Still Waters

Chapter 23

"Why didn't you tell me?" I walked over to a large mound of sand and sat down, pulling him with me.

He sat next to me and let go of my hand. Digging his fingers into the cool grains and letting a few blow slowly out into the wind, he avoided my eyes. "You were...caught up."

It was my turn to look away. "I'm sorry, Kenney. Guess I'm a pretty sucky friend, huh?"

He finally looked over at me and nodded in agreement. "Yup."

"Want me to beat her up?" I smiled, but in a way I was very serious. Deidra was cool and all, but that heffa wasn't my friend. Besides, I would have done anything for Kenney. Anything. I wondered if he knew that.

"Naw," he answered nonchalantly and started piecing together a raggedy sand castle.

I followed his lead and tried to help at least make the castle stop leaning to the right. After a while, we both reached for the same pile of sand and his hand brushed against mine. Even though my fingers didn't budge an inch, he quickly picked up a stick and started drawing designs into the roof of our lopsided castle.

"Kenney..." his gaze was so intense when he looked my way that my thoughts escaped me before they could even be formed into words.

"What?" he asked when I continued to stare at him in silence.

"Nothing. I..." I looked away. "I just love you, that's all."

He smiled faintly and started scraping at the castle again. "I love you, too." When I still didn't look away from him, he looked back over at me and for a split second, we both got lost in the gaze. He came back into focus first and quickly looked away.

Then sighing deeply, he shook his head and stood up. "We better go."

"Yeah..." I stood up, too, and followed him back to the car. When we were almost back to my place, I made one last attempt to lighten his load. "Hey, you know you and Deidra...you'll work it out."

"Maybe." To my surprise, he sounded like he didn't really care one way or the other whether he ever saw her again. Kenney always scared me when he sank into moods like this, and I fought the urge to reach over and grab him.

Unfortunately, I didn't seem to have as strong of a hold over my mouth as I had over my body. "Kenney," I blurted out suddenly. "Please don't be so sad. I hate when you get like this!"

He looked startled. "What? I'm not sad." Then he flashed what would have appeared to be a genuine smile if I hadn't already known him so well. "You're the one that needs to quit stressin'. Everything always gotta be so extreme with you, Tashi." He gave me a mischievous grin. "What a drama queen."

I playfully pinched his arm. "Shut up." When he walked me to the door, I asked if he was coming in.

"Nah, better not," and he left it at that. Then he looked at me for the longest time, and...I could have sworn that he almost kissed me. He played it off so well, though, I really couldn't say for sure. Then he waited until I got safely into the apartment before strolling slowly back to the car. Again I noticed how much I liked his walk. Real laid back and easy...just like everything else about him.

I stood in the doorway long after Kenney had driven off, wishing that there was something I could do to make him feel better. Finally, I closed the door and went to answer the phone that I had left ringing for at least the hundredth time. Shayna and I still hadn't figured out how to turn the voicemail back on after I had accidentally reset all of the features. If and when we ever got it back working again, she said that I was banned from checking all messages. I agreed that this was probably best.