On His Knees by Tabatha Kiss
Chapter 55
Jenna
Wilder closes the door behind her, trapping the three of us together in the bedroom.
“I knew it!” she says again. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!”
Seth raises his hands. “Okay, Wilder, hold on—”
“No!” She points a finger, thrilled and happy. “There was no way you two weren’t boning! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!”
“Shh!” I wave at her as she does a little dance. “Wilder, please—”
“No one else knows about this,” Seth says.
“Pfft!Duh,” she says, pausing. “Honestly, you’ve done a decent job of hiding it. Even I wasn’t totally sure until I saw Seth making murder eyes at you and Brad across the beach.”
I twist toward him. “Wait, murder eyes?”
“Wha— the—” Seth stutters. “Not murder eyes. What the hell does that even mean?”
“It means you were a few minutes away from luring Brad into the shallow end and not letting up until the bubbles stopped,” Wilder says. “Though, really, who could blame you? The guy’s a tool.”
Seth grins at me, vindicated.
I roll my eyes, shifting to more important things, like how Wilder just found out I’m having a secret fling with my best friend’s brother.
“Wilder, you can’t tell anybody about this,” I beg.
“Oh, come on, you guys,” she says, straightening up. “This is me. Iron lips, remember?”
“Thank you,” I say, sighing with relief.
She bites her grinning mouth. “So, how long have you guys been fuckin’? Was it while Heidi was in Europe? It was, wasn’t it? Go on. You can tell me. Was it?” She looks down. “Shh, Wilder. It’s okay. Just let it happen,” she scolds herself, her eyes shining like diamonds.
I hesitate.
“Yeah,” Seth answers.
Wilder squeals. “I knew it!”
“Does that even count, though?” I ask him.
“Uh… yeah,” he says, facing me. “I’d say so.”
“You banged me on a table, shook my hand, and ran away. I struggle to see how that counted.”
“It was… physical.”
“So was that time in your truck, but I don’t count that.”
“I’m sorry, what? We copulated to completion both times, did we not?”
“Whatever, just—” I wave my hands. “It doesn’t mean anything. None of this means anything. It’s all just sex, anyway.”
Seth pauses, his golden eyes going dark. “Oh,” is all he says as he turns away from me.
My chest tightens. “Seth, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, it’s cool. You don’t mean anything to me either.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“You kinda did.”
“No, I didn’t. I meant—” I exhale hard, going quiet. “I didn’t mean that.”
Wilder’s little eyes shift between the two of us, no longer shining as bright as before. “Okay, well…” she says, nodding slowly. “I’m going to go back downstairs and the two of you can talk this one out. Mmkay?”
We nod.
“Great,”she says, stepping backward toward the door.
She closes it behind her and the room goes silent again.
Seth shifts in place, feet gently tapping the floor. If we linger here for too long, we’ll get caught again. My stomach tickles with the thrill, but it doesn’t last more than a second among the haze taking over.
“Your turn, Jenna.”
I raise my head. “My turn?”
“I’ve told you how I really feel about you,” Seth says. “How do you really feel about me?”
I open my mouth, but the words don’t come out. My throat tightens around them, keeping me quiet.
How do I really feel about Seth Newbury?
How do I even put that into words?
“Tomorrow night,” Seth says before I can begin. “I have a shift at the hotel until nine. Afterward, I’ll walk across the lobby to the bar and I’ll have a quick drink before heading home. If you don’t feel the same way about me as I feel about you, I get it. That’s fine. We’ll end this here. Now. It’ll be a dumb story we tell people someday. But if you feel the same way I do, then meet me there.”
“And then?”
He looks at me, so close, yet so far away. I long for him to reach out to me again, to rest his hand on my cheek and kiss me, but he doesn’t move.
“That’s up to you,” he says. “I’m done fighting for what I can’t have.”
He strides to the door and leaves me without looking back.