Not being able to stomach looking at myself any longer, I grabbed my hairbrush from the countertop and headed back to the room to finish getting ready. I sat on my bed and began brushing the tangles from my hair when my phone chimed that I had a text. I looked at the screen and saw Kane’s name.
I couldn’t seem to make my fingers slide across the small screen fast enough. I had contemplated texting him before I went to sleep last night to make sure he was okay. I should have just let him bring me back to the dorms. We had shared a kiss after all—a hot one at that—but I’d let my insecurity talk me out of it.
Kane: Will you meet me tonight?
I took a deep breath before typing out my response.
Just tell me when and where.
I held my breath waiting for his response. He was taking his time messaging me back. What if the text had been meant for some other girl and now he’d realized his screw up?
Kane: Pick you up at 7.
Seven? That was more than twelve hours from now. I would drive myself crazy all day waiting for seven o’clock, but I texted him back with an okay and went about brushing my hair again.
When I was almost finished drying my hair sometime later, my phone chimed again taking me by surprise and making me jump. Grabbing my phone, I saw it was actually a text from Nate.
Nate: So study partner. You guys ready to get this project started?
Shit. I forgot all about having to meet up and discuss our assignment. But now that I was thinking about it, I needed to do something to pass the time while I waited for seven. I texted him back letting him know I would wake Jessi and we would meet him in the library in a couple of hours. I had to say hours because Jessi was still sleeping there was no way she was going to be ready in less than two hours—not counting how long it was going to take me to finally coerce her from her bed.
Just as I had thought—it had taken me about forty minutes, and a lot of bouncing on the bed to actually stir her and get her ass in the shower. We ended up not getting to the library until around one o’clock. Nate was already there, waiting at the front desk tapping away at his cell phone.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized to him. “Have you been waiting long?”
He smiled and slid his phone into his pocket and shrugged. “Nah, just got here myself actually, and I didn’t expect you to get here on time anyway. Girls like to be fashionably late or whatever they call it.” He winked.
“Amen to that!” Jessi chimed in from behind me and I sent her a glare. She knew I hated being late. She had grown used to me always being on her ass about making it to places on time.
“Well, anyway, you ready to get started?” I asked them both and we found a quiet table and began to discuss ideas for what we were going to do.
Before I knew, it the hours had passed and it was already 6:45 P.M. We had been on a roll with brainstorming and setting up who would handle which parts of the project. Jessi had even been throwing ideas around. I think we had made the right decision to include Nate into our group. He was set on what he was going to do, so there would be no sitting back and letting the girls handle all the work. Which was different then what I was used to. In high school most boys—and well let’s face it… Jessi—would just throw their names on the finished project at the end.
With it being so late, there was no way I was going to have time to make it back to the dorm and freshen up before Kane came; so I texted him and told him to just pick me up at the library.
Jessi left a little before Nate and myself to meet Landon. They were going to go to some party that Nate’s frat was throwing tonight. He had invited me during our study time, but I declined, just saying I had plans for the night.
When we finally had everything organized, Nate offered to take it all with him to keep up with it until the next time we got together to go over the project. Worked out perfect for me considering I had Kane meeting me as soon as I left here.
We exited the doors to the library, and I found Kane climbing the short steps to the entrance. My heart did a small flutter when I saw him, and the memory of last night’s kiss came flooding back. He had been looking down at his feet as he came up the steps, but as if he felt my gaze on him he, looked up—locking eyes with me.
At first I was worried that things might have been a little awkward for a tiny moment, due to how we left things last night. But when he looked at me, he gave me one of his full smiles, the ones that always caused his dimples to sink deep into his cheeks. His smile wavered a bit though when he looked over my shoulder and saw Nate. I was really going to have to ask them both about this one day. Nate seemed to be fine with Kane. It was Kane who seemed to be holding some sort of grudge against, Nate.
“What’s up Kane?” Nate smiled at him, and again Kane didn’t return the smile.
“You ready or do you need to go back to the dorms for anything?” Kane asked me, fully ignoring Nate all together.
“Um, no I’m good.” I stuttered. This whole situation was becoming uncomfortable.
“Ah, so you’re the plans Kelsey has for the night that made her blow off my party.”
Kane’s head jerked so fast to glare at Nate, but he didn’t say anything back to him. He simply took my hand and began to lead me down the steps.
I threw a quick goodbye over my shoulder to Nate. I hated how rude Kane was being, but when he wrapped his hand around mine and the butterflies in my stomach started to flutter, it made it pretty easy to overlook the rudeness and just go with it.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we walked around the corner to the side of the library—straight to a black motorcycle with neon green flames.
“It’s a surprise,” he said as he swung his leg over the bike and looked at me, obviously waiting for me to hop on.
“What?” he asked with a puzzled look on his face.
“I’ve never been on one before.” I nodded toward the motorcycle.
“It’s just a bike, Kelsey.”
“Yeah, just a bike, and a bike has no air bags or seat belts,” I added.
“I would never let anything happen to you. I promise.” He held up two fingers like a boy scout.
“I seriously doubt you were ever a boy scout,” I huffed as I placed one hand on his shoulder and threw my leg over the bike. Man what a smart move it had been to wear jeans tonight.
When I was finally on the seat and had my feet on the pegs, I grabbed the sides of his shirt but he took my hands and pulled them around to rest on his chest.
“That’s not tight enough,” he laughed as he kicked the kickstand up and took off.