Page 69 of Token

“That is what you’re going to tell me, right? That you’re sleeping with Nate?”

Eyes wide, Kennedy could only gape at her. “You know?” What, had he called his sister the second she’d left his apartment?

“Kennie, I’ve known since freshman year.”

Kennedy’s jaw dropped then.She’d known from thebeginning, not just since their latest romp in the hay.

“Oh. My. God.I can’t believe you’ve known about it this whole time,” she said, her voice little more than a strangled breath of air.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Aurora said with a dismissive flutter of her fingers. “It wasn’t anythingyoudid or said. It was Nate, and he fessed up when I confronted him.”

Making Nate an egregiously weak link. She filed that nugget of knowledge in the back of her mind.

“Don’t you have anything to say about it?” Kennedy couldn’t understand her friend’s reaction. She’d braced herself for something other than calm acceptance.

“WhatcanI say?” Aurora gave a negligent shrug. “You’re both adults. Although, I should be mad at you. And hurt. I get that he’s my brother and it makes things awkward, but you’re my best friend. We’re supposed to tell each other these things. I’d tellyouif I slept with one of your brothers. And it’s not like the thought never entered my mind. Cam and Jay arehot.”

She and her sister had once joked that it was a mandatory phase all their girlfriends went through: crush hard on the Mitchell brothers and then move on with your life.

“How could I tell you after you told me what happened after Nate broke up with your friend?”

Aurora’s gaze softened. “Ken, you’re the sister I never had. We may occasionally bicker, but nothing is ever going to come between us. And that includes my brother.”

Smiling, Kennedy blew her a kiss, and Aurora caught it. They giggled.

“Okay, now I have a question,” Kennedy said, clearing her throat. “You said Nate gave us away. What did he do to make you suspicious?” At first, she wasn’t going to ask. However, curiosity got the best of her—as it usually did.

“It was when Spencer asked me to spend August with him in California before classes started. Nate was the one who encouraged me to go. That’s when I got a feeling he was going to try something. Especially when he promised to keep an eye on you.” Aurora snorted a laugh. “Keep an eye on you, my foot. More like keep his—”

“Aurora,” Kennedy exclaimed, cutting her off amid a furious bout of blushing.

Aurora laughed. “Anyway, when I came back, and you didn’t say anything, I figured nothing happened. Then Nate started acting weird—weirder than he had been before—and I came right out and asked him. He denied it, of course, but I know when he’s lying, and I just kept after him until he finally told me the truth. He asked me not to say anything to you, so I didn’t. I figured if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me yourself.” She shot a pointed look at her watch. “And look, it only took eleven or so years.”

Kennedy made a face. “Very funny.”

“Hey, don’t think I’m not still holding a grudge about that,” Aurora said, half teasing before her expression became thoughtful. “What’s most important is it didn’t ruin things between us. I mean, there were the times the tension between you two was off the friggin’ charts, but other than that, I’d say things have been pretty chill.”

Yeah, right. They clearly had different definitions ofpretty chill. Dealing with Nate after...everything had been the polar opposite ofchill.

“And don’t worry. You played it off much better than Nate. You did a good job at acting as if you guys hadn’t slept together, while he couldn’t seem to stop himself from acting like a jilted lover.”

Jilted lover, really?Because if his indifference to her had been an act, he deserved an Oscar.

“You may want to give yourself a pat on the back too, because you’re a pretty good actress with all yourDon’t worry—Nate likes you,”Kennedy said, mimicking her friend’s frequent refrain.

“That wasn’t a lie,” Aurora exclaimed, feigning innocence.Who, little ole me?

“No, but that means you knew full well why I balked whenever you invited me to go out with you guys.”

“Like I said, I didn’t want things to change between us. You’re my best friend and he’s my brother, and those are two things in my life that will never change. Whether anything is going on between you two or not, I want—no, Ineed—you guys to get along. You’re both going to be in my wedding and you’re going to be godmother and honorary aunt to my kids. Who knows, you may even be their aunt by marriage too.” She casually tossed in that stick of dynamite at the end.

Kennedy completely ignored the resulting blast intended to tease a reaction from her, suggestive eyebrow waggling and all. No one was talking marriage and happily-ever-afters. She’d taken a pass the last two times they’d been offered to her. Right now, she and Nate were simply enjoying each other. A whole lot.

“All right, then. I promise that no matter what happens, it won’t change a thing between us. Happy?”

Aurora smiled. “Now, I’m not trying to jinx things, but I have a really good feeling about you two. I saw the way he was with you at the party. Nate likes you a lot. I can tell.”

He also liked Junior’s cheesecake and the view of Central Park from his bedroom window a lot too, so it was good to keep things in perspective. She, on the other hand, was getting perilously close to liking him a little too much for the current trajectory of their relationship. The last thing she wanted to do was get ahead of the curve or overshoot the landing.

---