In Love With Him

Chapter 3

Kennedy’s POV

The clink of silverware was the loudest thing at the dinner table.

Max was already on his second helping of mashed potatoes, happily stuffing his face like we weren’t in the middle of the most awkward family gathering of all time. Across from me, Dominic leaned back in his chair like he owned it, one arm draped casually across the backrest, silently surveying the room. His mother sat next to Dad, offering up this overly cheerful smile that didn’t quite match the tightness in her eyes.

I kept my gaze on my plate. A sad little triangle of green beans, some roasted chicken, and half a biscuit I didn’t even want.

“So,” Helen said after another long silence. “School starts soon, huh?”

Here we go.

She smiled at Max first. “Eighth grade, right?”

He nodded mid-chew. “Yup.”

“What are you excited about?”

“Not school,” he mumbled through mashed potatoes.

She laughed softly, then turned toward me. “And Kennedy, senior year. That’s exciting. Have you picked out any colleges yet?”

I didn’t look up. “Some.”

“She’s been accepted to three already,” Dad said proudly. “Full scholarships. Smart as hell.”

Helen lit up. “Wow, that’s amazing! You must be so proud.”

I offered a tight smile. “Sure.”

The silence came back like a weight.

Helen tried again. “I was thinking, maybe sometime this week, just us girls could go shopping? Pick up a few things for school. Clothes, supplies, maybe even lunch after? Just a little bonding.”

I opened my mouth to decline—gently, but firmly—only to be cut off before I could even form the words.

“She’d love that,” Dad said quickly, smiling at Helen like they were already some happy little sitcom family.

My jaw clenched. I glanced at him, then back down at my plate.

I stabbed my green beans and muttered, “Can’t wait.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I felt it.

A glance.

My gaze didn’t move, but I felt him watching me — Dominic. His blue eyes were sharp, cutting, like he was trying to figure me out without saying a word. I didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I’d noticed. But it happened again. A flicker of attention, a brush of something charged.

Why was he staring?

Was there something on my face?

In my teeth?

Did I do something weird?

The dining room blurred slightly at the edges.

My fingers tightened around my fork. My chest constricted, a pressure pressing hard and fast like I’d just run up ten flights of stairs. My pulse ticked up — throat closing, lungs squeezing.

Not here.

Not now.

I pushed back my chair suddenly. “Excuse me.”

Dad looked up, concerned. “Kennedy—”

“I’m fine,” I said quickly, already halfway to the stairs. “I just need a minute.”

The second I shut my bedroom door behind me, the tears were already threatening.

My breathing was short, shallow — like I couldn’t quite pull air into my lungs. My hands trembled as I fumbled toward my nightstand drawer and pulled out my inhaler. One long, deep puff. Hold. Let go.

Another.

My vision steadied slightly, the walls stopped swaying.

I sank onto the edge of my bed and closed my eyes.

It wasn’t Dominic. Not really. And it wasn’t Helen. Or even Dad.

It was everything.

Every change. Every shift. Every moment I was expected to smile through.

I wasn’t always this way. I used to be normal. I used to laugh at stupid cartoons and get excited about birthdays and crushes and music festivals. But everything changed the day Mom sat me down and told me she had stage three breast cancer.

The doctors were hopeful at first. She’d beat it, they said.

She didn’t.

It spread faster than anyone expected — lungs, spine, liver. The woman who once danced barefoot in the kitchen to Brittany Spears could barely hold her head up by the end. The color drained from her. The light behind her eyes dulled. And suddenly, everything had to be sterile.

Organized. On schedule. Predictable.

Because chaos meant loss. And I couldn’t lose anything else.

I became the cleaner. The planner. The quiet glue holding everything together while my dad fell apart and Max asked questions no one had answers for.

And now I was supposed to welcome strangers into our house. Into our space. Smile through it all like none of it hurt.

A knock tapped gently on my door.

I wiped at my eyes quickly. “Yeah?”

Dad stepped in, concern written all over his face. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Just needed a minute.”

He crossed the room and sat beside me without a word, his presence steady and grounding. For a long moment, we both stared straight ahead.

“I know this is a lot,” he said quietly. “And I know I should’ve handled some of it better.”

I didn’t say anything.

He exhaled. “I’m not asking you to love Helen. I’m not even asking you to like her right away. I just… I want you to give her a chance.”

“She’s not Mom,” I whispered, voice cracking.

“No,” he said. “She’s not. And she’s not trying to be. No one could ever replace your mother, Kennedy. Ever. But Helen… she wants to be a friend. Maybe even someone you can talk to, eventually. That’s all.”

I stayed quiet for a moment, chewing at the inside of my cheek.

“I’ll try,” I said finally, voice small.

He smiled — that soft, tired smile I’d missed over the years — and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

---

Dominic’s POV

Dinner was… interesting.

One second, Kennedy was sitting across the table, quiet but composed, pushing her green beans around like she was planning their funeral. The next, her chest was rising too fast, her eyes were locked on her plate, and she looked like she was about to pass out.

Then she was gone — chair pushed back, footsteps pounding up the stairs, door slamming in the distance.

I blinked.

Did shopping with my mom really freak her out that much?

There was an awkward silence at the table. The kind that settles over a room like fog. My mom looked worried, the kind of look she used to get whenever I came home from school with bruises and refused to explain them.

Paul sighed and set down his fork, his expression tired but calm. “Sorry about that,” he said quietly. “Kennedy gets… panic attacks. Sometimes they come out of nowhere, but mostly they’re triggered when she’s overwhelmed.”

Mom looked horrified. “Oh God. Did I do that? I didn’t mean to pressure her—just thought maybe it’d be nice to spend some girl time together—”

“No,” Paul cut in gently. “It’s not you. It’s just…”

He paused like he was trying to find the right words.

Then Max chimed in, chewing through his third biscuit, crumbs flying. “Everything triggers her. She’s weird like that.”

Paul shot him a look sharp enough to cut.

“Max,” he said, warning in his voice.

The kid shrugged, stuffing more food in his mouth before going back to ignoring the table entirely.

Paul turned back to Mom. “It started when Vivian—my wife—was diagnosed with cancer. Kennedy was only seven at the time. Everything moved so fast… too fast. She ended up stepping up and helping with everything. The house, the appointments, Max. All while still trying to be a kid.”

He shook his head, rubbing his hand over his jaw.

“She didn’t get a childhood. She became an adult overnight.”

I sat back in my chair, the last bite of chicken cooling on my plate. For a moment, I just stared at the half-empty glass of water in front of me, watching condensation trail down the side like it had somewhere to go.

I hadn’t pegged her for that kind of girl.

Yeah, I knew the quiet types always had layers — usually the messy kind. But I hadn’t expected that.

Seven years old, stepping up because no one else could.

That kind of hit me.

Not that I’d say it out loud, but I knew the feeling. I knew what it was like to be a kid forced to handle s**t no kid should have to deal with. To stand between your mom and the screaming man who was supposed to protect her. To take hits that weren’t yours just so someone else wouldn’t have to.

When Kyle wasn’t around — which was often — it was just me. Me and Mom. Me and the rage in our walls.

Kennedy might’ve kept to herself, but for the first time, I felt something flicker in my chest that wasn’t just lust or annoyance.

It was… understanding.

“Excuse me,” Paul said, pushing up from the table and heading upstairs.

Max, completely unbothered, scraped the last bit of mashed potatoes off his plate and stood up like he was clocking out of a job. He left his dishes right where they were and walked away without so much as a glance back.

Classic.

I watched him disappear down the hallway and bit back the urge to tell him off. But it wasn’t my place. Not yet.

Then Mom turned to me. “You know,” she said softly, “you might actually have more in common with Kennedy than you think.”

I looked at her, brows raised. “Yeah? Like what?”

“She had to grow up too fast. So did you. That kind of thing leaves marks.”

I didn’t say anything.

Mom gave me a faint smile. “You don’t always have to talk about it, Dom. But sometimes it helps to talk to someone who understands. And maybe… if the two of you ever decided to actually talk—not bark at each other—you might both benefit from it.”

I stared at my plate, then at Max’s. A mess left behind for someone else.

Kennedy, probably.

With a sigh, I stood up and gathered both plates.

“Maybe,” I muttered.

I walked the dishes into the kitchen and rinsed them off in the sink. There was a dishwasher, but I wasn’t sure how Paul felt about strangers touching appliances yet.

Out the window, the backyard came into view — a large in-ground pool shimmered under the patio lights, a built-in hot tub bubbling beside it. The whole yard was well-maintained, with a tall privacy fence wrapping around the edges.

Nice setup. Not bad for a guy who probably billed by the hour in four-digit increments.

I let the water run for another second, my thoughts still on Kennedy. Still on that moment her shoulders tensed and her breath caught in her throat. I wondered what that felt like — losing control of your body in front of people, especially people you didn’t know or trust.

I dried my hands and walked into the living room, flopping down on the couch like I’d lived there for years. Remote in hand, I started flipping through channels, not really watching anything at first.

Until I landed on a UFC fight.

A grin crept up my face.

Now this I could get into.

I stretched out, one arm behind my head, the tension from the night slowly bleeding away with every punch thrown on screen. But part of me — a small, annoying part — was still thinking about the girl upstairs, her hands probably shaking as she tried to calm herself down.

I didn’t know why I cared.

But I did.

And that was going to be a problem.