Should’ve Known It’s You (Not You Again #7)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

AUSTIN

“ I f there was a memo from the National Prick Society, wouldn’t you have received it too?” Kenny asked, but her joke fell flat.

Her heart wasn’t in it at all and she knew it, groaning and covering her face with her hands. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even have tried. You’re not a prick.”

“Maybe not according to you,” I said. “If you ask Tate though, I’m the biggest prick who’s ever lived, so I guess it’s really just a matter of perspective. Do you want to talk about whatever that was yet, or can I get you another cup of coffee first?”

“Coffee,” she pleaded, her voice muffled by her palms. “I could’ve used something stronger, but I doubt they have it here.”

“An espresso, then,” I decided out loud.

“Make it a double.” She finally lowered her hands as I walked away from the table, and as I watched her from the counter while I waited for our orders, I realized she was even a bit pale.

Her cheeks were slightly ashen and her eyes were still a little bit wild. Or maybe bewildered was a better description.

Whoever that guy had been, he clearly wasn’t just an old friend of hers. What made it even more perplexing was that I’d recognized him. Vaguely, but I knew I had definitely seen him somewhere before. I just couldn’t put my finger on where.

When I got back to the table, I handed over her coffee and sat down in the seat he’d vacated, waiting for her to be ready to talk. Kenny looked as beautiful as always, wearing a simple black, long-sleeved T-shirt with a purple scarf wrapped around her neck. A jacket hung around the back of her chair, her hair up in a long, sleek ponytail.

Her makeup was light and natural, with only mascara and some eyeliner accentuating her eyes and not much else. Yet to me, she was breathtaking. Just like this, in jeans and a T-shirt, her understated style and natural beauty made her fucking perfect, and I couldn’t blame the asshole for approaching her.

I just hated that it had affected her so badly. As she sipped her coffee, she closed her eyes and inhaled, then looked at me again, forcing a smile that didn’t hide the worry in her eyes. “That was Danny. My ex. I’m sorry I asked you to come. I know you’re supposed to be at work. It’s just, he sat down and I freaked out a little bit.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said, and I really, really meant it. “The most exciting thing to happen to me at the office today was that Tate went off on me about being fired. Trust me, you weren’t interrupting anything, and even if you were, it still would’ve been okay. I’d rather be here for you if you need me.”

“Thanks,” she muttered. Sighing, she moved her gaze to the window, staring thoughtfully out at the drizzle coming down outside. “I saw the way you were looking at him, like you were trying to figure out who he is.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I thought I recognized him, but maybe he just has one of those faces.”

“He lived in Firefly Grove for a year,” she said, still staring out the window with that contemplative expression on his face. “He’s younger than you, but he tried his hand at football while they lived in town. That’s probably why you recognized him.”

I frowned. “He did? Wow. I definitely didn’t think I knew him from there.”

“It could be,” she said. “I suppose it’s not impossible that you’ve seen him in the city as well, but he was at school with us back in the day. Just for that one year.”

“Right,” I said slowly, wracking my brain but still not quite able to place him. “That must be it. Why was he only there for a year? We don’t get a lot of people moving in and out of that town.”

“His parents are developers,” she explained. “They set their sights on Firefly Grove to try to bring it up to speed and into the modern age. For a whole year, they pushed at every council meeting for approval for a mall or some sort of super center, but when nothing was ever approved, they left.”

I chuckled dryly. “If they had bothered to do their research before they moved out there, they would’ve known not to waste their time. I’m glad they cut their losses and got out of there, though. He doesn’t look like a particularly nice guy to form part of the community.”

She shook her head. “That’s because he’s not.”

Finally bringing her gaze back to mine, I saw the misery behind her eyes and I was instantly on edge. “Did he hurt you?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking.” Sighing, she started telling me her story. “My parents kept in touch with his after they left Firefly Grove, and then when we moved out here after my dad’s big break, they dove right into a close friendship with them. As teenagers, Danny and I spent a lot of time together because of our families. I felt like he could relate to how much I missed Firefly Grove, but in reality, he’d hated it there.”

I winced. “He didn’t tell you that at first, did he?”

“Nope.” She gave me a self-deprecating smile. “I think I knew it all along, but I just didn’t want to see it.”

“So one thing led to another?” I guessed out loud. “Between you two, I mean. Two teenagers who see a lot of each other and one who thinks they’ve got something big in common?”

She nodded. “We got pretty serious. Once we hit our twenties, he often talked to me about how he’d been looking at rings. He used to buy me flowers and gifts all the time…”

When she trailed off, I leaned forward, a frisson of fear running through me. “But?”

“But he also bullied me,” she said softly. “He would tell me what I could and couldn’t wear. He pressured me to do what my parents asked and he wanted me to get a job at their country club instead of pursuing my ‘ridiculous entrepreneurship.’”

My eyes widened and I scoffed when I realized it was a direct quote. “Your what?”

Kenny shook her head as her tone became bitter. “He used to say only men succeeded in independent business ventures, and toward the end, I started believing him.”

That pissed me off more than anything else. I felt my eyes narrowing and my muscles tensing, but I simply listened as she went on. “He made me feel so small, and isolated, and incapable. He wanted me to be a stay-at-home wife and only work a handful of shifts at the country club every month. Doing women’s work, whatever that means. Cleaning, I assume, but at least I’d get them a discount on their membership if I worked there.”

Silently fuming, I leaned back in my chair and mentally cursed the shit out of Danny—and her parents. Kenny’s gaze moved back to the window, tears shimmering in her eyes but not falling. “I lost a lot of friends because of how brainwashed I was with him. People tried to help me see that he wasn’t good for me, but I was too scared to jump from what I knew, so I stayed and the others slowly left.”

Red crept in at the edges of my vision, and I finally allowed my limbs to break free from the lock the fury had on them. I slid my hand across the table and reached for hers, relieved when she placed her palm gently in mine.

“Except for Winrey.” She glanced back at me, sniffing as she blinked the tears away. “She never faltered, even though she hated Danny with the passion of a thousand burning suns.”

“What about your parents?” I wound our fingers together and looked right into her eyes, seeing the pain flaring up in them as soon as I mentioned Lori and Jeff.

“They loved him,” she said. “They backed him all the way, wanting everything he wanted. As far as they were concerned, he was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

She lifted her chin and I saw the pain shift to defiance. “Even after they found out about the affairs.”

Affairs? Plural?!

A disbelieving chuckle came out of her. “My mom justified it with the all-encompassing and soulless, ‘all men cheat’ explanation, and my father agreed.”

I balked. How could they say that to their own child? How could her father not want to pummel Danny’s face in?

“All men don’t cheat,” I said fiercely. “If you ask me, Danny deserves for someone to teach him a lesson. You should’ve let me go after him earlier.”

She shrugged. “I doubt he cares enough about anyone for them to be able to teach him a lesson. He loves himself and that’s it. No matter what you do to him, he’ll convince himself it has nothing to do with him and he won’t learn a thing from it.”

I inhaled a long breath through my nostrils, releasing it slowly. I tried to get a grip on the emotions racing through me. I hated this guy for what he’d put her through, but I couldn’t go back in time to stop him. The best I could do now was to focus on the future.

“What do you think he was doing here? It doesn’t sound like he’s the type who would just happen to run into you in this neighborhood.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she admitted. “I bet he’s only coming around now because he thinks I’m still that weak-minded girl who will take him back if he asks the right way.” Her eyes tightened at the corners. “I’m not weak and I’m not the girl I used to be either.”

A rush of intensity I couldn’t explain shot through me, and I wondered if this was what Slate had been talking about. Every day I spent with Kenny made me feel more bonded to her, and this side of the girl?

It made her even more appealing. She’d been through the wringer and come out the other side tougher than ever, knowing what she wanted and believing in herself. That was a huge turn-on for me.

“Would you like to join me for dinner tonight?” I asked. “Let me take you out. I know you’re not weak and I know seeing him couldn’t have been fun for you, so let’s go do something to take your mind off it.”

“Depends,” she said with a coy, flirty smile on her lips. “Would it be a date?”

I nodded firmly. “It’s a date. What do you say, are you up for it or do you think you’ll turn in early after all that?”