“Have I ever told you how much I love you, Kitten?”
I laugh at his words. “All the time.”
“See, I told you. More than friends,” Duke says, and the entire room erupts into laughter.
Chapter 9
Senior Year
Dean
“I still can’t believe you are here,” I say to my mom on the cab ride back to the hotel, in shock that Kat did this for us. “What about the diner?”
“Suzie is covering my shifts this weekend. Don’t worry, baby. We will be okay without it.”
“But what about Gary? He gets mad when you take time off. I have some money back at the house I can send you. I just got paid before we left for Chicago.”
She runs her hand along my arm to silence me. “Stop worrying, Dean. Everything will be okay. Let’s just enjoy the time we have together.”
“What do you want to do? Is there anything special you want to see?” I look over at Kat. “Where should we take my mom?”
“Millennium Park is open for a few more hours,” Kat adds. “We can go there if you want. Do you know how to ice skate, Emma?”
“Who do you think taught Dean?” She smiles at Kat, before her gaze shifts to me. “You used to put your hand in my pocket to hold onto me, and now look at you. My boy is about to become a hockey star.”
“Fingers crossed.” I don’t want to get her hopes up. The NHL Draft is still a few months away. A lot can happen in that time.
“It’s going to happen. I can feel it. Mother’s intuition.”
After working her entire life to support my dreams, I have to land a spot on a pro team for my mom. She needs this break, both for her physical and mental wellbeing. Working as much as she does is not healthy, and I worry about her non-stop with me being so far away at college. My mother is the strongest person I know and the reason I never gave up, even when times were rough, and I was playing like shit.
“I’m kind of tired from the long trip and from sitting in the airport for that layover. I could use a hot bath and a cup of tea.”
“Whatever you want to do, Mom.”
“You’re staying one floor below me,” Kat says. “The suite has a hot tub that you will love. We can stop by the front desk and have room service bring you some tea. Chamomile okay?”
“That would be perfect,” my mom says, touching Kat on the arm.
After we get to the hotel and Kat orders room service at the front desk, we take the elevator upstairs. The Peninsula is officially the nicest placed I have ever stepped foot inside, and the room my mother has for the night looks like a fucking palace.
“I’ve never stayed in a five-star hotel before,” Mom says to Kat, staring around the room in awe. Even I am amazed by the posh accommodations. “Thank you. I have no idea how I will ever repay you for this thoughtful and generous gift.”
“It was no trouble at all, Emma. You’re welcome.” Kat hooks her arm around my mom and pulls her into her side, smiling over at me.
I mouth thank you to Kat because I have no idea what else to say. There are no words to convey how I feel about her right now.
“What a long day. I am exhausted.” Mom sits on the lavish couch and runs her hand along the silky fabric, leaning her head back on the cushions. She’s so tiny that the couch practically envelops her when she sinks further into the layer of decorative pillows.
Kat comes up behind my mom and cups her shoulders with her hands. “I’ll draw you a bath, Emma. Room service should be here any minute.” She points at the coffee table in front of my mom. “You should have just about every channel you can think of if you want to watch TV. Order whatever you want. There are a few movies OnDemand you might like.”
My mom reaches behind her to touch Kat’s hand and flashes a closed-mouth smile up at her. “Thank you, sweetie. You are too good to me.”
Kat touches her on the shoulder in acknowledgment and takes a few steps back to walk away from us. I follow behind Kat as she heads into the bathroom fit for a king. Once inside, she has her back to me, leaning over the marble tub to feel the water with her hand, adjusting the knobs to get the right temperature.
“You are officially the best friend a man could ever have,” I confess, so overcome with emotion.
“I’m glad you think so. Seeing the look on your mom’s face and yours was worth it.” Kat sits on the ledge and pats it, motioning me to sit next to her.
A beat passes between us, where the only sounds in the room are from the running water behind us. I stare into Kat’s eyes and reach up to cup her face in my hand. She sucks in a deep breath and closes her eyes when I stroke her jaw with my thumb.
For a split second, I think about leaning in to kiss her, because the moment feels right. But I push back the feelings stirring inside me because they are nothing more than emotions brought to the surface from the selfless gift she has given to my mother and me. All lies. I love Kat, plain and simple. She should be mine.
“Dean,” she says, finally opening her eyes. “I swear to God if you kiss me I will punch you and mess up your pretty face.”
I laugh. “I’m not pretty.”
“You look like a goddamn model, and you know it.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes at her. “I’m not pretty. That’s what you say about a woman.”
She touches her shoulder to mine. “Fine, you’re hot. Is that better?”
“You shouldn’t say things like that after telling me not to kiss you.”
I glance behind her to see the water getting too high and get up from the ledge. As I lean over her to shut off the water, my hand grazes her breast.
“Dean,” she hisses.
“It was an accident,” I spit back. “If I wanted to cop a feel, I would just do it.”
She laughs because she knows that is the truth. Sometimes, I can’t help myself. While sex with Kat is rare, there are times when I need to be with her. I know the feeling is mutual, even if she tries to hide it from me. Kat worries too much about her brothers and what they will think of us.
I wish we could come clean to them and put it out in the open. What’s the point? In on month, we won’t even live in the same city.
Steam fills the bathroom, heating the open space. “We should let my mom have some alone time.”
Kat nods, but her smile turns to a frown that surprises me.
I tip her chin up with my finger so that our eyes meet. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t feel so hot.” She looks away from me and covers her mouth with her hand.
I get down on one knee in front of her and place my hand on her thigh. “What can I do?”
“You can hold my hair while I puke.”
I lift Kat up from the tub, help her over to the toilet, and flip up the lid.
She sinks to the floor, holding onto my leg. “I shouldn’t have mixed apple martinis with that Japanese beer Austin was drinking. Ugh, why did you let me do that?”
“I tried to stop you. And you only had one beer and two martinis.”
She grunts as she positions herself over the bowl. “It was a bad combination. You don’t want to watch this, Dean. Maybe turn your head or something.”
I grip her long, blonde hair and hold it as she hurls the contents of her stomach. After Kat finishes, I hand her a tissue to wipe her mouth and sit on the floor next to her.
“I hate that you have to see me like this,” she whispers.
“You have seen me at some of my worst moments. This is nothing.”
She closes the lid and pushes herself up from the floor to sit on top of it. “I need to brush my teeth. You might die if I breathe on you.”
We both laugh at her theatrics.
“How about I take you back to your room so that you can brush your teeth?”
“That sounds like a good plan. We need to get your mom situated first.”
“I don’t deserve you,” I confess and mean it. A woman who cares as much about my mother as she does me is a keeper. I hold out my hand
for Kat to take and help her up from the toilet.
“Yes, you do. You deserve so much more.” She leans her head on my chest, as we walk out of the bathroom.
After we fix my mom a cup of tea and say goodnight, promising to come back in the morning, I ride the elevator up one more floor to Kat’s room. The suite is larger than my mom’s, with even more windows that overlook the city and a larger dining area. I escort Kat into the bedroom and turn my back to her as she gets changed. Even after all the times I have seen her naked, I still like to give her some privacy.
“Okay, you can look. I’m decent,” Kat announces, sounding much better than she did downstairs.
“Bedtime.” I pull back the covers for Kat to get into bed, and she complies with my order.
She throws her hands above her head and yawns, before patting the open space next to her on the mattress. “Get in. I need you to snuggle with me.”
Every time Kat gets sick, she has me do this with her. She has routines with her brothers and dad. I am in charge of continuing the tradition. Before she died, Kat’s mom would hold her in her arms, curled up in bed, and sing her to sleep. I cannot sing, so I don’t. Austin and Duke had continued in their mother’s place, and as her best friend, it was a job I’d inherited.
I strip down to my boxers and sink onto the mattress. Kat rolls onto her side and pulls my hand over her stomach, keeping our fingers interlocked.
The second my head hits the pillow, I close my eyes and take in the vanilla scent of her skin. She smells good enough to eat. My reaction to being this close to Kat after such an eventful night has me regretting the decision to undress. We almost never have this problem, though, on occasion, I have gotten hard around Kat when the feeling wasn’t mutual.
She has never made being her friend easy. Any man on campus would jump at the chance to have a girl with her beauty, brains, and talent. But most guys are pussies and too afraid of a girl who can play hockey and kick their ass in the process.
“Dean,” She whispers.
“Yes, Kitten.”
“Please tell me that’s a TV remote or something other than you digging into my ass.”
“It’s a TV remote,” I lie but the laughter in my voice gives me away.
“No, it’s not, you idiot. I know every part of you.”
“I can’t help it, okay? Bedtime is sort of…Just close your eyes and go to sleep.”
She laughs. “If you need to take care of that, I don’t mind. Go take a shower.”
“This is why you are my best friend,” I say laughing against her neck. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep and then go back to my hotel.”
“No, your mom is here and so am I. Spend the night with me.”
She has a good point. There’s no sense in going to my shitty hotel, only to come back in the morning to take my mom to the airport.
“As you wish,” I whisper.
It’s not long before my body returns to normal, and I fall asleep, with Kat snoring in my arms and me wishing we were more than friends.
Chapter 10
Senior Year
Kat
Music thumps through the house, vibrating beneath my feet. The air stinks of sex and sweat, a nauseating mixture that causes my stomach to turn as if this house doesn’t smell bad enough on a normal day. Every year, the Strickland Senators throw a party at the house my brothers and Dean share with their teammates. They get everyone together to celebrate the end of their season, sparing no expense for the event. After another championship, the vibe is electric, making the normal off-campus party even more intense.
Dean and the twins have amassed a crowd around them, a mixture of their teammates and girls who want the chance to hook up with them. I guess that makes me the gatekeeper once again. I am always the shrew who has to beat the skanks away from my men. Most of the time, I do it knowing they want my help. But Tucker looks interested in the brunette dangling on his arm, though I’m not sure whether she has decided if she wants Tucker or Theo.
They play these dirty twin games, as I call them, when it comes to girls and school. It’s hard to tell the twins apart if you don’t know the differences in their personalities, and they take full advantage of the situation. I yell at them all the time for duping people into believing that they are each other. Idiots.
Surrounded by a flock of eyelash batting hockey hookers, I spot Dean pounding another beer. He’s been going full tilt since this afternoon to make up for all the parties he missed during hockey season. Dean is just as strict with his workouts and diet as my family and me. We give ourselves a short amount of downtime after each season ends, which doesn’t last long before we get back to work.
But my career as a hockey player is over. My team didn’t make it to the championship round of the women’s Frozen Four this year, ending my final season on a less exciting note as the men’s hockey team. Unlike Dean and my brothers, I have to enter the real world after graduation.
Dean looks up from the crowd around him, and our eyes meet. He smiles and waves me over, moving the people around him to the side. The girls he pushed away glance over their shoulders at me and give me the usual evil eye I get anytime I am with Dean. Having four brothers has given me a thicker skin when it comes to dealing with catty girls, so I pay no mind to them, as I elbow my way through the throng to get to Dean.
“Kitten.” Dean slurs his words as he takes a strand of my hair and tucks it behind my ear.
“You are so hammered,” I tell him.
“It’s a party.” He touches the bottom of the cup in my hand and lifts it to my mouth. “Drink up.”
I tilt my head back and finish the rest of the beer in the plastic cup, and then grab Dean by the hand. “I need a refill. You are coming with me.”
As I steer Dean toward the kitchen, I laugh to myself as the girls mutter rude comments under their breath to me. “You were done with them, right?”
“Who?” Dean narrows his eyes at me.
“Those girls.”
“I wasn’t even paying attention to them. The only girl I see in this house is you, Kitten.”
I flash a closed mouth smile at him. “Real smooth.”
He slides his arm across the back of my neck, weighing me down. “I don’t have to be smooth. I have a big dick and can shoot a puck.”
His stupid comment makes me laugh. “I don’t want to think about your dick. Stop talking like Dirty Dean. I hate when you get like this.”
“It’s not like you haven’t seen it.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “I can show it to you again if you need a refresher.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Keep it in your pants. We don’t’ need another incident like last night.”
He grabs me by the shoulder before we reach the kitchen and pulls me to the side. “I didn’t mean anything by that, Kat. It’s not like watching you puke was a turn on by any means. Sometimes, my dick has a mind of its own. We were in bed, you were practically naked under that shirt, and well, I’m a guy.”
“Do you ever think of me as more than a friend?” I blurt out the words before I can stop myself. Duke got into my head last night with his usual interrogation of our relationship.
“Yes. All the time.” He turns his head away from me to glance down the long hallway to our right, before looking at me again. Dean takes my face in his hands and moves his head close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips. “You mean everything to me.”
My entire body comes alive from his touch, sending chills down my spine that causes my toes curl. I shouldn’t feel these things for Dean, but the closer we get to graduation, the more I find myself clinging to him for dear life. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to lose my best friend because life got in the way.
I shove my hand through his dark, wavy hair and hold him in place. “I can’t get what Duke said last night out of my head.”
He strokes my jaw with his thumb, his blue eyes burning a hole through me. “If I were to kiss you right now, would you let me?”
/> “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I’m kinda drunk, Kitten. My ability to think this through is fading by the minute. What do you want?”
I want you, my heart screams, but my mind is a traitor. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I’m afraid things will be different between us after we graduate.”
“Same here.” He releases my face and takes a step back from me. “Let’s get another beer.”
“I could use a drink,” I mutter.
He slips his fingers through mine and drags me into the kitchen. We run into my brothers and their girls of the hour, who are throwing back shots of vodka. The brunette makes a quick hand gesture toward the boy behind the bar. He returns with four shots and sets them on the counter in front of them. The girls scream over the music to each other, and I watch as the twins give each other strange looks, as if they want to either ditch their dates or do one of their swaps.
“Watch this.” Dean points at the twins who are trading places without the girls knowing it.
“This always amazes me. How do girls not realize that Tucker has on a red polo shirt and Theo dark blue?”
“They don’t care,” Dean says into my ear. “Girls like that come to parties to get drunk and fuck one of my teammates. The who and where is irrelevant.”
“Because you speak from experience.” My stomach turns at the thought.
“I have higher standards than your brothers,” he counters.
We laugh as the blonde bobs her head, her hair billowing around her face, as she grinds on Theo to the beat of the song. She glances at her friend and shrugs as if she realized what the boys did and doesn’t mind.
“I’m ready for that drink now,” I tell Dean.
He raises his hand to the bartender and holds two fingers in the air. A few seconds later he slides two Solo cups down the bar in our direction.
“I’ll race ya.” Deans hands me the beer with a wink.
More than Friends Page 5
