Instead of You(55)

“Kenz,” he squeaked as I slowly moved my mouth over his neck, noticing how great he smelled there. “Babe, seriously, I just vowed to keep you safe, so you can’t do this to me while I’m driving a car.”

He had a point, so I pulled away. The rest of the drive was spent with some part of him touching me, and I couldn’t complain.

We headed straight to the bar and my nerves were bouncing through my body. I wasn’t sure if I was going to barf or not from the adrenaline. Surely the bouncer at this bar would take one look at me and either realize I was way too young to drink, or see that I was shaking and hyperventilating and become suspicious.

But there was no bouncer. In fact, there was no one at the door at all. Hayes just opened it and led me inside, his hand wrapped around mine. We walked through a little area that looked like it might have been a coat room, but was now simply covered with papers stapled to every open space. People looking for roommates, furniture for sale, textbooks for sale—a paper stapled to the wall for almost anything you could think of. He pushed through a second door and I was accosted by a wave of loud music. The bass was so loud it thumped my chest, sending vibrations through me.

Hayes didn’t stop, he made his way through the bar like he’d been there a thousand times, his hand still firmly gripping mine, and we headed toward the back corner. We had to weave through people because the place was packed. It made sense though, once I thought about it—it was a Friday night in a college town. He pulled me all the way across the dance floor, squeezing between people who were in every state imaginable between respectfully dancing and having sex with clothes on. He brought me all the way to the back of the bar to a table with four people already sitting around it, smiling, laughing, and drinking.

A blonde girl who didn’t look a day older than me gave Hayes a wide smile when she saw him.

“Hayes! Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you decided to come down.” She hopped off her stool and I was surprised by how tiny she was. Her short blonde hair made her look like a tiny pixie. She moved to hug Hayes and he wrapped his free arm around her, not letting my hand go. The other girl at the table followed suit, a brunette who was much taller and much curvier, and hugged him. Both girls returned to their seats and I noticed their eyes roaming over me. The two guys at the table stood and they all exchanged handshakes followed by back slaps.

“Guys, this is McKenzie, my girlfriend.”

Surprise shot through me at his introduction, but I tried to hide it. The last thing I needed was Hayes’s friends watching me freak out. I was his girlfriend, but I hadn’t expected him to come out and tell his friends about us so openly.

“Kenz, this is Alice, Kristen, Bryan, and David.”

I waved with my free hand and then shouted, “Hi,” in order to be heard over the music.

“David is my roommate,” he said pointing to the guy in the middle who had his arm wrapped around the brunette. “He’s with Kristen,” he said pointing to her. “Bryan majored in history with David and me, and Alice was the barista at the coffee shop we used to always invade.”

“Nice to meet you all,” I said loudly, still trying to combat the music.

“Sit!” Alice yelled. Hayes let go of my hand and pulled up two chairs that had been abandoned at nearby tables. The table was high and so was the chair. Hayes held out his hand and helped me up and once I was settled he kissed my temple before climbing up onto his chair. When I turned back to the table all four of his friends were looking at us like we’d grown third arms.

“So,” Kristen said, her eyes darting between us. “How’ve you been?” She asked the question expectantly, but not unkindly.

“Good. You know, just taking everything day by day.” He reached out to me, threading his fingers between mine.

“How’s the teaching going? I know you were worried about having to start over.” Alice stirred her pink, fancy-looking drink as she asked the question, her eyes centered on Hayes, seeming to be genuinely interested in his answer.

He shrugged. “It was a little rough at first, trying to work a new concept into my thesis, a new topic essentially, but luckily my anatomy theory can be molded to fit any shape. I just took everything I was using here and applied it to the host teacher’s curriculum topic.” He laughed and then ran his hand through his hair. “You guys don’t want to hear about this stuff.”

“You’re right,” David said without hesitation. “We want to know why you’ve shown up with a girlfriend none of us have ever heard of.”

“Yes,” Kristen let out on a loud exhale, while Bryan took a long drink from his beer, looking as though he didn’t want to get pulled into the conversation, but was eager to know the answer. Hayes laughed again, a true, sincere laugh, as though his friend’s question didn’t strike him as rather abrupt like it had me. Hayes obviously thought David’s question was funny.

“I’ve known McKenzie my whole life, but it’s just never worked out before now.” He looked over at me as he said the words and I was a little dumbstruck by how much love I saw reflected in his eyes, by how much affection the words held. And like he was reading my mind he leaned over to me, wrapped his free hand around the back of my neck, and pulled me into him for a kiss. It wasn’t a chaste kiss by any means, but it wasn’t obnoxiously inappropriate either. It was slow and soft and completely out in the open. Any person in that bar could have seen him kiss me, and the weight that lifted off me in that moment was heavier than I remembered it being as I carried it around the last month of my life.