KICK IT | JENLISA

74

Lisa

"No, you're not." My arms were around her before she spewed out more. "Come here, darling." I didn't know why that word slipped out, as effortless as breathing, but it fit.

She needs someone to call her darling.

Her back shuddered with a loud gasp, but I held her flush. I breathed in her mess of oily lotion and musky perspiration like an addict's fix. As I rubbed her soft, warm skin, her shoulders rounded, and she curled into my chest.

It wasn't the kiss I wanted, but I leaned over and aimed for her forehead. My chin knocked her hat back, which snagged on her ponytail and angled her chin up.

With bumped contact, my lips were on hers. Or hers on mine. One press of soft warmth sucked the air out of my lungs. Warm. Soft. Only a breath. It was over without a taste or registered thought.

But its effect was instant.

My heart dropped in a roller coaster plunge, then shot off on overdrive. Our gasps competed for who sucked in more air between us. White surrounded her endless brown eyes.

"I'm sorry."

Fuck, I was only sorry that hadn't lasted longer. The prick swelling a salute between my legs agreed.

Her lips twitched, but before she answered, the door flung open with a bang.

"What the fuck is going on here!?"

Jennie and I separated under Jackson's bucket of ice water. "Jackson, it's..."

He shoved his phone in my face. "Not... that. This!"

My eyes skimmed a soundbite article under a picture of my arms around Jennie. It was on hole ten, after she looked ready to smash Kendall's face in a sand trap. "What the fuck am I looking at, Lisa?"

I swallowed as his phone lowered. "Jackson, it was just a hug."

"Not Jennie!" he snapped and flipped up another article. "Or, yes Jennie. YG Accounting whistle-blower reveals corruption in the Lalisa Pranpriya Manoban Foundation."

What!?

Jackson's words slammed a freight train into my chest. Shock straightened my spine stiff. The muscles in my legs locked into tree stumps and my feet took root.

Harsh and unforgiving, I didn't recognise my voice. "Say that again."

As he repeated the words, my entire face tightened in a frown. Jennie shrunk back with a step. Her lower lip trembled as she hugged herself and rounded her shoulders.

She didn't... did she?

I felt as if my stomach dropped, then turned itself inside out. Her name died on my tongue. "Jennie?"

Jackson's eyes slanted into narrow slits and his hand shook his phone in her face. "Jennie. What the fuck did you do!?"

"I'm sorry." she whispered as a tear trailed over each cheek.

The sight squeezed my heart. I reached for her arm, but she bolted inside the house.

"Jennie!" Jackson's call was answered with a slammed door.

The urge to chase her tore me in half. Stay? Go? My brain couldn't budge past a blank sheet of paper.

With a frustrated sigh, Jackson pulled his phone to his ear. "Nancy, put out whatever fires spring up. No response until we know more."

More? We don't know anything!

Ignoring his subsequent rants about irresponsibility, I thumbed through Jennie's notebook. What the fuck was going on?

Past stick figures who met untimely deaths were jargons of numbers. The stickmen twitched a smile on my lips. One poor soul was run over by a tank, another got a spear in its groin, and one walked a pirate plank over circling sharks.

All had giant heads, small dicks, and 'Lisa' connected with an arrow. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or be flattered.

My eyebrows furrowed at the messy abbreviations and scribbled numbers. With the pad of my thumb, I counted five pages. What were these numbers? Tot exp? Dnr cons? Hieroglyphics to me, but she circled a percentage at the bottom of each page.

One percent. Four percent. One-half a percent. Three percent. Two percent.

I sucked in a sharp breath on the last page's note.

Rip-off.

The notebook was orange, not her blue one for class. As I turned it over in my hand for clues, a ray of sunlight cast across it.

She held it up at YG Accounting. When I thought she wanted my fucking autograph. What was she trying to tell me? My thumb jumped past the numbers to a note scented and damp with sunscreen. Regret jumped out of every word.

Lisa,

I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I wanted to tell you. The numbers balance, but recipients are paid nothing compared to the expenses. I don't know why or how it's happening, but it's really, really shitty. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner.

Jennie

I read her words until they blurred, with the same stunned reaction. This wasn't at all what I expected. She tried to warn me.

That comfort was brief, swallowed up by not knowing what she warned me of. Was it genuine concern, or because a press leak was coming?