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“He knows you’re busy,” I said. “I’m sure he understands.” Cullen’s grandparents were well known around Covington Heights, generous benefactors to the school and the wider community. “I think it was after the Lake View game that I last saw him. He was so proud of you.”
Cullen nodded, “Yeah, but I only spent a few minutes with him.” He buried his head in his hands, outraged with himself.
I had an instinct to reach out, to stroke his tousled hair, whisper that everything would be all right, because right now Cullen was drowning in his own self-loathing.
I shifted closer, the heaving of his chest an indicator of the weight he carried. “Hey,” I whispered, my hand resting on his shoulder, my lips a breath away from his ear, “we have to believe that your granddad will be okay. And I’m sure he will be.”
Cullen’s head tilted a fraction, his eyes meeting mine. How many times had we been in each other’s company, eye to eye, yet his gaze hit me like a thunderbolt, an intensity that resonated to the pit of my stomach. And to whatever sensory information my lips were providing. Yes, on an absolute whim, a moment of madness you might say, I leaned forward, drawn to Cullen like a moth to a flame, my lips intent on making everything right in his world.
A microsecond, a slight brush of my mouth against his was all it was, but it was enough to inform every neurotransmitter and hormone in my body that something new, something exciting, something desirable was happening.
But, without warning, the connection was lost. Cullen leapt up from the couch like he was in the middle of a plyometrics workout, and in his fleeting glance I witnessed complete alarm. Long strides took him to the door in a flash, while my frazzled brain tried to make sense of what I’d done and why I’d done it. That wordmadnesssprung to mind again, but so too did the hope that a giant sinkhole might swallow me up. If only our house had been built on unstable land!
He hesitated at the doorway, leaning against it like he was embarrassed by me, or maybeforme, however my red-hot cheeks and unsteady breathing were preventing me from forming any words, my throat choking on an unspoken apology.
“Hey,” he said, a vacant expression on his face, “tell Sawyer I left okay?”
My blood ran through my veins in stormy torrents as I heard him farewell Mom and Dad. I sat in stunned silence as his car roared down our driveway, the sequence of events replaying in my mind like a horror movie.
I’d been mistaken.
You see, all I’d wanted to do was help Cullen—but I was a fool for thinking I could. Cullen Mercer didn’t see me as an equal. To him I was nothing but the team’s Water Girl, a junior, forever his friend’s kid sister.
And that spark, that moment of fireworks—well it was plain to see that it had only burnt bright for one of us.
Chapter 10
Cullen
It was a reaction—apanicked response to a situation that took me by complete surprise.
Yep, Sierra Huntington kissed me, and I leaped up as if the seat of my pants was on fire. Not only that, but I fled the scene like I was guilty of a crime.
And I think I was.
I know I was.
