Effortless by S.C. Stephens Read Free Book Online Page A

helped me heal my shattered heart when I was sure I
couldn’t. She’d even helped Kellan and I get back together. No,
whatever her eccentricities, I loved her.
     
    I was smiling and shaking my head at her when she tossed back,
“I’ll be out like a light if you guys want to go at it again?”
     
    I sighed as Kellan laughed. Pulling back to look at him, I
smacked his chest again. “Would you stop encouraging her?” He
smiled, still chuckling and I sighed again. “I wish the two of you
had a better hobby than trying to embarrass me.”
     
    Twisting me around to face him, he placed a tender kiss on my
forehead. “Well, you wouldn’t have to worry about it at my place.”
Rocking my hips back and forth, our bodies touching and retreating
enticingly, he added, “Maybe I’ll just embarrass you back to my
home?”
     
    Raising an eyebrow, he grinned crookedly at me. I wanted to
smack him again, but that look was too damn sexy. I ended up
kissing him instead, which, of course, made him chuckle.
     
    Kellan stayed with me all afternoon, helping me go over
everything and anything that had to do with school. I was starting
my last year soon. I had everything ready to go, all my classes
lined up, all my books purchased, but going over my plan helped me
to not feel so nervous about it.
     
    I don’t know why I was still nervous about the first day of
school. You would think that after sixteen grades, I’d be used to
it by now, but I wasn’t. That first day of school phobia had even
made me delay starting college after high school.
     
    My mom and dad had been furious about that, but I’d just been
too nervous to do it. My mom had been going through a small cancer
scare at the time, a small lump found that she’d had to have
removed. Even though they’d protested, I’d taken the opportunity to
stay home with her while she went through treatments. She hated me
missing school, but it worked out for me. I got to take care of her
and delay doing something that terrified my eighteen-year-old
self.
     
    She was one hundred percent better long before the school year
was up, and begged me to quit wasting my time with her and enter
late. I’d already deferred for a year, though, so I took all the
time I could.
     
    I may have delayed for another year, but eventually Anna had had
enough and had marched me down to the office after my year hiatus
and forced me to get registered at the school I’d already been
accepted to—Ohio University. And of course, once I was there I was
fine. It was getting through the door that was the hard part for
me. I was working on that too.
     
    But I suppose my delay had ended up being a good thing. I
probably wouldn’t have met Denny if I hadn’t taken that year to
lounge around my parents’ place. And then, if I’d never met Denny,
I definitely wouldn’t have ever met Kellan. Even though I hated how
we started, how much we’d hurt Denny, who was an incredibly good
guy who really didn’t deserve everything we’d put him through, I
was still grateful that fate had led me to Seattle, to Kellan.
     
    Kellan thought my nerves were cute. He didn’t seem to get
nervous about much of anything. He could probably walk into the
first day of school, thirty minutes late, completely naked, and be
absolutely fine. I smiled to myself as I reconsidered. No, people
and places may not affect him, but feelings did. Telling me that he
loved me for the first time had sure scared him, probably worse
than all of my first day jitters combined.
     
    Well, it was nice to know that he wasn’t impervious to
nerves.
     
    I was majoring in English this year, a fact that Kellan teased
me about. He seemed to think I’d be better suited for Psychology.
Personally, I think that was because he wanted me to take another
class like my Human Sexuality course last year. He was sort of
incorrigible when it came to the baser instincts. Not that I had
much room to talk, at least, not when it came to him. I just
couldn’t stop