Page 89 of The Very First Night

I don’t know what to expect, but it’s definitely not the tears glistening in her eyes. She stares down at the cake with an unreadable expression before she looks up. “Who did this?” Her voice is steady, but her hands tremble as she waits for an answer.

Shit.

Her eyes linger on Jenna, who shakes her head in response, then her gaze lands on me.

I frown and sigh. “I’m sorry. I just—I remembered you saying how much you missed the cake that Rodrigo from Pip’s would make for your birthday every year when you were a kid. So I got ahold of your mom and my mom went to go get it.”

Tears begin streaming down her cheeks and I instantly curl in on myself. How the hell could I have fucked this up so colossally?

“Kat, I’m so sorry. I just thought?—”

Before I can finish apologizing, she lunges into my arms, squeezing me tightly with her arms around my neck. The familiar scent of her body wash—the delicious scent of toasted coconut I’ve grown to love—invades my senses as I tighten my arms around her waist.

“Thank you,” Kat whispers, and I breathe a sigh of relief. We stay like that for a few seconds before she loosens her grip and I hesitantly release my hold on her.

“Seriously, guys, thank you for all of this.” Her voice is significantly steadier as she looks to her best friend, who is beaming with pride.

However, I’m momentarily distracted by the scowl directed at me from the back of the room. The girl Elijah brought tries and fails to garner his attention, but it’s no use—he’s entirely focused on me.

The old Tanner would have shrugged it off, made a joke to lighten the growing tension between us. Hell, that’s what I’ve always done when it comes to this unspoken issue between Elijah and me. Not now, though—not now that she’s finally away from that sleazeball. He doesn’t deserve my diversion. Instead of lightening the tension, I lift a brow at him, which causes him to clear his throat and look at the redhead he brought.

Yeah, it would probably do you some good to pay attention to your date, you fucking prick.

Kat moves to grab a knife out of the drawer to start cutting the cake when Jenna smacks her hand. “We need to take a picture!” she says. “Gather around the counter. We’re going to take a picture!”

Everyone does as Jenna says, even Elijah—but when the mystery girl he brought moves to join, Jenna hands her her phone. “Can you take this?”

The girl nods awkwardly as she steps backward.

After four different tries, we finally take a photo of which Jenna approves, at which point I am elated, because it means I can finally take off these shorts that have my balls in a vise-like grip.

As I step back into the living room, I let out an irritated sigh. Music blares from speakers while people sway and dance in various corners of the room. My eyes scan the crowd, trying to find familiar faces among the sea of strangers. Jenna and I had agreed that it would just be our friends and those who live here, but it’s clear that word of our party has spread far beyond that. There must be close to fifty people packed into our house, spilling drinks and laughing loudly. My stomach drops as I realize this is not what we planned for at all.

“What the hell?” I ask Jenna.

She pins me with a glare. “I didn’t do it, ya dick. I don’t know who did, but I’d bet someone posted about it and people just assumed it was a free-for-all.”

Great—just fucking great.

Within a couple hours, most everyone is hammered, and I find myself silently regretting following Kat’s lead in only lightly drinking. She’s had two spiked seltzers and has been nursing a third for close to an hour. It is almost guaranteed to be warm.

“Are you having fun?” I ask when I find her alone in the kitchen, picking at a piece of cake from earlier. Seeing her hiding away from it all causes a pang of pain in my chest.

She nearly jumps out of her skin, then realizes it is me and lets out a sigh of relief, which I appreciate more than I would like to admit. “Yeah, the party is great.”

As the only other sober person here, I’m far more aware of her inflections than even Jenna at this point. Without giving it much thought, I step up behind her at the counter and gently place my hand on her lower back. Her breathing quickens as I softly trace my nails up the outside of her thigh, causing a visible shiver to run through her body. A faint smile tugs at the corners of her mouth as she leans into my touch.

“Are you sure you’re enjoying the party?” I whisper against the shell of her ear. As I slide my hand up from her thigh to rest on her stomach under her cotton T-shirt, she shivers against me, melting into my touch.

“It’s okay.” She gasps as my fingertips trace the waistband of her skin-tight shorts. “A lot more people than I’d prefer, but it’s fine.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t the plan. I think Brendan posted it on Twitter.”

“Makes sense.”

“We could always go upstairs,” I suggest, my lips grazing the sensitive spot just below her earlobe.

Kat’s eyes flutter closed and she bites her lip, considering my suggestion.

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