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“The party is still going on.”
He raised his head, glancing my way. “You want to go down there?”
My stomach growled.
We heard and both of us shared a grin.
I said, “I’m hungry.”
He let out a tired sigh, nodding before he closed his eyes and laid his head down again. He ran his hand along my leg, rubbing back and forth. “Thanks for tonight.”
“For what?”
He rolled, laying on his side so he could see me. “For–I don’t know. I was rough at times.”
“We’ve been screwing long enough you know I like that.”
A flash of a grin. “I know. I seriously love fucking you.”
I laughed. “Same here.” I bit my lip because… I wanted to ask, but I knew the rules. But we’d already violated them so many times. “That was your sister?”
He quieted, falling back down. His hand clenched over my leg before leaving and resting on his own chest. “Yeah.”
“Can I ask what happened?”
“She’s always been small, like really small, then she… She was in a car accident. Survived, but half paralyzed for the rest of her life. The accident affected some of her growth hormones. I can’t really explain it in all the medical terms, but she’s only going to get a little bit bigger for the rest of her life.”
“How old is she?”
“She’s supposed to be in high school, but mentally, she’s probably more in fifth grade.”
“Who was the girl helping her?”
“I think that was Dawn, her new worker. My mom said she’s been a godsend.”
“Your mom seems nice.”
He looked at me again, a different expression on his face, as if he was studying me for the first time. “She is. She’s a really great mom. Our dad left after the accident. We were too much baggage, so he started new. Divorced my mom, divorced us. He moved to Arizona and has a new wife, new kids. Whole new family.”
“Does he help with money?”
“Somewhat. My mom sicced lawyers on him. My dad’s wealthy, his family was in oil so there was a settlement. He doesn’t send the money. It comes straight from the bank, but to be honest, it’s not enough. All the medical bills, insurance, my mom uses that money to cover most of that.”
“You said your sister used to make that towel blanket thing. She did that before the accident?”
As soon as I asked the question, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. A prickling sensation came over my arm. Bad move. Bad question. Cruz didn’t answer, but he sat up and looked my way, rubbing a hand over my stomach again right as it let loose a long and loud growl.
“Want to go down and get food? I can make a pizza.”
I nodded, sitting up with him.
We both went and showered first.
A quick brisk washing and cleaning, and I left the shower first, wrapping a towel around my body before taking a second one for my hair. I padded into his room, starting to go through my clothes.
“Hey.”
He went past me to his dresser and pulled out a drawer. Some of my clothes were there, folded all nice.
He moved aside, going to his closet. “You left some things here one time, so I washed them. Kept forgetting to bring them with me, but they’re clean.”
I was relieved. That’s all I was going with because my underwear looked like it was done for life. He hadn’t realized he’d ripped it in half. I tossed it in the trash and pulled out a clean one. My bra was okay. There was also a pair of black leggings, so I pulled them on.
My shirt was a mess. It reeked of booze and smoke, and I had no clue where the smoke came from. The sweatshirt looked too hot for a party.
“You have a shirt I can wear?”
“Yeah. Come in here.”
I went to the closet. He motioned to some hanging and some folded on a shelf. “Pick whatever.”
The girl inside of me wanted to wear a shirt that had his name on it, his hockey number on it, but I knew that’d be asking for even more attention than we were already going to get. I grabbed a random shirt that had no correlation to who Cruz was. It was a black plain shirt, no lettering or numbers on it.
It was perfect.
And it was huge. I rolled up the sleeves, but let it hang so my ass was covered up.
“Ready?”
I finished tying my sneakers and nodded. “Yeah.”
He led the way.
When we got to the main floor, a lot of people had left.
I caught the time, noting that it was three in the morning so whoever was here were the long-haulers for the party. The kitchen itself was a mess.
Cruz cursed, taking it all in.
Cups were everywhere, liquid seeping over the counter and onto the floor. Pizza had been ordered, but the boxes were soaked. The pizza was picked over, only a few bits here and there remaining, but even those looked nibbled on. A few guys were in the kitchen, but Cruz scowled at them. They scrambled out.
