Still Waters

Chapter 37

The next day we went to go get the rest of my stuff. Luckily, Collin wasn't there, but I could tell that he had been there. The place was spotless. By the smell I could tell that everything had been bleached down, like a tampered with crime scene. Kenney peeped the smell, too. He looked disgusted and thoroughly bothered as soon as he tilted his head to the side and took a whiff. I looked around and briefly wondered if Collin had gotten his girlfriend to clean up the mess. Kenney caught me staring at the kitchen floor, where all of our blood had been, and where I had almost caught Collin licking icing off of his side chick's finger.

"You alright?" I hadn't even heard Kenney walk up behind me.

"Yeah." I hastily wiped away a tear and decided to blame the baby for my recent inability to keep the waterworks under control.

He put a hand on my shoulder. "You sure?"

"Yeah."

"You ready?"

I looked around, one last time, at what had been my home for the past three years. I had even lived there when Shayna and I were roommates. Collin just took the lease over when she left, since I didn't make enough at the time to keep it on my own. There was a lot of...history in that place. A lot of history.

I shook it all off. "Yeah."

Kenney picked up the last suitcase before I could grab it, and I followed him out the door. He had been acting really weird around me since he had found out that I was pregnant, like he felt obligated to do everything for me. I already knew that eventually it would start to irk me...or him, I wasn't sure who first, but for now I just rolled with it.

When we got to the car, like I had foolishly done so many times before, I brought up his personal life to take my mind off of my own.

"So Bud, whatever happened with Deidra? You guys were all happily ever after last time I saw you."

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Just didn't work out."

"Didn't work out like last time or...didn't work out like she's not coming back?"

He looked over at me, expressionless. "Didn't work out like she's not coming back."

"Oh..." I couldn't think of anything to say after that, and I know he didn't want to hear anything else after that, so I just left it alone.

We got along in quiet agreement for the next few days, after the doctor let me know that everything was ok. We got along that is, until one night – after literally hours of tossing and turning thinking about Collin, and where I was going to live and what I was going to do, I tried to slip into Kenney's bed while he slept. I didn't mean anything by it. I just wanted a warm body to sleep next to. Honestly, I was missing Collin, bad. I just needed...warmth...and that's the truth.

"Tashi?" Kenney asked sleepily. "What the hell?"

"I...just wanted to sleep with you..."

"You just wanted to sleep with me? Girl..." he sat up and rubbed his eyes like he must have been dreaming. I laughed until he climbed out of the bed and stood up. As he pulled a sweatshirt down over his six pack...who knew he had that...I couldn't help but follow his hands with my eyes, further adding to the awkwardness of the situation. "Tashi...no."

"Please, Kenney?"

"You're shittin' me, right?" He looked confused.

Finally, I realized what he thought I meant. "Oh," I chuckled. "No...not sleep with you. I meant...sleep in here with you." I cast my eyes downward. "I couldn't sleep."