Page 62 of Honey Undone
“Minty?” Jensen looked over at me.
“It was one…” I stopped telling the story and chuckled, “Foul play,” I said to her with a pointed finger. “Fine, let’s do it.”
Kaia jumped at me, picking me up off the ground and throwing me over her shoulder with a spin. Everyone collected their stuff and piled into Jensen’s old man car, Rhea sliding in behind me as I moved my seat forward for her and Jensen’s hand wrapped around my thigh.
He winked at me as he pulled from the parking lot and took the five of us back up to the Nest. “Cosy is gonna hate that she missed this,” Kaia was jabbering from the backseat.
“No she won’t, she hates fun,” Rhea laughed and threw her arm around Sunday. “When was the last time she came out with us for karaoke? Or drinks, or dancing…” Rhea’s list was endless.
“I wishIknew what was fun was supposed to be going on,” I grumbled and turned my head to look out the window. The rain was coming down hard and pelted against the windows as he parked the car outside the Nest. I still wasn’t entirely sure how they could reduce such a regal home like Dansby House to something called the Nest, but every time I referred to it by its actual name, Jensen scowled or ignored me all together. I had been silently bullied into calling it by the dumb nickname in record time.
“Addy ‘I hate surprises’ Sarah,” Kaia said, leaning forward on the seats and tugging at my hair. “You’re going tolovethis.”
She was the first out of the car and like clockwork, Dean Tucker was coming out the front door. He held his hand out to her and I watched as they bumped their fists together, top, bottom, side, side, wiggled their fingers before bumping their opposite elbows together.
“Is this the Twilight Zone? That’s what this is, isn’t it?” I said, watching with horror as she just disappeared into the house with him. “How does she know him?” I asked.
“I told you,” Rhea said, getting out of the car with me, “she made friends.”
“They have a secret handshake!” I said to her and Rhea shrugged. She didn’t say anything but she was right, Kaia made those kinds of friends wherever she went. It was impossible not to love her, she was loyal, loud and when it came down to it she always had your back.
Rhea led Sunday up the stairs and into the house leaving me standing in the downpour with Jensen. The rain soaked his dark hair, and when he ran his hand through, it left the strands sticking up in droopy curls leaning in every direction.
“Scared of a little rain?” He asked me, his eyes watching my expression carefully. How did we go from him wanting to jump my bones to being acutely aware of my every thought? It sent a tingle of nerves through my muscles.
“I’m going to need the tanned, strictly sunshine baseball player to stop making assumptions. Ilovethe rain,” I said to him. “I do not like being out of the loop.”
“Is that all it is?” He asked, taking my hand and leading me toward the house. The implications of his question were clear.Why were you sad?
“That’s all.” I gave his hand a squeeze, trying to convince him and myself that it wasn’t the time or the place to have the ‘I might not be here in six months’ conversation with him.
“I can fix that problem,” he said.
The worst part was, he could probably fix it but I was too much of a chicken to talk to him about it. I surrendered to his gentle tugs and curled myself against his side as we wandered through the house. We walked by all the empty roomsto the wide open back door and ventured into the rain after a brief thirty-second pause from the downpour.
“What the hell is that?” I asked him.
“A slip and slide,” he said, his lips crooked and showing off a portion of his brilliant, sharp smile. “Come,” he hopped down off the step and held his hands up to me, grabbing my waist and pulling me down before I had time to register what the hell was happening.
Several members of the Hornets baseball team were spread out across the lawn in dirty clothes, and half naked, covered in grass and mud. I watched in amazed horror as Van Mitchell the outfielder tossed his massive, muscled and very naked, very muddy torso down the hill with reckless abandon.
“What?” I laughed and inched forward to watch, from the angle we were at I couldn't see over the hill but I knew it was steep. We climbed it just the other night. As I got closer it was obvious that they had been doing this for years. Down the backside of the hill, carved into what was a beautiful patch of grass was a dirty path that had turned into a mud pit from the rain.
It was a thick, slippery slope that they were sliding down.
“Oh my god,” I said as Kaia tore off her pump cover, her muscles were still tense from our workout, her back flexing as she spoke to the first baseman with a smile on her face. He was telling her how to do it without getting hurt, but I still flinched as she took the thin plastic sled from him and launched herself down the hill. Her screams of laughter filled the air as everyone cheered for her.
Jensen tugged off his shirt with one hand, and between the rain and the gym pump I nearly moaned. Every muscle on his body was tight and overworked, the tattoos stretching over his tanned skin. Combined, it made me clench my thighs together.He was turning me into an animal.He looked over at me and lifted my chin with the crook of his finger, “eyes up here, Belle.”
“I’m having withdrawals,” I grumbled and grabbed his wrist before he could pull away.
That made him laugh, his chest rumbling as he brought me closer, “later,” rolled off his lips as he leaned down and his lips met mine gently, the rain making the kiss slick.
“Tease,” I said as he pulled away, his fingers finding my wrist and backed toward the edge of the hill.
“I’ll just watch for now,” I said to him, between the rain, the mud and the sharp slope… Everything about the slip and slide they all loved so much looked like a surefire way to get hurt before my season even started.
“No.” Jensen shook his head.
