“Open it.”
She does, and she’s still clueless. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s by my favorite author.”
She sits upright in the bed, puts the book on her lap, and reaches behind her to fluff the pillows. “I can see that, but I still don’t follow.”
“Justin gave that to me earlier.”
It takes a moment for understanding to clear the confusion from her face. She looks at the book, then up to me, then back to the book. “Girl. He wants you so bad.” She waves the book at me, and I suddenly regret letting her touch it. If she drops it and dents a corner I’m going to beat her to death with it.
She doesn’t have far to reach when she hands it back to me. “Well, you really need to move in with me now. You’re not going to want to bang him in the hockey house, and he’s not going to even fit into this sorry excuse for a room, never mind onto this matchbox bed.”
I huff out a breath. “We’ll make it work.” My body has woken up at the idea of banging Justin. I’ve stopped fighting the flicker in my chest when I think of him, and instead, I just sink into the warm fuzzies like it’s where I belong.
“I need a puke bucket.” Athena wraps her arms around her stomach and makes gagging noises. “This is so sickeningly sweet. I’m gonna blow.”
I toss a throw pillow from near her feet at her face, and her gagging noises increase. “Why do you hate hockey players so much anyway?”
I’ve asked her before, and her answer is always the same. Her face darkens, glimmers of something I can’t identify passing across her features, and she goes rigid. “I just do.”
“One of these days you’re going to let me know your damage.”
“Not today. Today we need to unpack those floral undies you just shoved in there thinking I couldn’t see, and find the sexy, sexy lace.”
I like her confidence. It’s contagious and intoxicating, but it’s also short lived. When she heads back to her place and I hit the hay, my nerves return. So many thoughts I can’t quiet swim around my mind as I try to sleep. I end up covering my face with my pillow and screaming into it like I’ve lost my mind.
Because it kind of feels like I have.
What if the kiss didn’t affect him the way it did me? What if he doesn’t really want to give this thing between us a shot? What if we do give it a shot and he cheats on me? What if Molly isn’t really okay with it and she was pulling some reverse psychology shit on me in the hopes of making me come to my senses and step out from under the spell Justin’s magic wand has clearly cast on me?
Another growl tears from the back of my throat as I flip onto my stomach. If overthinking was a subject at school I’d have a PhD in it. I can’t silence my thoughts, so when I haul my ass out of bed at the butt crack of dawn to catch my flight, all the triple shot coffees in the world aren’t enough to make this zombie-scarecrow hybrid hot mess express in any way vaguely human.
Justin meets me curbside at the airport. He opens the door to my Uber, kisses me on the cheek, and grabs my bag from the trunk. And suddenly I don’t give a shit that I’m about to step onto another metal death trap.
I like this.
I like it a lot.
But can I trust it?
He checks his huge bag at the check in desk, and I can’t help but smile. He tells me he’s got more beer for both our dads and some cheese curds he picked up in Wisconsin for his mom. Considering the size of the case I’m convinced he’s trafficking an entire dairy farm across state lines. He’s even hit with an excess baggage fee, but he doesn’t seem at all fazed.
When he’s ditched his 63 pounds of cheese and beer, he turns to me and smiles. My insides feel like winning the jackpot on a slot machine. The lights flash like crazy all at once, there’s an obnoxious ringing sound, and a huge payout. That smile could light up an entire Kingcaid casino.
Taking the handle of my carry-on, he offers me his open palm. My stomach flaps and twists as I slide my hand into his, staring at our joined hands while he leads me through security.
Huh. I guess we’re doing this dating thing, then.
CHAPTER16
Justin
Christmas was amazing. I kissed Vannah—it’s growing on me—under the mistletoe at my parents’ house every chance I got. Mom had very sneakily hung mistletoe everywhere she could think of, so there was quite a lot of kissing.
I went skiing in Aspen, played hockey in Belfast, Northern Ireland, ate entirely too much artisanal cheese, and now I’m back at UCR things are…awkward.
It’s not like I’ve never dated girls before. But I’ve never dated one I’ve feltthisdeeply for, this quickly. It also doesn’t help that we spent the first few weeks of our “dating” life long distance. We’ve talked on the phone once or twice but it’s mostly been texts between runs on the slopes, or before or after games—the six hour time difference with Ireland is not conducive to getting a relationship off the ground.
