Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 140184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 701(@200wpm)___ 561(@250wpm)___ 467(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 701(@200wpm)___ 561(@250wpm)___ 467(@300wpm)
His gaze meets mine for a couple beats, and he nods in greeting. “Hey, Kennedy.”
I lower my gaze and shuffle my feet a bit awkwardly. “Hey.”
Since this is his house and he’s comfortable here, he looks around, gets the gist of what’s going on, and then jokes, “I see how it is. You guys are having family dinner with her now.”
He’s only joking, but my face heats a bit, anyway. “Actually, I should probably be getting home. You can have my sandwich if you want, I haven’t touched it.”
Milo frowns at me, but I don’t look at him too long because I don’t want him to change my mind. I go over to Jet’s robot station and grab my purse.
“Are you sure?” Jet asks.
“Yeah, you can totally stay,” Jonathan assures me, smiling faintly to let me know he meant no harm. “I was just joking around. I ate while I was out.”
“No, I know.” I shake my head as I slide the purse strap over my shoulder to let him know I didn’t take it that way. “It’s fine. Um… you’ll have leftovers then.”
Seeing I’m nervous, Jonathan smirks. “Kennedy. Stay and eat the damn sandwich.”
I waiver, but only for a fraction of a second, then I shake my head.
The last thing I need is two of them thinking they can boss me around.
“No. I’m gonna go,” I say, nodding more to reassure myself that I’m sure than to convince him.
Jet was about to sit down and start eating, but now that I’m fleeing before dinner, he follows me to the door. He already snapped a couple of photos of me relaxing on his couch while he did robot crap, so he has the social media stuff he needs for his Brylee mission.
“He really was just joking,” Jet assures me.
“I know. I’m not offended, I promise.”
He seems relieved. “Okay, good. So you’ll come back?”
“Yeah, of course. Probably not tomorrow or anything. I need a break, and it’s natural for people not to see each other for a couple of days when they’re dating. We want her to think you like me, not that you’re obsessed with me.”
“That’s true.” He considers it for a moment, then nods decisively. “You’re right. We’ll take a couple of days off. How’s Friday night? You can come over and we can do a movie night or something.”
“Just the two of us?”
“Jonathan probably won’t be here, he’s always out on Friday nights.”
But Milo will be here.
He doesn’t say it, but it sounds that way.
I don’t ask this time. I don’t want to draw too much attention to my concern over whether or not his dad will be around when I come over.
Since I’ve experienced movie nights with Milo at our apartment when he was dating my mom, I’m not totally sure he’ll behave himself if I come over to watch a movie with him and Jet.
But I’m not totally sure I want him to, either.
“All right.” My heart speeds up a little when the words slip out of my mouth. “I guess I’ll see you Friday night then.”
Jet smiles, and my heart feels light and nervous at the same time.
Chapter five
Kennedy
Movie night at the Granville house.
I’ve spent as much time dreading it as I have looking forward to it.
Of course, that’s how I feel about most weekends. On one hand I don’t have to get up early for school. On the other, I have to be at home the whole time with my mother, and my only refuge is the shift or two I work at the local fast-food chain—which isn’t much of a refuge at all. It’s a meat market in the kitchen and a pit of snakes up front. If someone isn’t trying to fuck you, someone else is spreading bullshit rumors that you’re fucking someone—or everyone—to explain why you got a customer compliment card and they didn’t.
It’s lunacy, and all for a few bucks an hour.
But it’s the only way I can pay for my phone, and that’s a necessity. I used to have a line on my mother’s plan, but after the Milo thing over the summer, she decided to cancel my line without even telling me.
It was obnoxious and pissed me off at the time, but I was actually a lot happier once my phone was truly my own and she had nothing to do with it. Over the summer it wasn’t even as big of a deal because I wasn’t in school. I was able to work much more. I can’t work as many shifts and keep up with my homework, so now I really only work enough to pay for the phone and gas, and sometimes there’s not enough for both.
I could have picked up a shift tonight. Bethany tried calling off, but she calls off so much that the manager told her she could only have the night off if she found someone else to take her shift. Everyone knows I usually say yes to an extra shift on the weekend, but when she texted me, I had to tell her I was sorry, but I already had plans.