Page 32 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
“You need any help?” a voice calls from the road behind me.
But not just any voice.
Kate’s voice.
I slowly turn around.
She’s on a bike, stopped on the pavement in front of the house. She’s wearing a pair of denim cutoffs, one toned leg leaning onto the ground while the other still sits on the pedal. Her hair is long and loose, hanging nearly to her elbows.
I swear under my breath. Keep Kate Fletcher in the periphery? Not a chance. She’s a front and center kind of woman. She always has been.
“Hey,” I say. “I uh, locked myself out.”
She climbs off her bike and leans it on the ground before strolling forward, her hands pushed into her back pockets.
I tighten my hold on my towel. I glance down, noticing the way it hangs open at the bottom of one thigh. Seriously? Did I accidentally grab a hand towel on my way out of the bathroom?
“This is my house,” I blurt out.
She smiles. “You don’t say.”
I close my eyes. “I just mean, it’s this one. I’m assuming you didn’t know. You wouldn’t, right? Know. Which one it was. So I’m telling you.”
“When I saw you standing here in a towel, I made the leap.”
“I was in the shower.”
“I gathered.”
I don’t miss the way her gaze rakes over my body, traveling down my arms and across my chest.
“I needed my razor, which was still in my bag, but then the door...”
She’s biting her lip, an obvious effort to keep herself from laughing, but it’s also drawing my attention, making me think of—no. I donotneed to think about Kate’s lips right now. Or kissing. Or Kate. Or anything even closely related to Kate. I close my eyes.Think about baseball, Brody. Only baseball.
“Can I do anything to help?” she asks. “Do you have a spare key anywhere?”
My mom has a spare key, but the idea of calling Mom so she can also see me in a towel, or worse, see me in a towel hanging out with Kate? No thank you. She’s already going to have questions for me the next time we talk. I do not need this added layer of complication.
“Um, no key,” I lie. “But the windows are open in the kitchen. If I cut the screen, I can crawl through and unlock the door.”
She props her hands on her hips, her eyes sparking with suppressed laughter. “You’re going to crawl through your window? Naked?”
I scoff. “I’m not naked.”
“No, but you’re going to have to use your arms to pull yourself through a window, and I’m not sure that towel’s gonna do you much good if you have to let it go.”
I take a long slow breath, and Kate finally starts to laugh.
“This is not funny,” I say, even as my own shoulders start to shake.
“Oh, it’s definitely funny.” She motions toward the side of the house with a tilt of her head. “Come on. Show me the window. I’ll crawl through and open the door for you.”
“I . . . can’t ask you to do that.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Do you have a better idea?”
I let my shoulders fall. I don’t have a better idea, as much as it kills me to admit it. “Fine.” I set my razor on the table next to the door and reach for the front pocket of my backpack, where there’s a small pocketknife we can use to cut the screen. I pause when a breeze creeps up the back of my legs. I shoot into a standing position, one hand reaching back to make sure my towel is covering everything that needs to be covered. This towel is literally pint-sized. I am wearing a doll-sized towel.
