Hard to Love (4 page)

I’d made
Kenz
i
e
promise
me
no big party, just the three of us going out and
enjoying a few cocktails
, and so far it appeared she’d kept her end of the bargain.

“Our baby girl’s growing up, Ty!” MacKenzie squealed and pulled me in for a hug. I patted her back and pulled
away
for some personal space. I wasn’t the best hugger in the world.
Tyson laughed a
nd navigated
around us
, entering my apartment
. He knew better than to try and hug me after
I went
completely stiff in his arms the one and only time he’d attempted it.

“Thanks for the roses,” I called to his back as he made his way into my kitchen to fetch a vase. He’d spent enough time in my apartment to know where everything was. Heck, I think he knew my apartment be
tter than I did. Once I call
ed him
to ask how to clean my hair out of the clogged shower drain and he informed me I had a bottle of drain cleaner under the sink in the kitchen. He was good to me, and so was MacKenzie
.
S
he often forced me out of my shell, which
,
however painful at times
,
was good for me too.

MacKenzie took over the kitchen island, extracting various bottles of alcohol and mixers
from her bag
. Ty got the glasses and filled them with ice, while I stood and watched.

“What’s in here?” I poked at the
lid of the
shallow plastic pan, expecting it to
hold
a cake.

“Jell
-O
shots,” MacKenzie answered, smiling. “Try one.”

I pulled off the lid and set it aside. The pan was filled with small plastic shot glasses
that
contain
ed
a rainbow of jellied concoctions
. They
certainly
looked inviting. I selected a green one and tipp
ed
it up to my mouth
, b
ut the gelatinous mass remained firmly planted inside the cup.

MacKenzie laughed and
glanced at
Tyson. “Teach her how, Ty.
I forgot we had a Jell-O-shot
virgin on our hands.” She measured two shots of clear liquor and dumped
them
over a glass
full
of ice
, mixing the drink like it was second nature
.

Ty smiled and rounded the island to stand next to me. “Stick out your tongue.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

He chuckled. “Just do it.”

I complied and he brought the cup to my mouth, showing me how to swirl m
y tongue around the edge of it
to loosen the Jell
-O
until it
slipped out of the cup and into
my mouth.

“
Mmm
. Green Apple?”
I asked.

Ty wiped away a smear of Jell
-O
from my bottom lip and licked it from his finger.

M
acKenzie nodded.
“Yep.
And here’s your birthday drink.”

It was pink and bubbly. I took a sip and fo
und it surprisingly refreshing. You could hardly taste the vodka shots I’d seen her dump in. It was
grapefruity
and delish.
“Thanks.”

Once we all had drinks, courtesy of MacKenzie,
Ty grabbed the pan of Jell
-O
shots and we made our way into the living room
to
sit in the center of my cream-colored shaggy rug.

“We
need music.” MacKenzie opened my laptop and my heart nearly stopped. I leapt from my seat in an effort to stop her from seeing what she was about to see, but I was too late.

“Holy shit!”

My cheeks flamed
as I remembered what I’d last used the computer for
—
I’d typed in the address for the porn website from the business card when I got home and
searched until I found
Cade’s
pictures
.

“What is it?” Ty asked
,
peeking around
MacKenzie’s
His face scrunched in disgust.
“
Gah
!”
He jumped back
from the computer like he’d just been
stung
.

“You look at porn, Alexa?” The surprise in
MacKenzie’s
voice
was unmistakable. “I’m not judging, not at all, proud is more like it
—
I’m just surprised. You’ve always seemed sort of innocent.”

I swallowed and grabbed the laptop from her lap, pulling it onto my own.
“It’s not what you think.” I opened my music library and started my playlist of indie-rock, then set the computer aside.

MacKenzie laughed, throwing her head back. “Sorry, sweetheart, but that’s
gonna
require an
explanation
. I mean, you’ve never taken a Jell
-O
shot, you were raised by the
Waltons
,
your
freaking panty-drawer is organized by color and day of the week. Spill it, babe.”

Tyson
glanced up from his drink
. “You’ve got day-of-the-week underwear? Oh, I’ve
gotta
see this.” He stood and wandered down the hall into my bedroom MacKenzie
and I
jump
ed
to our feet to follow.

“Ty!”
I called.
“Get out of there!”

He chuckled and pulled open the top drawer
of
my hand-carved
,
pale
-
pink dresser. “Holy shit, you weren’t kidding,
Kenz
.” He lifted a pair of white cotton briefs from the top of the pile and held them up to inspect. “Sunday,” he read the backside, chuckling.

I snatched them from
his grasp, tossed them back in
the drawer and slammed it shut with my hip. “Enough.
Out.
”
I shooed them from my bedroom.
Yes
,
I bought the packaged cotton u
ndies
.
They were comfy
.
S
ue me.
MacKenzie stood her ground, blocking the door to my bedroom.
“Only if you tell us the story of you looking at porn.
I bet you don’t even own a sex
toy do you?”

“I’ll tell you.” I navigated my way around her out into the hallway. But I was
so
not answering the sex-toy question. Even if Ty was like a brother to us, he was still male, and I wasn’t about to admit that I had a vibrator tucked in the back of my
underwear drawer. God, I would have been mortified if they’d found that.

Once we were seated on the living room rug again
I downed a few more Jell-O shots to ease my nerves and pulled a throw pillow into my lap.
MacKenzie
sat across from me
, looking smug, leaning back against the sofa
.

“Okay
.
S
o last night in the ER…” I grabbed another shot
and slurped down the gelatinous mouthful
, needing to fortify myself at the memory of Cade’s erection
.

“How
big
would you say it was?” MacKenzie asked
once I was through my story
, leaning forward
with eager curiosity
.

“
A
h hell
, I’m getting another drink,” Ty announced, standing to head into the kitchen.

After
considering—and rejecting
a nearby
candlestick
and
finding nothing
else
adequate in my living room to showcase the full length of Cade’s
manhood
,
Ke
n
zie
and I made our way into the kitchen, giggling
at my idea
to retrieve a cucumber from
the
refrigerator.

I reached into the crisper drawer and modeled the large vegetable in front of my crotch. “This looks about right.”

MacKenzie took my shoulders, turning me from side to side so I could model it
at
various angles. “Damn. That boy is hung.”

Tyson retreated to the bathroom while MacKenzie and I made our
way back into the living room. She hoisted
the cucumber proudly over her head,
waving
it
in time with the music
,
and led the way back to my computer.

MacKenzie settled onto the sofa, the laptop balanced on her knees and I scooted in beside her to…supervise.

“Click here,” I told her, pointing to the tab
labeled
Models. The
title
had seemed a little strange to me, but
I supposed that sounded classier than saying porn stars. The pictures were mostly topless girls
posing seductively.
MacKenzie scrolled past the photos of the girls. Last night I’d thorou
ghly inspected
each image, wondering if Cade had slept with them, and which
he
preferred best.
All of the
girls were thin
and tan
ned
with large, fake breasts. I didn’t want to, but my mind
had
inevitably made comparisons
to my own body
.

I was
of
average height, average weight. My breasts were decidedly real
, they fell several inches when I removed my bra,
and I had far too many freckles to be considered sexy. Pretty
,
maybe
, b
ut
certainly
not on par with the type
of women he usually slept with.
But all thoughts of insecurity vanished when I’d spotted Cade’s photo.

“That’s him.” I pointed at the photo.

It said his name was Sebastian, but
it
was definitely Cade.
He was standing near a weight bench, gym shorts loose on his narrow hips to show his cut abs and he was smirking like he knew a secret the rest of us didn’t.

“
D
amn
. He’s fucking hot.”

I giggled. “I know.”

MacKenzie clicked on his photo. Though I had spent time last night poring over each one, I couldn’t help but lean forward to join in her inspection. He had a full page of
photos.
I
n many of them he was wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs, and then a few where the boxers had been removed and all of him was proudly on display. The tattoo I’d wondered about was a tribal design
that
cover
ed
his left shoulder and crawl
ed
up his chest
,
ending at his neck.

I blushed at the sight of his fully erect cock and heat crept up my chest until I was rosy and warm. I couldn’t help but reminisce about being near Cade in the semi-private hospital room, where I’d been close enough to feel the heat of his skin and smell of the scent of his musky arousal.

MacKenzie scrolled down to the bio beneath the photos. I’d read it last night, but couldn’t resist reading it again over her shoulder. It said he was their newest model, and worked exclusively for their site. The bio claimed he was extremely professional to work with and always focused on making sure the girls felt comfortable. Outside of work he enjoyed working out and listening to rock music. It sounded like a clichéd line of bull, but that didn’t keep me from grasping at every bit of information I could get.

Ty
son
appeared from the kitchen, this time with a bottle of beer
,
and s
a
nk down on the chair across the room.

“Ty, you want to see what a real man looks like?” MacKenzie teased.

I elbowed her side. Tyson was only a few inches taller than me, and had a slight build
, but he was cute and I didn’t like her tearing him down.
Especially since he regularly caught flack for being one of only
a few
male nursing students.