“Sounds like a date.” She laid on her side with her head propped up on her arm. Her hair was all over the place and her eyes looked even bigger without her glasses on. Eyelashes framed those beautiful chocolate eyes currently raking their way up and down my body.
“It sure does.” I kissed the tip of her nose.
This was a perfect moment, the kind they make slow motion in a movie so you get every excruciating detail of the action. Her beauty was heart-stopping. The kind where you know someone inside and out, and everything about them only takes what you already liked to the next level. She was the kind of girl you didn’t come back from. The kind who’d always have a place in your heart to keep you warm on those nights alone long after she’d kicked you to the curb because she deserved better than you.
But I was here now, and I’d keep the fires going as long as I could.
24
Berk
Jules kicked me out at ten saying she had homework to do, which was about right because I had some papers that weren’t going to write themselves, no matter how long I tried to type using only my mind. We had the day off practice to recover. A chance to rest up before Coach brought down the hammer for even more drills once we were back on the field.
After closing my notebooks, I jogged downstairs. The house was quiet, which meant LJ and Marisa weren’t here.
Two days away from Jules would be torture. Maybe I could sweet talk her into a care package filled with her newly baked treats. She didn’t have to know what I’d be doing while I ate those cookies. Damn, I was becoming a baked goods perv. And it was all her fault.
Keyton looked up from his sketchpad, pencil stilling against the textured paper. “What’s with your grin? Has TLG finally returned?”
“No, I’ve got no idea.” I should probably take the letter out of the mailbox or write her an updated one. I’d swapped out the letter a couple times since the first unanswered one, but I needed to write a new one after last night. “I haven’t checked today.”
“Look at you. There was a time you’d plow over anyone to yank open that mailbox.”
I shrugged. “Things change.”
“Was that you coming back this morning after an early run or did you stay out all night?” He went back to sketching.
“When you moved in, did that start up a curfew I didn’t know about?”
“Nope, just wondering how long we’ll need to wait before we can give you crap about charging across the street with Jules last night, and maybe score some extra cookies. Those peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies were so damn good I had an out-of-body experience. You two have been doing this little dance for a long time. Plus, I won the bet.” He grinned, pumping one arm over his head triumphantly.
“You made a bet on whether or not I’d hook up with Jules?”
“LJ swore you’d crack at the end of last semester. Marisa said it would be the first week of classes.” He looked up from his drawing. “I said you’d hold back as long as possible. Seeing you blazing out of here dragging Jules behind you like you were a second from banging her on the living room floor, I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did.”
“It’s official, you all freaking suck.”
“We know. But that’s what roommates are for, right?”
I grumbled and glared.
“You working out today?”
I cracked my neck. “Do I have to?”
“Only if you want to play tomorrow.”
“Shit.” Coach’s edict about getting in even a light twenty before game day was coming back to haunt me. “Do you still need to go? I need to get in a session this afternoon. I’ve got a date tonight.”
“I already went this morning.” He closed his sketchpad. “But I can spot you.”
“Meet back down here in five.”
Keyton and I headed over to the gym with the guitar he didn’t play.
“Do you actually play, and you’re just super embarrassed or something?”
He set it down against the wall in the locker room.
“No, I need to take it somewhere after this.”
“We’ll be expecting you to pull a Johanssen and serenade us all by the end of the year.”
“Not on your life. Do you want to work out or not?”
We blazed through the workout along with a few other guys. Even more poured in as we were leaving. After we finished the workout, I grabbed a shower and Keyton slunk off with the guitar he didn’t actually play.
Back home, I rushed through all my assignments to get ready for my date with Jules. Shaking out one of the button-downs hanging up in my closet, I wondered if Jules would like it.
I opened the front door and my phone vibrated. Smiling, I pulled it out and my smile dropped. A message flashed on my screen.
ALEXIS: I might be in a little bit of trouble…
Shit. Maybe I could make this quick. I headed back inside.
“Forgot your wallet?” Keyton looked up from the books spread out all over the kitchen table.
“No, my backpack.”
“I thought you were walking to get ice cream.”
I rushed upstairs to grab my backpack without another word. The last thing I needed was to go over yet again, why I couldn’t just abandon Alexis.
ME: Where are you?
This couldn’t keep happening, but I didn’t know how to fix it. How to get Alexis to see she didn’t need to keep going out with these loser guys. She was worth so much more than that. But she couldn’t see it, no matter how much love and attention her mom and dad showed her. If anything, it made her pull back even more.
And I felt that, deep in my bones, I knew what it was like to not believe anything good was real. Hell, look at Jules. I could practically feel the countdown timer ticking above my head, but that didn’t mean I’d go out of my way to fuck things up. For Alexis, she was like a damn magnet for shady shit she had no business going near.
My phone vibrated in my cupholder. A name flashed up on the screen. Mason. And the message rolled in. My heart pounded. I tore my eyes off the glowing screen and back onto the road. Just my luck, I’d crash when I finally had an answer about my mom. I pulled over into the emergency lane on the highway, my leg bouncing up and down. I needed to find Alexis, but if he had information for me, I needed that now.
MASON: I have a new lead. I’ve got a last known address in Pittsburgh fourteen years ago in March.
That was less than a year after she left me. I’d been shifted to so many homes by then. Emergency placements where I’d barely had time to learn the names of the other kids in the houses and the amount of stuff I owned dwindled as each placement meant another thing stolen, lost, or left behind. I rubbed my knuckles along the center of my chest, like I could massage away the thudding pain like a muscle cramp from lifting too much.
MASON: I might need more money.
ME: There’s no more money. I don’t have anything left.
MASON: Then I’ll have to improvise. It might take me some extra time. I’ll get back to you with the outcome soon.
I squeezed my phone, seething, and slammed my hand against the dashboard.
I’d already put my future in jeopardy by giving him the money I had. Waiting another year when Mom could be out there wasn’t an option. I needed to know now, before I was drafted, before I was a professional football player, if she loved me. If she’d ever loved me at all before dropping me off on my dad’s doorstep like a Dear John letter gone wrong. Dropping me off on my birthday with the last wrapped present I’d ever received. I’d been booted from my foster family with Alexis after two months. Two weeks before Christmas. No, I needed to know now.