LITMIR.BIZ

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      A teenager showing up and moving in was...anything but controlled and orderly.

      “I’ll take a drink.”

      “Well, I want about ten. Can you drink when there’s a minor in the house?” he asked.

      “Pretty sure you can. If not, my parents would have lost custody of me at some point.” She hadn’t meant to make that comment. She purposefully avoided mentions of her parents. Bennett had asked a few times why she didn’t go visit them at holidays, after they’d moved out of town. She’d always been vague. That they drank too much. That they just didn’t get along.

      He’d pushed a few times, but she’d always shut down the conversation, and he’d backed off.

      “Bring on the alcohol, then,” Bennett said, jerking the fridge open and getting a bottle. He handed one to Kaylee, then took one for himself. Then he frowned. “I’m probably going to have to hide this,” he said.

      “You think?”

      “Trust me,” Bennett said, “he seems like the type to steal beer out of the fridge.”

      “Oh, really?”

      “He’s here because he’s been in trouble with the law. Because nobody can handle him. I think underage drinking is probably in his repertoire.”

      “So is eavesdropping,” came a rather sullen-sounding voice from the hallway.

      Kaylee looked up, and her heart choked before tumbling down into her stomach. He looked just like Bennett. His build was more slight, his hair a bit lighter, but he had the same eyes. And, having known Bennett since he was about that age, it was just like looking at him. Like a carbon copy. She didn’t see any of Marnie in him, and she really didn’t want to, so that felt like a strange and selfish blessing. But he was Bennett’s son. She would be more shocked to find out he wasn’t. If she had passed him on the street she would have thought the same thing.

      “Dallas,” Bennett said, keeping his tone even. “This is my friend, Kaylee.”

      “Friend?” He looked her up and down. “Just so you know, I’m not in the market for a new mommy.”

      Kaylee felt the sting of those words like the crack of an open palm across her face. “Well, no danger of that,” she said, her tone stiff. “I’m just his friend.”

      “She friend-zoned you?” the kid asked, directing the question at Bennett.

      Kaylee wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Of course, in spite of her feelings, she kind of had. The only scenario where she could imagine her and Bennett becoming more than friends involved him confessing undying love for her and a desire to get married immediately. The alternative was way too risky.

      Well, the real gut punch was that even that insane fantasy felt too risky.

      “She’s someone you’ll see around,” Bennett said, choosing to ignore the dig. “Kaylee and I run a veterinary practice together.”

      “Okay,” Dallas said, feigning disinterest.

      “Nice to meet you too,” Kaylee said.

      “Did he really not know about me?” Dallas asked, leveling that angry brown stare at her.

      “Well, I didn’t know about you until five minutes ago,” Kaylee said. “And he told me he didn’t either. I’ve known him for a long time. He’s a terrible liar. On that you can trust me. He’s actually kind of a goody-goody. If he tells you something, I would be inclined to believe it.”

      “Well, you’re his friend, so you’re biased.”

      “It’s true,” Kaylee said, nodding. “But if I thought he was being a dumbass I wouldn’t protect him. Count on that. That’s real friends. Weak-ass friends just tell you what you want to hear. Real friends call you out when you need it. I’m a real friend.”

      There was something about the vulnerability that flashed through Dallas’s eyes just then that hit Kaylee in a place she would rather not acknowledge. She didn’t want to relate to this kid, but suddenly she did. Yeah, she had both parents at home, but she knew all about uncertainty. She knew all about what it was like to spend your life walking on eggshells and hoping that you didn’t land on someone’s bad side.

      She knew what it was like to live on a system of earning affection. Earning your place. Earning the right to get through the day without getting slapped upside the head.

      Not even Bennett knew that about her. But she wondered in that moment if his son might have guessed just by looking at her. Like she had found common ground with him the moment their eyes had met. And suddenly, all that hurt she had felt a moment before over Marnie seemed ridiculous. The kid wasn’t a hypothetical anymore. He was real, and he was standing right in front of her.

      A teenager who needed assurance. Who needed to know that he deserved to feel safe. That he deserved to have someone take care of him.

      “He’s a good guy,” she said, tilting her head toward Bennett. “You can trust him.”

      “Well, this random woman that I don’t know says I can trust you,” Dallas said, his eyes going flat as he looked up at Bennett.

      But Kaylee didn’t care. Because he needed to hear it. She didn’t know anything about kids. But she knew about the kid she had been. She knew what she would have wanted to hear. Even if she wouldn’t have been able to believe it or receive it. But it would have sat there. If just one person would have told her that she deserved some kind of stability, it could have helped. Bennett had shown her that. As a friend, he had been constant and steady. And even though she had talked about the tumultuous nature of her home life, he had somehow seemed to know exactly what she needed.

      He had given her focus. He had made her feel like she deserved to go for her dream of being a veterinarian. He and his father, Quinn, had helped her figure out how to get scholarship so that she could go to school.

      Yes, having someone be interested, having someone be adamant that you could do something, that you could have something, mattered.

      “If it’s all the same to you,” Dallas said, “I think I’ll head to bed.”

      “I thought you already had,” Bennett said.

      “Which is why you were talking about me.”

      “Yeah,” Bennett said. “I’m going to talk about you sometimes.”

      “Is this more of that honesty that you promised me?”

      “Yes,” Bennett said. “I plan on being relentless with that until you start believing me when I tell you things.”

      “Good luck. I have about fifteen years of people proving they’re useless liars. I would say that in about fifteen more you could maybe undo that. But I doubt we’ll be speaking by then.”

      “If we aren’t,” Bennett said, “then it won’t be because of me. It won’t be because I stop talking. Guarantee it.”

      Dallas reeled back, a deep crease between his brows. “Why?”

      “Because you’re my son. And that’s how that works.”

      The fire and intensity in Bennett’s eyes caught Kaylee by the heart and held her fast. She was useless and hopeless. Hopeless for him, and this only introduced a new way for her to be that.

      Bennett was gorgeous to her, always. That was part of the problem. Maybe, if she had some kind of quiet, sweet love for him based only on feelings she could have redirected it. But it was more than that. It was a violent, intense visceral attraction that was physical on a deep and very sexual level.

      So sexual it was impossible to pretend it was anything else. Feelings she might have been able to squish into another box. That deep, intense ache between her thighs was very difficult to pass off as anything but sexual attraction.

      She’d

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