Dean

Kat has been acting strange for the last two weeks. Ever since we had sex again, nothing has been the same. Something was off about her. She was never this emotional in the past. I was always the one who was more invested in our relationship. Now, she’s acting like a girl who had her heart broken. But I am the one with the broken heart.

At first, Kat stopped meeting me at Broad Street Beans for coffee before class. Then, she had excuses for why she couldn’t come to the SAC to play air hockey with her brothers and me. It’s as if she has distanced herself from everyone. Kat should know me well enough to see that I am only giving her space.

This is not permanent. I will not allow Kat to walk away from me. Sex always complicates things, which is why I’m picky when it comes to women. Kat knows that, too. She knows everything about me. I wouldn’t have slept with her if I thought it would ruin our friendship and any shot of us ever being together. Now, I don’t know what to do. I need her back in my life.

Flanked by Theo and Tucker, I walk past the library, hoping to see Kat. She has a class across the street on the second floor of the business hall. Her class lets out around now, and I brought her brothers as ammunition. Even if she’s mad at me, she won’t turn away the twins. I hate that I have to use them to get to Kat, but she hasn’t left me a choice.

Theo plops down on the concrete ledge out front of the library. Tucker and I follow suit.

“What’s been up Kat’s ass lately?” Tucker says, twisting off the top from the Gatorade bottle in his hand. “I’m starting to feel like a stalker.”

“It’s all Dean’s fault,” Theo says.

“No, it’s not,” I spit back, defensive. “Unlike you assholes, Kat studies for her final exams.”

Theo waves his hand to dismiss me. “Easy for you to say. You’re good at school. This shit comes naturally to you.”

“I still have to study.”

“Yeah, but you’re a brainiac like Kat,” Tucker says. “That’s why you two get along so well. She’s always like Dean is so smart, and Dean is so funny, and blah, blah, blah.”

I roll my eyes at Tucker. “You make it sound like Kat has a crush on me.”

Theo smirks at me. “She doesn’t talk about you the same way she talks about Becca.”

“Why would she?”

“Just saying.”

We wait a few minutes in silence, which is a welcome relief after another awkward conversation with the twins about Kat. Regardless of my friendship with her brothers, I can’t tell them we hooked up. That would be grounds for a fight, and I would deserve any ass kicking I got from them.

Not that they would win, but they would at least have the right to a few punches on me, considering I betrayed their trust. My relationship with the twins complicates everything. If they were my teammates and nothing more, it would be easier to open up to them. Instead, I have to keep all the pain and guilt I harbor over losing Kat inside.

In one swift motion, Tucker jumps up on the ledge and brings his fingers to his mouth to whistle. “Hey, Kit-Kat, over here.”

My gaze travels from Tucker to the other side of the street, where I find Kat with Becca and a few of her classmates. She pushes her blonde hair behind her ears and then holds her hand up to her forehead to block the sun from her eyes. All she gives us is a tiny wave that we return, the disappointment having a domino effect on all of us.

“What the fuck is her problem?” Theo slides off the ledge. Without another word, he crosses the street and runs over to Kat.

Of course, Tucker hops down and follows behind him, leaving me no choice but to join in. By the time I reach the group, Theo is already chatting up Kat and Becca.

“Come to the SAC with us,” Theo says, tugging on Kat’s arm. “We’re hanging out with some of the guys.”

“I have to study,” she mutters.

“Just for an hour or two, and then you can go back to nerding out,” Tucker says, hopeful that she will come for once.

Kat peeks up at me from beneath light brows, her blue eyes burning a hole through me. She’s gorgeous, without a single speck of makeup on her face, and her skin is naturally glowing. Why did I have to fuck things up? Why couldn’t I tell how I felt? That could have made the difference.

Our experiment backfired, serving as nothing more than proof that Kat will never like me as more than a friend. The feelings were always there, only now, they have multiplied. My chest aches from the sadness in her eyes. She regrets what we did. I already knew that when she started to distance herself from me. It’s not like we haven’t had sex a handful of times. What has changed?

I move Theo to the side and pull Kat away from the group. “Can we talk?”

She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out, looking away from me. A tiny smile touches her lips, one she reserves for her brothers. Once our eyes meet again, she says, “I have to get ready for the exam tomorrow.”

“Kitten, c’mon.” I tighten my grip on her hand because I am afraid that if I let go, I will lose her forever. “Please don’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything, Dean. I have to pass my classes. Unlike you, I don’t have a professional hockey career waiting for me. I have to work for a living, and if I want this internship, I have to keep my grades up.”

“You’re in the top of our class. The chance of you failing a final exam is about as slim as the Flyers winning the Stanley Cup.”

She laughs at my comment. “You had to bring hockey into it.”

I shrug. “Why not? It seemed to fit.”

Tilting her head to the side, she has a sexy look on her beautiful face that reminds me of the night we were together. I miss her so much my stomach hurts from the knife digging into it. Living without Kat has been awful. She’s my entire world. I just didn’t realize it until she wasn’t part of it anymore.

“Please, Kitten,” I beg, squeezing her hand. “Come with us for one hour. I missed you. Your brothers have missed you, too.”

“Okay. One hour and then I have to get back to work.”

I want to kiss her so fucking bad. But I remind myself that Tucker and Theo are watching us, along with Becca, and I’m sure whoever is walking past us.

“I will personally walk you back to your dorm in one hour.”

One hour is all I need, but it will never be enough.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Kat is in the middle of a heated air hockey tournament with Theo. With the score tied at 6-6, the next person to score wins the game. One thing I learned about the Baldwins over the years is their competitive nature. None of them can handle losing, but at least Kat is a little more graceful about it than her brothers.

When Theo smacks the puck to the right of Kat’s hand and into her goal, he throws his striker onto the table, drawing the attention of everyone around us. The Baldwins are also show-offs. Just like their father, all of them are extremely talented. And they don’t mind rubbing it in your face.

Theo throws his hands in the air and makes a silly face at Kat. “And that is how it’s done, Kit-Kat.”

She rolls her eyes at Theo. “I let you win. I felt bad after I sunk three in a row on your goal.”

“Yeah, right. I beat you fair and square.”

Knowing Kat, she probably let him win. Of all the guys surrounding us, Kat is one of the best at air hockey. She grew up playing it with Austin and Duke, long before she learned how to play ice hockey. There’s nothing Kat isn’t good at, especially when it comes to sports.

I hold out my hand to Kat, and she takes it without a fight. Getting her to the SAC was a chore. I never thought she would let go of whatever had her so upset. It’s not like I did something wrong. I would never hurt her, at least not on purpose.

“I need a drink. Let’s take a walk to the cafeteria.”

She glances up at the clock on the walk to check the time.

“We have thirty more minutes,” I say, dragging her out of the room. “I even set the alarm on my phone so that I can take you back on time.”

“You’re taking this hang serious, huh?”

“I’m a man of my word.”

“That you are,” she mutters.

“I still need to talk to you, Kitten.”

“Can we do that later? I’m having a good time. Let’s not spoil this.”

Confused, I shake my head. “Spoil what? I just want to talk to you.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“Unless you developed the ability to read minds in the two weeks you’ve been ignoring me, then I doubt you know what I want to say.”

“Two weeks ago. That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have asked you to…” Her voice trails off, the words dying in her throat.

“I wanted to be with you, Kat. I don’t regret anything we did.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “You don’t?”

“No, not at all. What I regret is losing you over sex. You know me better than anyone. I don’t go around the campus and fuck any girl who talks to me.”

“Just don’t let anyone hear you say that. It might ruin your street cred.” She laughs.

“Let people think what they want. I don’t care what they say about me behind my back. The only opinion I care about is yours.”

Once we reach the cafeteria, I grab a few cups from their holders and hand one to Kat. “I’m not sure what to say, Dean. I feel different about you, and I have no idea how to process everything.”

She fills her cup with every kind of fountain soda they have on tap.

“Gross,” I tell her, taking turns filling three Coke’s for the twins and me. “Why can’t you choose one brand of soda like a normal person?”

“Because I can never make up my mind.” She turns around, with the cup in her hand, and takes a sip from the straw. “Maybe you would like it. You don’t know until you give it a try.”

“I didn’t know how much I would like you until we gave it a try.”

A blush creeps up her neck and to her cheeks. “Dean,” she whispers, as I brush my fingertips along hers and move closer. “We graduate in two weeks. It’s too late.”

“We should’ve had this conversation sooner, Kitten. Please don’t shut me out. I’m not some random guy you hooked up with at a party.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she says, our faces only a few inches apart. “If we end up in the same city after the NHL draft, then we can see what happens. I grew up with a dad who traveled from city to city and was never home. I can’t handle the constant disappointment that will come from you never being around.”

“We don’t even know if I’m getting drafted. Do I have a good chance? Yeah, of course, I do. But there is no guarantee.”

“It’s a definite, Dean. My dad said there’s no way you won’t get picked up. You have a few teams who want you. You could end up anywhere.”

“We still have the summer together.”

“No, we don’t. You have to go back home to help your mom, and I have an internship waiting for me.”

When the line by the soda machines gets longer, I set the cups into a carrier and pull Kat toward the cash register. She grabs a few bags of snacks and cakes from the counter and adds them to our order.

“We can still be friends, Kitten. Don’t let sex change our friendship. I need you in my life.”

“I need you, too,” she whispers, out of breath. “But I want you in other ways that I never did before. I can’t handle seeing you with other women. In that regard, our relationship has changed.”

“Then, I won’t even talk to another woman.” I hand the cashier money for our sodas, still focused on Kat. “Problem solved.”

A smile turns up the corners of her mouth. “You’re cute.”

“And you’re beautiful. I missed you so much, Kitten. I don’t care if I have to remain celibate for the rest of my life if that means I can have you in my life. We can go back to being friends.”

“I don’t deserve you, Dean.” She leans into my side, and I hook my arm around her back, balancing the sodas in my other hand.

I bend down to kiss her on the forehead. “You deserve better than me.”

“Stop saying that, Dean.” She looks up at me with sadness in her eyes. “You’re incredible. I wouldn’t be friends with you if you weren’t worthy of my time.”

“You’re the daughter of my childhood idol. I doubt I will ever feel worthy of you, Kitten, but I would spend the rest of my life trying to be the man you need.”

“My dad has nothing to do with our friendship.”

“He kinda does. If someone hadn’t told me that Nick Baldwin’s daughter was on the women’s ice hockey team, I never would have met you, but I had to see you play for myself.”

“And…”

“You didn’t disappoint. I would know that slapshot anywhere.”

She laughs. “That’s one of the few things I got from my dad. I sure as hell didn’t get his looks.”

“Good thing,” I say with a smile.

She nudges me in the arm with her elbow. “I missed you, too, Dean. I’m sorry for being a bitch.”

“Don’t worry about it. I forgive you, Kitten.”

Once we get back to the rec room, the entire place is buzzing from the latest air hockey tournament. As per the usual, Theo and Tucker are commanding the attention of everyone around them. The Baldwins have a natural magnetism that brings people to them, the same way Kat drew me to her all those years ago.

Watching her on the ice had a strange effect on me. At first, I was attracted to her, because what man wouldn’t want Kat? Then, our relationship shifted to something more than I had ever imagined. I never thought I would be the type to have a best friend, let alone one who’s a girl.

Why did I have to fall in love with her?

Kat tears open a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and shoves a handful into her mouth. She chases it down with her disgusting soda.

“You have the worst taste in food,” I tell her.

“Nah, I have excellent taste,” she mutters between bites.

Tucker comes up from behind Kat and shoves his hand into the bag of Cheetos. She looks over her shoulder at him and frowns, pulling the bag away from him. “Get your own,” she growls. “Can’t I have anything without one of you stealing it?”

“Someone’s in a mood.” Theo makes a face at Kat to taunt her and steals another handful from her bag.

Narrowing her eyes at him, Kat takes a sip of her soda. A beat passes between them where she stares the boys down, before handing over their snacks.

“There you go, brats,” Kat says with a defiant smirk.

They thank her with a quick hug and walk away with their hands shoved inside the bags.

“Are you mad at the twins for something?”

She shakes her head. “No, of course not.”

“Well, they think you’re pissed at them. I thought maybe you were taking out your anger for me on your brothers when you wouldn’t talk to any of us.”

“You’re an only child, Dean.” She turns so that we are facing and stares into my eyes. “Imagine having four brothers always around to harass you.”

“Duke and Austin might give you a hard time about things, but they practically raised you. They’re just looking out for you, and so are the twins.”

“Yeah, I know, but if there’s one thing I learned in the past two weeks, it’s that I am the shadow of my famous family. We became friends because of my father. People treat me differently because of him and my older brothers. Even on campus, I’m the sister of the Baldwin twins, not the captain of the women’s hockey team who led her team to two championships. And if we were together—”

“You would be the shadow of another hockey player.” I’m so confused by her sudden change of heart. I want to reach out and touch her like I normally would, but I keep my hands to myself. The last thing I need is for her to back away from me again.

“Yes,” says under her breath. “If we were to take our relationship to the next level, then I would be Dean Crawford’s girlfriend. Not like that would be a bad thing. Do you get what I’m trying to say? I want to be my own person, not an extension of someone else.”

I never stopped to consider how much Kat gets overlooked because of her family. Even I made the same mistake, but it’s also the reason we became friends. “Do you remember the day we met?”

She smiles. “How could I forget? You thought you were so smooth.”

I lean down to whisper against the shell of her ear. “It worked, or you wouldn’t be here with me right now.”

She stills for a second and closes her eyes. “You still haven’t changed.”

I take a step back to gaze into her eyes. “I’m not the same man you met in freshman year.”

“You were a boy back then, not a man.” She finishes the rest of her Cheetos and chases it down with her mystery soda. Then, she throws the trash into the can a few feet away from us, coming back to run her hands down my arms.

“C’mon, Kat.” I peel her cheesy hands off my black Strickland Senators shirt that she covered with specks of orange. “Go wipe your hands on the twins.”

“That’s one thing that hasn’t changed about you. You’re still a neat freak.”

I attempt to brush the pieces off my shirt, giving her the evil eye. “There’s nothing wrong with liking things clean and in a certain order.”

Her face twists in what looks like disgust, though I’m not sure why she would be appalled by me being the way I am. She covers her hand with her mouth and mutters, “I’ll be back,” and walks away from me.

Confused, I stand there for a second, wondering what just happened until I see her push open the restroom door and step inside. I follow behind her, about to open the door a crack, when two blondes almost knock me over as they exit.

“This is the ladies room,” one of them says, with an attitude.

“The men’s room is over there,” the other says, pointing across the hall from us.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.” I roll my eyes as they pass and lean my back against the wall outside of the bathroom. I consider going in after Kat, but instead, I wait another five minutes for her to resurface.

“What are you doing out here?” She wipes her mouth with the tissue in her hand and blows her nose.

I instinctively reach out and grab her by the hip, pulling her away from the door and in front of me. “Were you crying?”

“No, I didn’t feel good. I guess my stomach is not a fan of fire Cheetos.”

“Those things are gross and so is your soda combo. Fruit punch, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and Coke combined would make anyone sick.”

“Speak for yourself. I happen to like it. But the Cheetos were a little too hot.” She removes her cell phone from her pocket to check the time. “You have me for another ten minutes.”

The alarm I had set on my phone buzzes in my pocket. An hour with Kat, after all this time apart, wasn’t enough. But it will have to do for now.

I hook my arm around her back and steer her toward the rec room to say goodbye to the twins and the rest of my teammates. Theo and Tucker are still engaged in their air hockey match, and the guys around them are chanting and cheering them on.

“Let’s just go,” Kat says, nudging me. “I can talk to them later.”

“You should have dinner with us tonight. We’re meeting up with everyone in the cafeteria.”

“Thanks for the offer, but after puking up Cheetos in a dirty bathroom, I kinda lost my appetite. I have to study anyway.”

“I can come by later and help you study. If you want.” At this point, I would do anything to get another hour or two with Kat.

“No, that’s okay. I promised Becca I would go over the final exam with her. We share the same class and notes, so it’s easier if we compare our answers.”

Once our feet hit the sidewalk, my stomach knots. The short walk to the dormitory is not enough to make up for the time we missed.

“You know, we don’t have to make things weird between us, Kitten. We can go back to the way things were before. I feel like you’re slipping away from me.”

She threads her fingers through mine. “I’m right here, Dean.”

“Then, why does it feel like you’re pushing me away on purpose? You never let exams or anything come between us. I helped you study for most of your tests—not Becca.”

“Are you jealous of Becca? If you are, you shouldn’t be.”

“No,” I grunt, annoyed. “But I want to be here for you, and you won’t let me.”

She stops walking once we reach the library and turns around to face me. “Do you want me to lie and tell you that things are the same? You know they are not. Dean, do you have any idea what it was like for me to hide in your closet while you talked to my brother about me like some puck bunny?”

“We went over this already, Kat. I apologized. What did you want me to do? I panicked. Neither of us wanted your brothers to know about that night.”

“My point exactly,” she mutters. “If we have to keep our relationship a secret, then we could never be more than friends, at least not in public.”

“But everyone already assumes we fuck behind closed doors,” I point out. “So, why not prove them right and do it?”

She frowns. “Because I don’t want to be some girl you fuck in private. I want to be the girl you can show off to the world. I want to be part of your life and not just as your friend.”

“What are you saying?” I slide my hands onto her hips to hold her in place. “That now we can’t even be friends?”

“We have two more weeks until graduation. How much do you think we will see each other after that? I’m off to Chicago for my internship. You will go back home to your mom and eventually leave for an NHL team.”

“I won’t accept that, Kat. We can spend the time we have left together. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“It’s for the best,” she says, staring down at her feet. After all these years of friendship, she can’t even look me in the eye when she tells me the worst news I’ve ever heard. “There’s no point in setting ourselves up for failure. We want different things.”

“I want you,” I confess. “I want you to be my girl. My biggest regret is not saying that sooner. It was always you, Kitten.”

I move my hand up to her face, and a single tear falls from her eye and onto my skin. “If only that were possible.” She speaks so low her words are somewhat muted. “Only time will tell, I guess.”

“Meaning, what?”

“If by some chance you end up in Chicago, then we might have a shot at becoming more than friends.”

“I only want you in my life. Friends or lovers, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“This is the problem,” she says. “You are so worried about losing me that you don’t care what kind of relationship we have, but I do.”

“I’ll do whatever you want, Kitten. Please stop acting like this.”

She presses down on my shoulder to kiss me on the cheek and says, “I’m sorry.”

Then, she takes off running down the street, leaving my heart and me in pieces. My entire body trembles from the anxiety that rushes through my veins, the adrenaline fueling me. While I would never regret loving Kat, I only wish I had done this sooner, so that we had enough time to explore the other side of our relationship.

Now, it’s too late. One night of passion might have cost me my best friend, my Kitten.