AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I don’t have an answer about the coaches. I don’t really want to tell her that Coach Adkins said I looked like a psychopath out there those last two games.
“Does it hurt?” she asks quietly, her hand coming up and stroking my jaw just below the healing cut. And that touch, Jesus, I didn’t even realize I’d been closing the space between us until she reached up and feathered her fingertips over my skin.
My hand closes around her wrist, holding her where she is. I close my eyes and feel that soft, gentle touch. Resisting the urge to dip my head so I can draw her fingers into my mouth.
“Rux?” My name is barely a whisper, but there’s no missing the uncertainty behind it.
Giving in to one stroke of my thumb over her wrist, my eyes flip open and I smile. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine.”
I’ve moved her hand from my lips, but I haven’t let her go. If she pulls away, I will. But for just this minute she doesn’t seem to notice the way we’re still connected.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be standing alone with her in this kitchen or touching her like she’s still mine. I shouldn’t be staring into those bottomless blue eyes and asking myself what would happen if I pulled her closer. Let our bodies align the way it feels so good to do. Tip her head back until her lips part and I can sink—
“Rux, I made this for you,” Matty says, rounding the corner, his eyes lowered to the sheet of paper he’s holding in his hands.
Cammy and I step away from each other, and while I can’t wait to see what this guy made for me, I’m aching to pull her back. To slip my fingers through hers. To pull her into my chest as we look over the latest masterpiece together.
Instead, I drop into a kitchen chair and wave him over to show me what he’s done.
Instead of handing me the drawing, he smooths it out over the space on the table in front of me and starts pointing to each of us, though there’s no question who is who in this picture. I’m the guy with all the muscles holding hands with Matty and my girl. There are cupcakes and hockey sticks and Legos. And I’m dead serious when I turn to him. “I love it. This is the best picture ever. Can I keep it?”
“Yes!” he bellows, his little hands coming up beside him. “I made it for you. I have one for me too and one for Mom.”
At that, I glance up at Cammy, who gives me a shrug. “He’s been busy.”
Matty smiles down at his artwork. “This way you won’t have to miss us so much when you’re away for your games.”
Before I can do more than open my mouth, he darts off, intent on showing me something else.
Cammy slides into the chair beside me and smiles down at the picture.
“He missed you. We have about seven versions of this picture around the house right now. I think he might have even given one to Jeremy.”
Here we go. There’s no way Cammy isn’t going to tell me things have changed between them. She probably doesn’t know that Matty spilled the beans about their sleepover—and the rational part of me knows it isn’t actually any of my business anyway. But the idea that she wouldn’t tell me they were together, giving it another try, bothers me almost as much as the idea of them actually together.
Which bothers me a lot. Even though it’s not supposed to.
“I’m sure Jeremy loved that.”
Cammy cocks her head, the soft huff of her laugh confirming he did not. “At least Matty drew him into the one he got.”
I nod. Waiting.
“So tell me about your trip.”
Or I guess, she’s not.
Chapter 26
Cammy
There’s nothing wrong with Jeremy’s place. It’s a comfortable two-bedroom walk-up in Wicker Park with plenty of light, a functional kitchen, and clean bathrooms. It’s the kind of place I would have gotten for us if I didn’t have a celebrity sister who’d insisted, first, that Matty and I live with her. And then, after she moved out and married Greg, that I stay.
So it’s not the apartment, but every time I’m here I can’t wait to leave. I don’t like being in Jeremy’s space. I don’t like seeing the shelves filled with knickknacks from a life that didn’t include Matty or me. It makes me resentful, and when I’m feeling as raw as I am about Rux—
“Cammy, you okay?” Jeremy asks, shoulder propped against the wall outside Matty’s bedroom.
—I’m not sure I hide it as well as I’d like to.
