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“Ever since Mom and Dad died, it’s been the two of us. I thought it would always be that way.” His voice drops as he unwittingly echoes my earlier sentiments. “You know they would hate that we’ve allowed this to happen.”
I drag a hand over my face. Damn straight they would. And they’d lay the blame squarely at my feet, because that’s where it belongs.
“I really am sorry for what I did, Hunt. If there were a way to go back and make different choices, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
His gaze falls to the brown bottle again. “I know. I just needed time to get over it.”
“Have you?” I force out the rest of the question. “Have you gotten over it?” My heartrate kicks up its tempo, pounding uncomfortably in my chest.
He looks up, spearing me with dark eyes. “I think so.”
Air escapes from my lungs in a rush. Only now do I realize that I’ve been holding it captive in my body. The backs of my eyelids burn, and I have to blink away the moisture that threatens to gather in my eyes. I’m unsure what to do with all these emotions that churn dangerously within me.
“Good.” I shift my stance and force myself to say, “If you want me to talk with Skye—”
He shakes his head. “She wasn’t the one with the problem. I was.”
His words reach into my chest and rip my beating heart right out of my body.
“I know,” I acknowledge softly. Skye was never the kind of girl to hold a grudge.
My brother, on the other hand?
Especially when it came to her?
I’m lucky it only took two years for him to come around.
“Are we good?”
His lips quirk at the corners. “I think we will be.” He jerks his head toward the parking lot. “So…anything you want to tell me about the girl in the VW Beetle who just lit out of here?”
“Nope.”
For the first time in years, he flashes a genuine smile. “Well hell, now I’m really curious.”
Poppy
“Would you mind getting the door?” Anne asks, grabbing an oversized platter piled high with thick wedges of watermelon.
I pad to the slider that leads to the patio and yank it open. Dad is already outside, manning the grill. Even though it’s early in the afternoon, there are already fifty people in attendance for the annual Claremont Cougars barbeque that will officially kick off the season.
Unconsciously, I scan the yard. The pool is packed with shirtless guys. Since they train all year round, most are in excellent shape. It’s certainly no hardship to stare at them. I should be basking in man candy heaven.
Instead, my attention is continually snagged by the brooding man standing with a small group of coaches. He’s barely glanced my way since arriving an hour ago.
It’s been just about a week since the incident at his garage.
He slinks into Psychology before the start of class and hightails it out the moment our professor wraps up his lecture. After the disastrous way our encounter ended, it should be a relief that he’s actively avoiding me, making it easier to pretend nothing happened.
It’s not.
I’m sure part of it has to do with the fact that I’ve never orgasmed so hard in my life. So yeah…it’s kind of difficult to stop relivingthatparticular memory like a slow-motion, Technicolor picture show.
Apparently, that’s not the case for Mason.
I wasn’t so much as a blip on his radar.
Then again, did I really expect anything different?
