neat freak.”
I attempt to brush the pieces off my shirt, giving her the evil eye. “There’s nothing wrong with liking things clean and in a certain order.”
Her face twists in what looks like disgust, though I’m not sure why she would be appalled by me being the way I am. She covers her hand with her mouth and mutters, “I’ll be back,” and walks away from me.
Confused, I stand there for a second, wondering what just happened until I see her push open the restroom door and step inside. I follow behind her, about to open the door a crack, when two blondes almost knock me over as they exit.
“This is the ladies room,” one of them says, with an attitude.
“The men’s room is over there,” the other says, pointing across the hall from us.
“Yeah, I know. Thanks.” I roll my eyes as they pass and lean my back against the wall outside of the bathroom. I consider going in after Kat, but instead, I wait another five minutes for her to resurface.
“What are you doing out here?” She wipes her mouth with the tissue in her hand and blows her nose.
I instinctively reach out and grab her by the hip, pulling her away from the door and in front of me. “Were you crying?”