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She smiles. “Okay.”
I don’t love that look. Like I walked into a trap. Her hand moves higher, her fingers brushing my Adam’s apple and sweeping to the back of my neck. They dig in, little pinpricks of pain that do nothing but turn me the fuck on.
The last thing I want is an erection for Aurora fucking McGovern.
She pulls my head down. I don’t know why I fucking go with it, but call me a curious masochistic. She rises on her toes and brushes her lips across my ear. Goosebumps break out down the backs of my arms.
Her warm breath coasts along my skin, and her throaty whisper follows. “Good luck at your game tomorrow.”
Fuck.
She slips out from between me and the wall, continuing down like I didn’t just—like we didn’t just?—
The door bangs shut behind her, and my brain catches up to my dick. Which is rock-hard and throbbing.
Not good.
In fact, very,verybad.
8
AURORA
“Imissed you,” Joel croons in my ear. His hand is under my shirt, and his erection is digging into my side. Not that I particularly mind. I invited him over because I needed some form of distraction.
Knox lives in my building.
It’s not something Joel would’ve thought to tell me. But upon interrogation, he also revealed that a few other guys live here, too. Jacob Rhodes. Royal Lawson.
Camden Church, captain, lives a few blocks away. The other guys are scattered throughout the city, although some have houses. The veterans who put down roots in the area, like Dawes. Although Dawes is out for a few weeks, at least.
Or so the rumors say.
“I missed you, too,” I reply. Belatedly.
The distraction isn’t working.
I tug his hand away and roll on my back. “Sorry,” I breathe, covering my face. “I just?—”
“No need to apologize, sugar.” Joel shifts, hopping off the bed. “I’ll be right back.”
I peek as he crosses the room, disappearing into the bathroom.
As soon as he’s gone, I jump up and make a mad dash to the kitchen. I left my phone plugged into the charger, and I quickly scroll through my texts from Beth. I told her I was keeping a little secret from him, and we debated the pros and cons of telling him. Although I wouldn’t admit to her what it was. The shame of revealing my prior lie—about Knox signing the papers ages ago—was too heavy.
I move to my office, sitting at the desk and glowering at the pink typewriter. The first chapter of the story I started, which was nothing more than an outlet for my jumbled emotions, sits in the drawer.
Once I finished, I pulled the last page free and tucked it out of sight.
Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Except now, as I feed another piece of paper into the typewriter, I feel the urge to keep going. To travel back to when I was sixteen, to relive those feelings.
It’s a sort of penance, in a way.
I typeChapter Twoand pause. Hovering. The keys are too slick, too plastic. The click of levers isn’t as satisfying, and once again I mourn the loss of my original. I also realize that it’s fully pretentious of me to do it this way, but it’s just the process. Otherwise I’d delete, delete, delete… at least if I crumple up a page in anger, I can go retrieve it from the bin and smooth it out.
Then, later, I redraft it into my computer. Those are long, late nights spent squinting at my scribbled notes to myself, the words crunched into the margins or the back of the paper.
