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Kennedy letin the air for a few moments, then nodded once and cleared her throat "Okay This is still weird--too weird But what I want to know is, if you’ve knoas here since Friday, why are you just now approaching uring outhere I denied it at first, and then was in shock that after a year you were close enough to touch again I kept wondering if you would re to knohy you left, and then I just gotput in a position to be near you when there was a possibility you wouldn’t remember me or want to be near me, or you would be the sister who had a boyfriend I went back and forth between telling Eli that I knew you and that I was the wrong person to help you, but eventually I decided that I couldn’t have you this close and not try to talk to you again After that, it took a few days to finally figure out how to approach you without scaring youbut I still did it the wrong way Obviously"

"We can’t tell ical way to explain how I could’vehim or the rest of my family the truth"

"Okay"

"And we can’t tell your faain if they knew"

I looked away for a second and tried to brace myself for her reaction to what I was about to say "My dad knows" Kennedy’s eyes widened, and I said, "The truth I told him today"

"Oh my God," she said on a breath

"My sister won’t know, neither will my mom But I have a different relationship withHe’d already known about you last year, and I knew there was no way he wouldn’t eventually put things together"

"Your dad thinks I’ around to o back to that gym now"

My eyes narrowed at her assu along those lines because that’s just the way she was But it was pissing me off that Kennedy would think I’d ain, we still didn’t know each other

"No, he doesn’t That’s the last thing he thinks, I can assure you And yes, you can go back to the gym He was mad I hadn’t told him before he hired you, and orried you would both quit if I talked to you tonight So if anything, he’s on your side right now"

Kennedy shook her head slowly, her eyes on ht to the table a couple minutes later, but neither of us made a move to touch it, and Kennedy still looked like she was somewhere else

"Well," I said, and clearedthe silence between us Her eyes finally focused, and I decided that noas the ti up to her "That hat I needed to tell you Being in the sa connected by your uncle was purely coincidental You and Kira working for h my dad didn’t think he would hire the two of you before you came in for the interview--so I don’t want you or Kira to think you got the job because of your uncle or me Dad really liked you both But no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t try to talk to you without you knowing how this all caardless of what happened between us after I approached you in the gy that we had just run into each other out of pure coincidence"

"I appreciate you letting me know, and I appreciate dinner," she ain After a few beats of silence passed, she straightened and looked directly at me Her next words held no e will coes and we realize we’re ht last year was fun, but that’s all it wasa night"

From her detached words and the way she i, I knew there wasn’t one ounce of Kennedy that even believed the bullshit she’d just given me

5

June 3