Appealed (The Legal Briefs, #3)(29)

I can still hear her, her voice a raw whisper when she told me, “You’re sick. There’s something wrong with you. Stay away from me. Just . . . stay away.”

“Then Vicki and Brian came and took me to the infirmary, then back to our room.”

And there it is.

Rage makes my hands shake on the table. So f*cked up.

Did I say sometimes kids are *s? No—sometimes they’re sociopaths. And apparently I was dating their queen.

“I should have followed you,” my voice scrapes out. More than anything, I want to go back in time and kick the shit out of my seventeen-year-old self. “That night—I should have gone with you to the infirmary. I’ve always regretted it.”

She says nothing.

“When I went to your dorm the next morning, you were gone.”

“Claire came to get me,” she answers quietly. “She tore into Headmaster Winston on the phone and convinced him to let me finish my classes online.”

“I waited for you—all summer, I kept going to your house. You never came home.” It’s important that she knows I looked for her.

“Claire and I spent the summer in Europe. The whole thing actually made us closer.”

“I didn’t know.”

Her head tilts to the side and she shakes it in doubt. “Brent, come on . . .”

I just barely keep myself from shouting. “Why would I lie? After all this time—all these years, what could I possibly have to gain from lying to you now? I wouldn’t do that to you. I didn’t know.”

But still Kennedy’s not convinced. “The messages—they came from your school account.”

“It had to be Cashmere. She was always in my room, and she knew all my passwords. She was the only one who . . . would want to hurt you like that.”

There’s never a good reason to lay your hands on a woman. But if my ex-girlfriend was here now, I’d have a hard time holding to that.

Kennedy’s face is blank as she examines the evidence from all angles. “How did she know about the kiss on the roof? I didn’t believe it was really you, until that moment.”

I rub the back of my neck; the muscles are tight and knotted. “Maybe I told her about it at some point? Or during one of the stupid Truth or Dare drinking games we used to play. Somebody probably asked me about my first kiss.”

Her eyes soften just a bit. “You considered me your first kiss?”

The corner of my mouth quirks. “You were a girl, your lips were on my face—so yeah. I’ve always remembered it that way.”

She nods.

Slowly I reach out and cup her jaw, holding her. “Do you believe me? I need you to believe me, Kennedy.”

She searches my eyes. “I don’t know. All these years, I was so sure. Now . . . talking to you . . . what you say makes sense.” Her jaw goes tight. “But I won’t be anyone’s fool ever again.”

I drop my hand, drain the rest of my beer.

Kennedy’s silent for a moment. Then she says, “I’m ready to call it a night. Can we get out of here?”

I hear her. Revelations are f*cking exhausting. I feel like I’ve taken a sledgehammer to the chest. Bruised and drained.

“Sure.” I throw the bills on the table, slide my chair back, and hold out my hand to her.

Out on the sidewalk, I offer to grab Kennedy a cab.

“My place is only a few blocks away. I’ll walk.”

“Okay, then I’ll walk you home. Lead the way, Lassie.”

She cracks a smile and pushes her hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to—”

“Yeah, I really f*cking do, okay? Just . . . let me do this. Please.”

She looks at me, eyes crinkling, nose scrunching up, like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to figure out. It makes her look younger—cuter.

“All right. I’m this way.”

We walk side by side in easy silence, and about ten minutes later, we arrive. The house looks like a Victorian dollhouse, with a rounded tower on one side, a wraparound second-floor balcony, arched windows, and a spiked wrought-iron fence framing the roof. The same fencing surrounds the big corner lot. The house needs a paint job, new shutters, new steps where the old ones are sunk and uneven—but there’s so much potential. With a little love, it could be magnificent.

“I’m having it restored—which is about as miserable as it sounds when you’re living here,” Kennedy says. “But it’ll be worth it. My Aunt Edna left it to me.”

My head turns sharply. “Aunt Edna died? Shit, she was cool. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

Kennedy nods. “You were on a skiing trip—I overheard someone talking about it at the wake. Your mother probably forgot to mention it when you came home.”

I look back toward the house. “I’m glad she left it to you.” Then I grin, easily imagining her as a kid in that big old house with its cobwebs and secrets. “I bet you had a blast going through the attic.”

Her eyes widen. “I did, yeah.” Bull’s-eye.

Because people really don’t change when it comes to qualities like that. A love of adventure, of exploration, even if it’s of the past. She hasn’t changed.

“Maybe you can give me a tour sometime?”

She still looks a little wary, distrustful of my intentions. Old habits die hard, and this one’s gonna go down screaming.