“Does that mean we can sleep together?”
“Yes, sleep.”
“You know what I meant.”
“No, that means that our plan is working out just fine as is and can end soon enough without a problem. Now, please. Go. To. Sleep.”
I laid there awake longer, hearing Kye’s breathing turn deeper, and I knew he was sleeping now.
He was right. The plan was working. Everyone thought we were dating. Sometimes I even felt like we were. He had been right. Keeping sex out of this really did make it easier.
The problem was, even without the sex, I was already craving his touch.
FOURTEENKYE
I walked into the garage the next morning unprepared for the crew. I honestly should have expected it, but I was still reeling from what happened last night.
“Hey, Lover Boy!” Carly yelled, and I immediately groaned. While I was close with everyone in the crew, Carly had quickly, and surprisingly, become my best friend. Somehow, our dislike for people made us like each other.
I should have known she was going to be the one to give me the most shit for Daisy coming yesterday. Riot ran up to me, immediately flipping onto his back for me to pet him.
Carly came up right behind him, smirking as she kicked at my leg. “I said, hey, Lover Boy.”
“Oh, I heard, and I ignored it on purpose.”
She laughed harder and followed me over to the car I had been working on. I had a rolling shop stool that she sat back on, and I rolled my eyes.
“I take it you aren’t dropping this?” I asked.
“Dropping it? Not a damn chance. Not only am I in the group chat, but I share an apartment with Jax. I won’t hear the end of this until one of us asks. What the fuck is going on? Because we all saw it, Kye.”
“Saw what?” I asked, playing dumb as I turned back to start working on the car.
“Kye!” she yelled, throwing a rag at me. “We all saw you touching her. Willingly. And the general agreement is that you weren’t touching all night, but you were sitting closer than we’ve ever seen you sit next to a woman.”
“Yeah.”
“Nope, it’s going to take more than that.”
“What’s the group chat say?”
“Well, if you would read it, you would know, but the bullet point list ranges from you’re head over heels in love, to you actually just hate all of us, to you’ve lost your fucking mind and we may never get you back. I might have added alien abduction as a possibility, but of course, everyone didn’t want to get on board with that one.”
That finally made me laugh. “I have no idea why they wouldn’t go along with it. It honestly sounds like the most plausible reason.”
“Agreed. You going to tell me which one it is?”
“None of the above? Somewhere in the middle of hate you all, and finding one person who doesn’t make my whole body scream in pain when they are near me,” I said, kicking the stool she was on until she was rolled a few feet farther from me.
Her eyes went wide, and she rolled closer. “Are you saying you are in love?”
“Hell, no. I’m saying that I might have found out that there are people in this world that I can touch without it killing me. No love needed, apparently.”
“Hmmm,” she said. “Sounds improbable.”
“Says the girl who had bets on it being alien abduction.”
“Exactly. Does this mean she will be coming around more?”
I shrugged. “Not sure. I guess it depends on how long she needs me around and how long Holt needs all this to believe me. Let’s hope it only takes another week or so.”
As though all of their drama alarm bells went off, the rest of the crew gathered around, but they weren’t looking at me, they looked at Carly.
“Well,” Jax said. “What’s the verdict?”
She nodded, her face falling as though it was bad. “I was right, you guys. He was abducted.” Their hopeful faces fell, shooting daggers at Carly before they glared at me.
“Come on, Kye,” Fox said. “We left you alone last night. Tell us what’s up.”
“What’s up is that Daisy had a shit day, and I thought it might be helpful for her to be around a group of friends that don’t secretly hate each other.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t what we were talking about,” Scout said, crossing her arms. I realized that all the girls were crossing their arms, and for the first time I realized it was because they were ganging up on me. Usually, it was one of the guys that they actually had to date.
“I already know how this goes, so everyone put away the claws. I have found out that there may be one or two people in this world that I can touch and not be disgusted by. No, none of you are on that list, but I promise I tolerate all of you. Daisy is apparently one of them. And before you go off like Carly did, no, I’m not suddenly in love, and yes, this will still be ending in the next week or two as long as we both accomplish what we need.”
Eyes rolled, and a round of groans went through the crowd.
“Are you guys good now?” I asked, my phone going off and giving me a reason to look away from all of them.
