Inheritance

Chapter 38

I woke up a few hours later to the palatable sight of Kendall's resting face. His handsome features held a subtle somberness, yet he somehow still appeared peaceful. As I studied him for a while longer, I noticed the way his sturdy body would tremble each time he shifted in his sleep.

Placing a gentle hand on his bare shoulder, I rubbed soothingly at his skin, hoping to provide some comfort to ease his stressed form. Though the gesture seemed to do the trick of terminating his sporadic twitching, his eyes remained adamantly shut.

The deepening furrow of his brow line suggested further evidence of layover stress transferring over from his dream state to reality. When he eventually released a faint whimper, my mouth went ajar. It was an uncanny surprise to think that, even a man as formidable as Kendall Fine was subjected to the unpleasant scrutiny of recurrent nightmares. 

Just as I attempted to wake the poor man up, he unconsciously flipped onto his opposite side so that he was facing away from me and towards the bedroom window. It took him a while to settle onto his back but, once he did, I monitored his form for another few seconds searching for any signs of extraneous movement. When he remained still, I was convinced that he'd rather quickly returned to a restful sleep. 

Wanting him to get the rest he needed, I decided to leave him be.

The subsequent moment of solace allowed me to temporarily reflect on the previous events of the night. I could wholesomely say that I had been left feeling quite satisfied from our intimate encounter. My like for the man had exponentially increased, and I was now left contemplating whether my feelings had blossomed into the other "L" word.

For a while, it seemed my relationship with Kendall had been spawned by embellished memories of what he'd once meant to me as a child. The truth was, as time progressed, the blurred lines between my conflicting opinions of his adult and childhood self had become muddied. Instead, it seemed I had developed even stronger feelings for the person he was now, rather than the fading image of the timid boy I'd initially grown to love many years ago.

Oh gosh, did that even make sense?

Now that my lustful haze had been quite literally expelled from my body, I found the same negative thoughts from days before seeping into my thoughts. There was no denying that Kendall was different. There were several secrets and difficult conversations I could sense he'd been stalling to have with me but that were still very much necessary. 

We both clearly knew that we needed to talk. But, I didn't want it to be like any of the previous times where we often found ourselves reverting to surface level topics. No, my mind had been firmly made up on this. We needed to address the elephant in the room, sooner rather than later. Only matter was how and when.

Picking up my phone from the night stand on my side of the bed, I saw that it was now 3:30am. Shortly after, I noticed that I had several missed calls and voice messages from Marco. Shit, he was probably freaking out about where I'd been this whole time.

Lazily rising from the cozy bed, I tried not to wake Kendall as I walked towards the stilted window. Taking a peak at the party outside, I saw that guests were still hanging around. Lucky for me, I could make out Marco's distinguished form among the mix of drunken and inebriated people meandering around the backyard. I released a burdened sigh, already mentally preparing myself to have to explain to him where I'd disappeared off to and why I'd been gone for so long.

Was now the right time to tell him I was romantically involved with Kendall?

"Are you leaving?" Said person's raspy voice groggily croaked from behind me, as his figure closed in on my vulnerable position near the window.