Page 3 of Kendrick

“You don’t look like you’re not feeling well,” Boyd said, looking Kendrick up and down.

Kendrick huffed and turned, stomping back to the living room. He heard Boyd and Chris follow him and the door closing behind them.

Fuck.Boyd had seen right through him. He wouldn’t drag him to this family dinner, but he’d sure try to convince him to come, and when he did stuff like that, Kendrick always broke down and gave in.

He wanted to make his friends happy, dammit, and Boyd had mastered the puppy eyes, which shouldn’t be possible, considering how big he was.

“He was lying,” Chris said as he walked into the living room.

“Yeah, I got that. What I don’t know is why,” Boyd told him.

“You do know I’m right here, right?” Kendrick asked.

Both of his friends turned to look at him in a way that would have sent him running for the hills if he’d been a weaker man. They were intimidating. They would be even if Kendrick didn’t know they were hunters.

Well, theyhadbeen hunters. Boyd had retired, and he was living his best life, renovating his house, gardening, and making Alexis happy. Chris was working on that last part with his own mate, Gary. Kendrick was the only one who didn’t have anyone, and he was fine with that. He didn’t have to have a mate to be happy. Did he want to meet them? Yeah, just like anyone else. That didn’t mean he was looking, though.

“Why don’t you want to come with us?” Boyd asked as he flopped onto the couch.

“Because I’m not feeling well. I have a stomachache.”

Boyd’s expression told Kendrick he didn’t believe him. From the way Chris was staring, he didn’t, either.

The three of them were best friends and had been for a while. They’d met when they’d drifted toward the same hunter group, and they’d been a unit since then. They’d had each other’s backs when they hunted and in their private lives.

So why did it feel like Chris and Boyd had ganged up on him?

He sighed and sat next to Boyd. “Devon is going to be there, isn’t he?”

Chris grimaced. “Oh, that’s why you don’t want to come. Yeah, he’s going to be there. Clay mentioned it when he texted me earlier.”

“He’s why I don’t want to come. He’s a great kid, but I don’t want to deal with him right now.”

“You did tell him you weren’t interested, didn’t you?” Boyd asked delicately. He sounded like he was afraid Kendrick’s answer would be no.

“Of course I did, several times. I told him I wasn’t interested in dating someone so young, even though he’s eighteen now. Itold him that he’s not my type and that I see him like a younger brother.”

“I take it that it didn’t work?” Chris asked.

“No, it didn’t, which is why I’m planning to spend the evening on my couch, where Devon can’t get to me.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Chris muttered.

The problem was that it was too easy for Kendrick to imagine Devon sneaking into the house to surprise him. He’d think it was a nice gesture, but as far as Kendrick was concerned, it would be creepy and nothing else.

He rubbed his face. “I don’t know what else to do. He’s so fucking young and traumatized. I want to help him, but I know that if I give him one inch, he’s going to try to take everything, and that’s not something I can deal with. I don’t want to be with him. I also don’t want to hurt him, though, and I don’t know how to reconcile those things.”

“I think that the only way is to continue telling him you’re not interested every time he brings it up,” Boyd said. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I’m sure that eventually he’ll understand. You just have to give him a bit of time. He latched onto you because you were there when we rescued him and his family, and he’s had a bit of hero worship since that day. Maybe he wants to be like you but doesn’t know how to deal with that.”

“So he decided to try to get into my pants? I’m sorry, but that sounds absurd.”

“It probably is, but you just said he’s traumatized. His life wasn’t exactly normal. How can you expect him to have normal reactions?”

Boyd wasn’t wrong, but that still didn’t help. What the fuck was Kendrick supposed to do?

* * * *

Jonas had allowed Caroline to drag him to what she’d called a party. No matter how many times he told her he was too busy to go, she ignored him, so here he was, clean and wearing nice clothes, wondering if he could hide in a closet until Caroline forgot about him. He could try, but he suspected she’d eventually find him.

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