Crossing my arms over my chest protectively I asked, “So what are you doing here, Ky?”

He stopped his perusal and his eyes landed on mine. “You haven’t been at school for a few days and I wanted to know why.”

We’d barely spoken and I was already exhausted. I plopped down on the faded, green couch that sat in the center of the living room.

“You know why,” I said, looking down at the floor.

“I suppose I do, but I want to know why you’re letting Aubrey get the better of you?”

My eyes shot to his and I glared at him. “She embarrassed me in front of the entire school, Kyler! She sent that photo to everyone and now our whole class has seen me … naked.” I looked down again, unable to deal with my embarrassment.

“You’re letting Aubrey win, you know that, right?”

“You know what, Ky? You can get out of my house. I don’t need to be lectured by you or anybody else. Just get out!”

I got up and fled the living room. My bedroom was down the hall and as soon as I was inside, I slammed my door shut and locked it. Seconds later I heard a light tapping.

“Harper, let me in.”

“Go away, Ky.” I started to cry.

It was quiet, but then he said so softly, “Harper, please, I just want to talk to you.”

I sniffed and decided that the jerk wasn’t going to leave until I pacified him. I unlocked the door, but left it closed, before moving to the bed. Ky opened the door and came in to sit down on the bed beside me. Tears streamed down my face and I hated that he was seeing me like this. I didn’t let anybody see me cry … ever.

“Would you like me to tell what’s been happening at school? I think you’ll be surprised,” he said.

“Let me guess, the photo has been passed around to even more people, and now it’s hitting the next town.”

“Nope. Let’s just say the photo has been taken care of.”

“What do you mean it’s ‘been taken care of, Ky?” I sneered.

“I took care of it. That’s all you need to know.”

“I don’t understand. How did you take care of it?”

He smiled a soft sweet smile at me, and reached up to brush away a tear with his thumb. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. You can come back to school and I promise you, nobody will say anything about it.” The smile faded slightly from his face when he said, “But if they do, let me know and I’ll handle it.”

More tears streamed down my face. “Why are you being so nice to me, Kyler? We’re not friends.”

I know that sounded rude and mean, but it was also the truth.

“We are friends … at least we are now. And I like you, Harper, I always have. I don’t want you to cry any more tears over this.”

He liked me? Well, that was a revelation.

“You like me, huh?” I gave him a slight smile.

“Yep.”

Ky leaned over and kissed my cheek, which caused me to blush.

“That pink on your cheeks looks good on you.”

I didn’t normally blush, but I couldn’t help the heat that crept up to my face. I looked up at him and there must have been something he saw on my face that made him lean over again and softly kiss my lips. He was being so gentle and tentative at first. But when my tongue snaked out and lightly touched his lower lip, he became more aggressive. Ky’s mouth became firmer, and his hands came up to hold me by the back of my neck.

I pulled my mouth back and inch. “Wait, Ky, what are we doing here?”

His eyes roamed over my face and then he brought his stare back to me. “I don’t really know, Harper. I just know that that felt really good, and I don’t know if I can stop it from happening again.”

Kyler gave me a cocky grin and crushed his lips to mine. He tasted every inch of my mouth and I felt my body tingling down there. His hand slid gently down and grazed the small patch of skin between my shirt and jeans. My heart started pounding in my chest. I wasn’t sure where this was going, only that I wanted it. He was making me feel wanted. However, that feeling was abruptly halted when Ky’s hand had moved up and delicately touched the underside of my breast.

I jerked back and starred at him.

“I’m sorry Harper, I got carried away.”

Shaking my head back and forth I said, “Ky, it’s okay, I just … I haven’t … I’ve never …” I trailed off, not sure of the right words to say.

“Are you saying that you’re a virgin, Harper?” There was no teasing in his voice, he was simply asking me a question.

I shrugged my shoulders, not wanting to directly answer him.

He tipped my chin up with his fingers so that I was looking at him. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. There’s no pressure here, okay?”

He meant it. The normally cocky, smart ass, everything is a joke Kyler, was being kind and I didn’t know how to take it. I searched his face for any signs of him playing the ‘nice guy’ card just so he could get laid. I saw nothing but sincerity. He actually meant what he said. This guy came here to make me feel better, and then confessed that he’d liked me for a while now. I made the decision right then and there that I was going to be brave. I wanted this to happen.

“Touch me, Ky,” I barely whispered.

That day I gave Kyler something that was special. He never made me regret my decision that I lost my virginity to him. He also never told me how it was that he got the whole school to keep quiet. I went to school the following morning and not one person said anything about the photo Aubrey had taken. I’d wanted to ask people why they never brought it up, but didn’t want to remind them about it either.

“So can I ask you something?” I said, tickling the side of his ribs.

“Hmmm …”

“How did you get them all to stop talking about it, and spreading the picture?”

He laughed. “You never found out?”

“No. I asked Em if she knew, but she said she had no idea, and Finn wasn’t saying a word.”

“For starters, I went up to Aubrey and flirted a bit with her. I made her think that I wanted to go out with her, and then I asked some questions about the photo. She ended up admitting to me that she took it when you reached down to grab some soap, and she’d made a noise so you would look over at her. After that, I asked to see the photo—”

“Oh my God, you didn’t look at it, did you?” I interrupted him.

“Will you let me finish? No, I didn’t look at it. I took her phone, threw it on the ground, then shattered it with my foot. She started yelling at me and telling me that I was going to pay for it, but then I conveniently pointed out that I had Finn over in the corner recording everything that she’d said. Everyone would know that she was a liar.”

“So that’s why Finn never told Em anything,” I giggled. “But that doesn’t explain why people acted like it never happened. Did you show everyone the video or something?”

He brought his hand up and brushed it through the thick strands of my hair.

“No, if I would have done that, it would have made me as bad as her. I just found every single person that had gotten their hands on the photo, and told them that if one word was spoken about it again, they’d have me to deal with.”

“Such a badass.”

I tried to brush off the gravity of what he’d done for me. He’d taken care of something that, at the time, had felt crushing. He’d cleaned up the mess, and then kept it quiet. That meant a lot to me.

“Ky, all these years, and I never even knew you were the reason the rumors had stopped.”