Loving Kinnick (Rewritten 2023)

Chapter Five

The way he looked in his golden hoodie intrigued me. He shined beneath the afternoon sunlight. Perched next to the stained-glass window, he flicked through the pages of a book. I should focus on my essay. I didn't need the deadlines piling up. Yet, the document stayed blank because I couldn't stop staring at the man who walked me home last night and acted as if I didn't exist today.

As if a gravitational pull existed between us, one only I seemed to be aware of, I gathered my things to stand up. The heat flooding my body made me second-guess my intentions. Before I questioned why I was approaching him, I continued moving in his direction until his eyes were lifting from the book in his hand to stare at me.

He didn't say a word. It was as if he was waiting for me to speak first. Suddenly, everything I wanted to say to him disappeared. I couldn't form the words quickly enough while his eyebrows cocked in question. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, someone next to him spoke up first.

"Are you lost?"

"I'm actually here to thank Kinnick for last night."

"Last night?" A green-eyed boy piped up. "What happened last night? We want to hear all the details."

Before I could say a word, Kinnick reached out to smack his friend's arm, shutting him up instantly. "You sound better with your mouth shut."

I looked at him and his friends. Each of them shared the same expression on their faces. They found interest in how the boxer responded. When their eyes fell on me, I felt a sudden rush of heat taking over my body, as if I knew I was overstaying my welcome. No one needed to say a thing. The atmosphere spoke for itself. Just as I bid my goodbye, Kinnick's voice asked me to stop.

"You have an apology." He narrowed his eyes at his friends. "Let her hear it."

The man with short, curly hair grinned up at me as he leaned further against the table. "What I intended was disrespectful, and I'm sorry."

"What's your name, pretty girl?" Another man from the group spoke.

"I'm Boston Bennett."

His hazel eyes darted to look at Kinnick, but the fighter shot him a look that stole any words he planned on saying. "You're the girl he is training?"

"She is." The words rolled from Kinnick's lips as he stared at me. "We're training tomorrow night for the first time."

My head cocked to the side as if it would help me understand why Kinnick said he was training me tomorrow. We never talked about this, and when we did, he told John he wasn't interested. I couldn't say a word before the man with many rings on his fingers lent me his hand.

"I'm Miles Taylor."

My fingers gently laid over his, the coolness of his rings pressed against my skin. His hazel eyes watched me through his thick black lashes as he softly kissed my knuckles.

As my hand fell back to my side, I gave him a gentle smile. "It was a pleasure meeting you."

"The pleasure is all mine," a toothy grin tugged at his thin lips. "I'll see you around, yeah?"

"I hope."

With one last glance in Kinnick's direction, I saw a look on his face that I didn't see on many people often. I couldn't decipher the way he furrowed his eyebrows or how he blinked a few times as if he was thinking something that only he would know. As I turned away from him, I heard footsteps screeching against the laminate flooring before his voice filled my ears.

"Where's my goodbye?"

"You came after me because I didn't tell you goodbye?"

I watched his Adam's Apple bob as he nodded. "I felt left out."

"That is the only reason?"

"I want to walk with you," his shoulders lifted. "To make sure you got to class, that's all."

"Not simply because you would enjoy my company, right?" I teased him as we pushed through the cafeteria.

A smile played on his lips as he looked down at me. "Oh, definitely not."

When he talked to me, I saw the muscles in his shoulder relax. Around his friends, he seemed to have a guard up. Kinnick seemed to always be on edge. I saw the way people stared at him when we entered the west wing of the campus. They waited for his next move as if it determined their own. I heard them whispering his name, and I knew he heard it too. I watched the tension build in his body all over again.

As I looked around the hallways, I could only imagine how Kinnick felt every day. Did people act like this all the time? I knew nothing about him other than his willingness to walk me home last night. Maybe I had been oblivious to the rumors if there were any, but I didn't care to hear anything about him that didn't come from his mouth.

That is when I felt the sudden need to distract him. "Thank you, again. You are too kind."

His Pacific blues fell on me. "It's human decency. No big deal."

"If that is what you call walking me home when it is freezing and sticking up for me when Chandler was giving me a hard time, then your intentions differ from everyone else's."

"And what do you think my intentions are?" His defensive tone didn't bother me as he nearly spat out his words.

"You're trying too hard to be my friend."

"I think you are asking me if I want to be your friend, Boston Bennett."

"I like it when you put two and two together." I bumped his hip with mine, earning a low laugh from him. "You're so smart."

His eyes rolled as he pushed me away. "Where are you heading?"

"Legal Research and Writing."

"Two out of two classes," he opened the wooden door. "It looks like we'll be spending more time together than I thought."

"Remind me, is that a bad thing?"

He curled his bottom lip into his mouth before allowing it to snap back. "Never."

"Maybe we will be best friends sooner than I thought."

I thanked him for holding the door open as I slid past him. Without hesitating, I moved toward the back of the classroom. A gasp left my lips as my body jerked backward. My head tilted upward to see Kinnick dragging me toward the front. My sneakers skid across the ground as he practically carried me before dropping me into a seat next to his.

I shot him a look of disbelief as started sifting through the books in his backpack. When his head tilted to look at me, his eyebrow cocked in confusion, as if he couldn't understand why I had been staring at him.

"That wasn't necessary. You could have asked me to move."

"I don't walk with a lot of short people, but now that I have, I realize how slow they move."

"I thought you enjoyed walking with me?"

"I do," one of his arms rested on the back of my chair while the other stole the space of my desk. "But your little legs must be exhausted from trying to keep up. I couldn't ask you to put in any more work."

"These little legs could go for hours without getting exhausted."

As his tongue licked his bottom lip, he pulled it in between his teeth. "I would like to test that out someday."