Page 2 of Shane

“Good, then why are you standing in my doorway?”

“I’m here to escort you downstairs. Dinner’s ready.”

“I already told them I wasn’t hungry. I ate on the plane, and now that I think about it, so did you.”

“I’m a growing boy. I need more than one meal, and you could stand to eat something else, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I cock my head to the side. “Are you calling me skinny?”

In a world full of Instagram bodies with tiny waists and huge asses, my slender, teacup-boobed body doesn’t fit in with today’s standards of “hot”.It used to bother me a lot when I was starting high school, but with maturity, I learned to accept the fact that no matter what I eat, I’m just not going to gain as much weight as another person who eats the same thing and that’s okay. I’m beautiful, just as I am. But something about Shane’s comment, or maybe the fact that he’s the one saying it, irks me tremendously. He knows it’s a sore spot.

“I’m just saying that the snack on the plane they served was only about three hundred calories. What else have you eaten today?”

“What are you, my personal trainer?”

“Just come,” he commands, finally annoyed with my resistance.

Shane is typically an easy-going, even-tempered guy, but I love it when I can get under his skin. His nice guy routine doesn’t fool me. It never did. I know him in a way others don’t. Behind the wholesome guy next door act is a cocky, arrogant jerk who takes great delight in pissing me off. What the hell is nice about that?

“Why should I?”

“Just because you want to continue living in some immature delusion that your parents are going to get back together doesn’t mean I’m going to allow you to disrespect my mother. She cooked a meal for us, and you’ll eat it.”

I stand and get right up in his face.

Who the hell does he think he’s talking to?

This is my house!

“And who’s going to make me?”

He steps even closer, his large body almost engulfing my small one. He smells like a mixture of spring fresh body wash and mint, and I wonder if he found the time to shower when he dropped his bags off at his house.

I still smell like the airport.

“Kee-Kee, I will take every single green bean that my mom prepared with her sweet bare hands and shove them down your fucking throat one by one if I have to, but you will eat.”

“Is that a threat?”

“I don’t threaten women.”

“It sounded like a threat.”

“It’s simply a promise you know I’ll make good on.”

Our sudden stare-off is silent and feels deadly.

Like, I could literally kill this kid.

He’s always gotten some sick enjoyment out of this whole cluster fuck between our parents over the years, and it baffles me why. He still doesn’t even know my father, just like I don’t know his mother, so why would he blindly trust that my dad will be a good partner to his mother? Hell, he basically blindsided my own mother with their divorce. Doesn’t he get that the same thing will happen to his mom? That she’ll get hurt?

“I so wish your teammates could see this side of you,” I practically hiss. “Do they even know how cruel you are behind closed doors?”

“Oh, they know, Kee-Kee,” he responds, while a wicked grin spreads across his face.

“Whatever,” I mutter, forcibly pushing him out of my way and heading to whatever fresh hell I’m in store for downstairs.

kennedy

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