♥Chapter 29: ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ꜱʜᴇ ᴘᴀɪɴᴛꜱ ʜᴇʀ ɴᴀɪʟꜱ♥

✿Kennedy✿

"Be my tango partner." I look up at Jake.

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"This is not fair! You know how to tango!" I start. "Teach me!"

"I was forced to learn or else I would have gotten my ass whooped." He replies, picking up another plate to wash.

"By who?" I throw my hands up. Who can possibly whip his butt? 

"My aunts."

"They forced you to tango?" I ask.

"They forced me to learn a lot of things to "expand my creativity"." He rolls his eyes, drying all the washed dishes now.

"Jake, listen to me very intently now." I start desperately and he lets out a sigh.

He pauses on drying the dishes with a dishcloth before turning towards me and leaning back against the kitchen counter. He gives me a bored look. "I'm listening."

"Okay so." I start. "You know how to Tango. Toothy knows how to Tango. Corey knows how to Tango. Cole knows how to Tango. Alex knows how to Tango." I count off. "But you know who doesn't know how to Tango?" I ask. "ME!" I throw my hands up.

Jake shakes his head, furrowing his eyebrows. "What are you even going to do after learning it?"

"It'll be easier to hook up with guys," I answer.

A glare immediately comes on his face.

"I'm kidding," I assure him before adding. "I think."

I shake my head.

"I've been moonwalking this whole time," I say. "It'd be fun to learn some other dance."

"You've nearly killed yourself five times moonwalking." He says, blankly. "Tango is immediate death for you."

I scowl. "Why don't you try me, motherlover?" I challenge him.

He snorts.

"Fine, if you won't teach me, I'll go to Cole," I state.

"No." He frowns at me. "You will not."

"He already offered to teach me," I say. "I said I'll answer him after asking you first if you'd teach me or not."

"I'm not going to teach you." He says firmly.

"Why? Are you shy?" I question. "There's literally no need to be shy, Jake. We're all embarrassing creatures on this planet."

"It's not that." He grumbles. "I just don't wanna do it."

"Whatever you say," I say. "I'm gonna go get some tango lessons now." I move to walk out of the kitchen to the living room where Corey and Cole were playing video games.

Before I could step out of the kitchen though, Jake grabs the back of my t-shirt and pulls me towards me. My back hits the front of his body.

"He's gonna feel you all up." He grunts, putting his arms around me.

"It's a part of the dance," I say.

"I don't want him to fucking touch you." He grumbles, his lips pressing a kiss to the side of my head.

For a moment, I enjoy the feeling of being in his arms and him kissing me before I get my head out of the haze and turn around in Jake's arms.

"Teach me how to Tango then," I say.

"No."

"If you're gonna be this difficult then I have no choice, Jake," I say. "Besides, it's only tango. It's not like I'm gonna fall for him or something."

He grips my hip in a hard grip. "I won't like that." He says.

"I wouldn't want that too," I assure him. Because this motherlover standing right in front of me, yeah, I'm already in too deep with whatever I feel for him.

Like how I feel for donuts and knives. Somehow Jake comes on top of all those things.

He stares at me, a different expression on his face now. His fingers come to tuck my hair behind my ear. "I really like you, Kennedy."

"I like you too." I grin, reaching up and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"I'm going to go learn Tango now." I pull away from him making him make an unhappy noise.

✯✯✯

"Okay so now put your foot back and the other one to the side." Cole guides me while I mentally give out a cry of frustration.

Why is Tango so flipping hard?

I put my foot back as he said and put my other one to the side.

"You're too far away from me." He notes.

I shuffle closer to him, and he shakes his head. "A little closer."

I do.

"Closer." He says again.

I take another tiny step ahead.

"Closer." He says again.

"You want her bash into you?" Jake snaps.

Cole lifts his eyes to him and grins. "It's part of the dance, man. Even you know that."

Cole takes a step ahead, closing the gap between us until his front is completely plastered to mine. I feel his hard body against mine. I think Cole closes his eyes for a moment and lets out a small groan.

"Did I step on you?" I wince.

"Nope." He opens his eyes. "You just feel good."

"You little shit." Jake cusses.  

Is digging a knife into a soft body easier than a hard one?

"Would you mind if I cut you?" I ask Cole.

He pauses and stares at me. An expressionless look on his face. "Boy...you serious?" He raises an eyebrow.

"Do it!" Jake sneers from where he's sitting on the sofa, glaring intently at Cole.

"Yay!" I grin.

"No one's cutting anyone." Toothy states flatly, shooting Jake a look.

Jake narrows his eyes, not taking them off Cole and me. And there's Corey, looking happy like he always is.

"Thanks, Toothy." Cole nods at her before turning back to me. "Now you're going to take the lead." He tells me. "Put your right foot ahead."

"But then I'll kick you." I blink.

"Just do it." He says.

I shrug.

If it kicks, it kicks, right?

I put my right foot ahead and watch as Cole puts his foot back.

"Oh," I say, realizing.

"Yup." He grins at me. "Come on let's redo whatever we did now, okay?"

I freeze. "What?"

"Let's do it all again." He speaks. "In one flow."

I nod.

This is fine.

This is easy.

I did not completely forget whatever we did for the past ten minutes.

I mean I can just wing it, right?

Hopefully, my body remembers the steps, that my brain forgot.

"Okay, three...two...one." He says.

I lift my foot and put it to the right while he puts his to the left.

I realize I put my foot in the wrong direction and quickly change it before he notices. He notices anyway and cracks a smile.

"It's alright you'll get the hang of it." He readjusts his hand on my waist.

We go for a couple more tries. I tangle my foot with his so many times that I'm near to bursting into tears.

Why am I so horrible at learning stuff?

My mind goes to Jake. He always makes me feel good when I feel bad about myself. 

Cole notices my mood though and tightens his grip around my waist. "It's alright, love." He chuckles. "Not everyone can do it the first time."

"I bet your bones are broken into tiny pieces by how many times I've stepped on your foot," I mumble. 

"My bones are perfectly fine. Don't worry." He says then stares at my eyes as if he caught something in them. He blinks. "Boy, you've got amazing eyes."

A grin comes to my face but before I could reply, Jake flings in.

"She already knows that." He snaps, giving Cole a look that he's been giving him since the beginning.

My foot tangles with Cole again and we almost bam to the floor before he quickly regains his balance and steadies me.

"Dude, she's tryna trip all the time," Cole says to Jake. "I think she wants me to fall for her."

Jake's glare hardens and Corey's face cracks into a grin while I blink in confusion.

"I don't want you to fall though," I say, honestly. "You'll get hurt."

"It'll be worth it." He gives a curt bow of his head.

"She means literally you dumbass." Jake makes an annoyed face.

"Oh," Cole says. "Okay but seriously, with the way you look, how can I resist you? I'm literally getting horny here."

"I'll show you how." Jake shoots up from the couch while Toothy rolls her eyes at Cole.

Cole immediately gets behind me. "Kidding. Kidding." His hands are on my shoulders and the way he's trying to cower behind me makes me expand with proudness.

He thinks I can protect him from Jake?

Oh mama, do I really look that strong?

"Yes, come at me!" I challenge Jake, putting my arms wide.

Jake's angry eyes fall on me, and he steps toward me.

I stand my guard proud and tall, readying all my attack moves—until he grabs me by the waist and wheels me away from Cole.

"Hey! We weren't done dancing!" Cole yells.

"Yes," Jake replies. "You are."

"But we really weren't," I call out to Jake who suddenly decides to become deaf.

"Oh come on, man," Corey complains. "They were just getting the hang of it."

I manage to finally wiggle out of Jake's tight grip before straightening myself.

"You didn't let me attack." I place my hands on my hips, glaring at him.

He just stares at me, a hard look on his face. Something flicks across his face that I don't understand.

In the end, he just shakes his head and turns away, walking upstairs.

A few seconds later, a door slams shut loudly.

✯✯✯

"The whole crew's coming on Thanksgiving," Cole speaks, "Prepare to have your house trashed and destroyed, Lex," Cole speaks to Alex while trying to kill Corey.

In the video game of course.

"It's been a while since I've seen everyone." Alex takes a sip of his coffee.

"Mhmm, you're gonna wish you never see us for another lifetime once all forty of us come," Cole remarks, smirking slightly.

Alex waves his hand, "I've handled all sorts of people."

"My coming here was partly to remind you to pack and run away before you meet everyone on Thanksgiving," Cole gives a nonchalant shrug, "your loss. You've failed to see my warning."

"I wanna see all forty of your family," I beam and Toothy shoots me a glare when my fingernails move on which she's applying nail polish.

They're white and yellow in colour.

Toothy's glared at me like a million times already. I immediately freeze and stop moving and she drops her glare.

Why is her glare so freaking scary?

Maybe it's her sharp cat-like eyes? Or maybe it's the way she tilts her head that makes her look more threatening. I don't know.

Cole raises his eyebrows, sharing a look with Corey, "She's talking suicidal, boy."

"She'll be fine," Alex says.

"Yup," Toothy says Corey nods in agreement.

"I think it's your family who's suicidal to come to this house knowing Kennedy's here," Corey speaks.

Everyone nods in agreement with Cole and me staring in confusion.

"How so?" Cole asks.

Everyone looks at me while I stare dumbfound at everyone.

"What?" I blink.

"Hmm let's see," Corey starts counting on his fingers, "you're trying to get a gun, you've been trying to find those huge knives, you talk about murder all the time, you attacked me when I stepped on your toy cow-"

"It was a sheep," I correct.

"-toy sheep, also you talk kinda crazy-scary."

"I don't actually mean most of them," I mutter.

Corey shrugs, "Still."

"Damn murder?" Cole widens his eyes at me, "Can I be your partner in crime? I've got seven people on my 'to murder' list. First is my math teacher. "

"There's a cop sitting right here!" I hiss at Cole, my eyes darting towards Alex.

"Oops." Cole gives a sheepish look before looking at Alex, "Is there any chance I can hit your head with a metal pipe for you to lose the memory of this conversation?"

"Come near me and I'll shoot you," Alex replies calmly, sipping his coffee.

Why is he drinking coffee when he has to sleep in three hours anyway?

"Damn I gotta come with a gang then," Cole states.

"I have a whole department," Alex replies back.

"I wanna fight a police department!" I raise my hand.

Toothy's eyes snap at me. I freeze before giving her an apologetic look and becoming immobile again, returning my hand back in its place.

Where's Jake by the way? I haven't seen him in a long time.

Oh wait he's still in his room, isn't he?

Suddenly, I wanna go see him right away but if I move Toothy will kill me.

He's probably abusing his poor biology textbook again. Although, he does put his books away when I'm there and want to talk to him.

I don't know if I should feel happy about that or bad. Like, won't he fail if he doesn't study?

Nah, he's a smartbutt. He's already way ahead in his studies.

Unlike me.

A warm feeling flushes in my chest when I think about how Jake got used to me so quickly. I think the part reason for that is because he's used to people being around him. Like he's always with Corey and Toothy. Corey can match up to five people with his loud and incessant talking. And Jake said he had twenty-four cousins.

If he's this close with Toothy then God knows how many other cousins he's close with.

Like Cole for example...who's currently trying to climb on Corey's shoulders.

"Don't call for me if you get hurt," Toothy says without looking up from my nails. Her own pretty nails are shaped and painted elegantly.

"I got this," Cole assures, struggling to put his other foot over Corey's shoulder while holding onto Corey's head for support.

"I don't got this!" Corey exclaims, "Man, you got heavy!"

"I gained muscles," Cole responds, and yelps when his foot slips from Corey's shoulder causing him to strangle Corey with his legs.

"Ah, my neck!" Corey makes a choking noise, trying to throw Cole off his shoulders.

Cole lands on the ground with a loud thud that makes me wince.

"Toothy." Cole groans, rolling over onto his stomach, clutching his butt.

"I told you." Toothy states and then ignores him as he proceeds to groan more.

"I feel like thunder cracked on my ass." Cole groans.

"Wait until you've actually fallen on your ass," Corey says, kicking Cole on his side for God knows what reason. "Your butt becomes so stiff, you feel like you don't have a butt for hours. You might as well cut off your butt and attach two strings to it to use it as a purse."

A blegh expression comes on Toothy's face.

"Don't listen to them." She mutters to me, shaking her head. "Here's when they start talking about the absolute most disgusting stuff."

A giggle escapes my mouth. "So how are you and Tristan doing?"

She pauses for a while, not blinking.

Then she continues applying the nail polish to my fingers. "He's nice."

I frown in confusion. "Something wrong?"

Toothy pauses again before giving a small shrug. "It's...hard getting used to new people."

I've never had that problem. But then Toothy and I are completely two different people.

I figured out that Toothy's reason for her anxiety and nervousness around other people might be because of the rape. Because with Corey, Jake and all, she's far from nervous or anxious.

"I wanna go see Jake." I sigh.

"Almost done." She mumbles.

She paints the last nail, blows on it and finally sits back, capping the nail paint bottle. "Don't ruin it."

I nod before hopping off the couch and stretching my sore legs and wiggling my toes.

On my way upstairs, Corey's and Cole's voices faint away from me.

"Okay, but who do you think has a great ass. An alien or a zombie?" Cole asks.

"Alein, duh," Corey replies. 

"How come?" 

"Their asses aren't dead and won't fall off."

"Right." 

"Can you people shut the hell up?" Toothy snaps.  

✄ ✄ ✄ ✄

I HATE THIS CHAPTER! I DON'T KNOW! I WENT THROUGH SO MUCH STRESS, SADNESS, AND MOODINESS BY JUST EDITING THIS CHAPTER!! I HATE IT FOR SOME REASON! 

THE NEXT CHAPTER TOO!

This chapter was too long so I split it into two.

Anyhow...

♥♥♥Jake's Kennedy hit 1K views already in just a month! That's the quickest any of my books have hit 1K that fast. Thank you all for reading and voting! ♥♥♥

Words: 2,500

Date of posting: 25th April 2022