Are you sure?” she asks, taking the pan off the stove.
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m just going to go get a head start on my homework.”
“Can’t argue that,” Dad says, smiling. I love the man, but he’s so clueless sometimes.
I pick up my backpack and head down the hall to the stairs just as Regina walks out of the bathroom.
“Oh, are you not joining us for dinner?”
“No. I have homework.”
She gives me a tight smile. “Kenley, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for everything that happened with Monica. It was very shocking.”
“Was it?”
“We’ve been friends for so long and to think she kept what she did to that poor girl hidden for years.” Her chin wavers. “And Rose…well, I want to thank you for being so diligent in seeking the truth about what really happened to her. It was ugly and hard to hear that I didn’t know my daughter as well as I thought I did, but…” she exhales, “it’s good to put some questions to rest.”
My heart hammers in my chest. I want to ask her so many things. Push all the buttons, but as much as I think the men in this group are in cahoots, I don’t believe that Regina knew about Rose’s relationship with Chandler or her involvement on the SugarBabies dating app.
“I just wanted to know the truth,” I say.
“She should have been a better friend to you, and I should have been a better mother to her. Maybe none of this would have happened if I’d been paying closer attention.”
I feel a pang in my chest. “I don’t know if that would have made a difference,” I admit. “Rose was…well, Rose.”
“You’re right, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
I start up the steps, but she grabs my arm.
“Be careful, Kenley. There’s a darkness in this town. I’ve known it my whole life. I thought I could protect my child from it, but I was wrong.”
It’s a chilling and disturbing comment, but I nod, and then rush up the stairs. It’s not until I get in my room that I wonder who, or what exactly, is the darkness that threatens all of us.
“You’ve got it, babe, thirty more seconds.”
My muscles quiver and I can barely catch my breath.
“I don’t think I can hold on,” I whine.
“Twenty-seconds.”
I’m face down on my elbows, stomach taut, body shaking. Finn is over me, sweaty and shirtless. I close my eyes and think about the hard planes of his chest, how he worked to get that magnificent body, that cut “V” that distracts me over and over, his strength, and how safe I feel in his arms—
“Time.”
I collapse in a heap on the mat. My entire body spent and aching. Using all remaining strength, I roll over and look up at him. My imagination doesn’t do his body justice. Seriously.
“That was the worst,” I say.
He eases down to the mat next to me. “You rocked it. You’re getting so strong.”
I struggle up to my elbows. “I have a ball-busting coach.”
He picks a sticky piece of hair off my cheek and tucks it behind my ear. Finn doesn’t care how sweaty, smelly, or disgusting I get in the gym. That same look of hunger is always in his eyes—one that’s harder and harder for me to resist. He knows it too, it’s obvious in the smug grin he gives me just before leaning over and giving me a kiss. My lips part and when our tongues meet, a shiver rolls down my overheated body. I pull him closer, deepening the kiss and he shifts, climbing over me. I run my hands over his chest, down his abs, feeling the soft hair under his bellybutton. My thumbs graze his hips, then move along to his back where his muscles tense beneath my touch.
This happens every time we’re out in Finn’s gym alone. A simple workout, designed to help me feel stronger—more confident—after Monica abducted me in the fall, turns into a hot and heavy makeout session.
It doesn’t help that we’re both half-dressed. Finn giving me a fantastic view of his body, me in a midriff revealing sports tank and leggings. What starts off as an innocent strength training evolves to the two of us blowing off a different kind of steam.