Page 27 of Hers to Kiss
Chapter 9
Keke touched the bandage on her elbow. Pete had done a good job cleaning the cut and doctoring her up. She smiled, remembering how careful and tender he was when treating her. She wasn’t a weakling. She’d been dancing all her life. Blisters and bunions on her feet, and bruises on her knees after falls, were commonplace for her.
But she thought he was sweet all the same.
Keke double-checked all the life jackets for the kids in her boat. Her rowdy bunch wouldn’t stop screaming and laughing. Living in Springfield, there weren’t exactly many places to go boating. At least, not that many inexpensive places. This would probably be the highlight of the trip for these rug rats.
When the last of the ragamuffins were seated in the boat, Keke climbed down the ladder attached the dock and settled into her seat. At the opposite end, Bertie commanded the kids to pick up their oars and start rowing backward. Of course, some of them didn’t know their front from their back, and the boat began to circle. Keke rolled her eyes and told the kids to stop. She and Bertie rowed away from the dock until they had gone far enough out that it didn’t matter if they did laps around the lake in a circle or not.
Through the noise of the kids laughing and flicking water with their oars, Bertie asked Keke what had happened to her elbow.
“Fell over a box.”
“Walk much?” Bertie smiled. “I thought you ballerinas were supposed to be graceful. Couldn’t you have leapt over it?”
“Very funny. It was behind me. I didn’t know it was there.”
“Hope you have your shots.”
“It’s nothing. Your brother took care of it.”
“Peter?” Bertie looked both amazed and confused.
“You have another brother I don’t know about?”
“He saw you fall?”
He was the cause of the fall,but Keke kept that part to herself.
Keke looked around the lake and spotted Pete and Lea’s boat. It was a bit larger than theirs, and they had a couple of extra counselors with them, two on each end. Of course, Pete sat next to Lea. He had to employ his new flirtation tactic.
Keke tore her eyes away from them and absentmindedly rowed. If Pete touched Lea the way he had her in the shed, then Lea would probably fall right out the boat. The eye contact, the graze of fingers across her cheeks. It was more intense than Keke had expected from someone who didn’t know what he was doing. She wondered why she felt so captivated.
She had thought for sure he was going to kiss her. His hands had lingered on the sides of her face for too long not to make a move. It was awkward enough; if he didn’t follow through, it would’ve been mortifying.
For him, obviously. Not her.
She could get any man to kiss her and didn’t need any practice there. Pete, on the other hand… Who knew what he was capable of? And in that moment, a shot of fear had divided her heart. Fear that his kiss could make her tumble hard, like she’d done over that stupid box.
Absurd. He’s Petey!Keke ignored the sudden pounding of her heart and told herself it was the kids pounding their oars on the sides of the boat.
Just because Petey looked way hotter than normal, and was smart enough to get into Cornell, didn’t mean he could coast when it came to women.
Especially a woman like her.
Which was why she was helping him. He was so lucky he had her to guide him.
Well, maybe at his age, there were some girls as shy and desperate as him; it would be mutually beneficial to practice. And there were always those cougars living out their glory days by trying to remain youthful by dating young.
No, Pete wouldn’t have any problem attracting women. None at all.
Which is why Keke couldn’t keep her gaze from finding its way back to his boat. Meters away, across the water, she could hear the cheery ring of Lea’s laughter and the deep baritone of Pete’s. He didn’t seem to have any trouble conversing with Lea now, and Keke mentally patted herself on the back for that. It was a good deed. No man should go to college unable to at least talk to a girl.
“Keke!”
“Huh?” she answered, annoyed, her study of Peter was interrupted by the sister who would be ticked if Keke actually wanted to date Peter.
Which she didn’t.
