Page 18 of Kiss Cam

“You lost your right to be an asshole about this breakup, Grant. Let him in or I swear to God I will break every fucking thing you own in this place.”

I fight back a smile as I watch his jaw twitch — he’s contemplating whether or not she’ll make good on her threat. I’ve known Kelsey for half of our lives, and I can say with total confidence that she’s not bluffing. She’ll go full-on Carrie Underwood on his ass, and not think twice about it. After a few moments of internal debate, Grant simply grunts in frustration and finally steps out of the way to let me in.

“How kind of you,” I smirk at him with a dip of my head. “Alright, Kels, where do you want me?”

“Most of my stuff is in the bedroom, but I have a few miscellaneous things in the kitchen and living room.”

“So, let’s start in the bedroom,” I say a little louder than is necessary, just to grind down on Grant’s fraying nerves.

As we walk through the apartment — which is basically a mini-house since it’s a side-by-side duplex — it’s quickly clear to me that Kelsey did all of the decorating. Everything from the wall decor to the furniture selection screams a woman’s touch.

When we approach what appears to be Grant’s office, I’m tempted to go trash it. How many hours did he spend in here, hiding from Kelsey and chatting up other women on Tinder? How many nights did she go to bed alone, while he was out hooking up with someone else? My pulse rages at the thought of what she’s dealt with from him.

“Bedroom is over here,” I hear her call and realize I’ve fallen a few too many steps behind her.

As I enter the bedroom, I lay the boxes down on the bed. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Well, I figured we could just move my clothes on the hangers, so if you start taking those out to the truck, I’ll empty out my dresser drawers.”

As I walk over to her closet, I see that she already emptied about half of it, which must be in her suitcase at my house. I grab the contents of her closet in one armful and start heading for the truck. I spot Grant on the couch scrolling on his phone when I walk through the living room.

“You know she’ll be moving that stuff back in here in a few days, don’t you?” he says without an ounce of emotion, not bothering to look up from his phone.

“Keep dreamin’, pal,” I grunt back, pushing my way out the door. Once I deposit her clothes in the inside cabin of the truck, I start to walk back toward the house. When I reach the door, Grant is standing there, raging, looking like he’s ready for a fight.

He takes a step into my space, and I once again find myself hoping that he’ll take a swing. “Alright, asshole. What is this? You got some kind of thing for her or something?”

I take a step closer to him, leaving us nearly chest-to-chest. “That’s none of your fucking business. She is none of your business.” I’m not going to express my feelings about her to this guy when I haven’t even told her yet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Kelsey needs my help.”

I can hear him muttering to himself as I walk past, and I feel like if I turned around right now, I’d see his head ready to explode. All that makes me do is plaster a giant, victorious smile on my face.

“What’s next, Angel?” I want to cover up my mouth as soon as the words leave it. I’ve only ever called her that in my head or when I knew she couldn’t hear me. She notices it too, because her head perks up from her dresser drawer.

“‘Angel?’ You’ve never called me that before.” She cocks her head to the side inquisitively.

“Yeah, it just kinda… rolled off my tongue. Sorry.” I rub my neck nervously, not knowing what to say next.

“It’s okay, it just caught me off guard.” She flashes an innocent smile that makes her live up to the nickname. “Do you mind packing up the books on that bookshelf?” She points to the unit that sits next to the closet I just emptied out.

“All of them? Are any of them Grant’s?”

The laugh that escapes her mouth is comparable to a hyena. “Yeah, no. All of his important ‘fancy’ books are in his office. Those are my pleasure reads, no pun intended.”

I’m about to ask what she means by that until I start to pull the books off of the shelf. I’m greeted by multiple books with half naked people on the covers. Pleasure reading is one way of putting it. Now all I can imagine is her getting herself off while she reads these books.

“Kelsey Andrews, I never pegged you for a porn reader,” I chuckle to myself. She’s going to kill me for that one.

“I prefer the term ‘cliterature,’ thank you very much.” The arrogant smile that takes over her face is off-the-charts adorable.

“You sure seem to like this Sadie Kincaid. You have, like, a dozen books by her alone.”

“If you read her books, you’d understand why,” she replies in a sultry voice.

“I’m not a big reader, Kels. You know that.” But color me intrigued as to what’s in these fucking books. Silence takes over as I continue to file her books away in the box, while she continues to work on the dresser. It’s not uncomfortable, though — I find it peaceful.

“Alright, I’m done with the dresser. I’m going to run the boxes out to the truck.”

“Perfect timing. I just finished loading up your porn.”

---