KICK IT | JENLISA

96

Jennie

"Jennie?" Irene's hand on my elbow brought me back to her worried expression. "What happened?"

"This was a mistake." I squeezed her hand with a bone-crushing grip. "I need to leave. Now. Please."

She nodded without a blink or a question, but Jackson's frown stepped into my line of vision. "What's wrong?"

"Who was she with?" A hot, harsh whisper slipped from my dry lips. "The night of Dad's party. The accident. Her shoulder. Who did Lisa leave with?"

"Jennie, I can't..." Jackson's words faltered, but his glance back at Lisa was the only verification I needed. Mina had joined the group, sandwiching Lisa with Nancy in a sickening sight.

I thrust my car keys into Irene's hand. "Get me the fuck out of here."

A hot, stale breeze kissed my skin and crickets chirped their night song. Irene's feet hurried behind me, followed thirty seconds later by Jackson's more polite exit. My cheeks warmed under the wet trails my ears left behind. I couldn't put enough distance between me and Lisa's house, Lisa's guests, and in particular Lisa herself.

How could I be so reckless? She unpeeled her banana and my vagina slipped right over it. So fucking stupid, Jennie.

Of course, Lisa had other ideas than letting me Cinderella flee with my last shreds of dignity. "Jennie!?"

My name in her confused voice broke the dam of tears behind the slow rolling trickles. Streams dribbled down my cheeks, tipped over my chin, and blotted my chest. The cars stacked in Lisa's driveway blurred into black forms. I sniffed.

"Jennie?" Irene's soft call fell on my deaf ears.

"No!" I side-stepped a BMW that exceeded my annual earnings and broke into a run. My vision blurred under tears and my heels wobbled my ankles, but I ignored them both. Step for step, a slow heat burned in my calves and loud clomps thudded from under my feet.

Lisa's longer legs and snowshoe feet rushed behind me with the sound of a trampling buffalo on my trail. "Jennie!" The slip of irritation in her voice hunched my shoulders up. Overly committed to the idea that I could outrun a professional football player in my high heels, I clomped faster.

I got six strides away when my heel hit a cement groove and pitched me forward. Lisa's hand caught my elbow. Forward momentum wasn't my friend, but a strong hand splayed into my stomach and caught me. Curling around it, my torso dipped, and my hips bucked up.

"Ugh." I grunted and slacked around her forearm.

She hauled me to halt as if I was weightless and pinned my back into her chest. The same wall of heat that aroused me into a pool of Jell-O now turned my stomach. Her touch, the same warm, strong comfort, now disgusted me.

The dim lighting from her garage cast shadows over her eye sockets. Confusion marred her gorgeous features - fuck, of course now I found her gorgeous. Her eyebrows squeezed together, creasing lines around the inside corners of her eyes. Her jaw ticked. "Why the fuck are you running off!?"

I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. Only my eyes worked, and I stared at the yellow glow on her rounded shoulder. It was recovered. She didn't need me anymore, except for... she was a womanising prick who slept with her staff. I couldn't have picked a worse rebound after Taehyung.

Yes, rebound. Bounce away, Jennie.

Pain wrenched my stomach and ticked my jaw into a locked position. My teeth lodged together, and my jaw ached. Only my mounting frustration pried them open. "I can't help you!"

She recoiled from my shrill screech. I deserved the pained look that struck her face. "Jennie? What?"

"Stay away from me." The hot night air paled compared to the heat simmering under my skin. "This was a mistake."