I wonder briefly whether I’ll regret rattling off a list of compliments to a guy who’s drip-fed them all day every day. Would they even mean anything to him? But the careful way his eyes search my face tells me, yes, my words mean something to Reeve.
“You’re a good teacher,” I tell him. “You’re patient. You’re kind when you could just as easily be a condescending asshole and totally get away with it.”
“Excuse me, when have you ever let me get away with anything? I blink wrong and you’re on my ass.”
I give him a little smack on the shoulder, and it’s not until I do that I realize how badly I’ve wanted to touch him all night. There’s an instant of delicious, tension-heavy silence as we look at each other—I know he feels what I do—before I look away and pretend my whole body isn’t lit with electricity.
“It’s true,” Reeve says. “Nobody lays into me like you do. Especially not girls.”
“I’m glad I can give you what you need.”
“Yeah, right, you shrew. You’re annoying as hell.” But his voice is playful.
“Then why do you keep coming back for more?”
He angles his body toward me. “Same question I’ve been asking myself.”
The air feels thick, harder to breathe. Reeve stands in front of me, but I feel surrounded by him, and I’m reminded how solid his body is, impressive and intimidating in turns. He’s close enough now that it would take only a few inches of movement to bring his lips to mine. The smile is long gone from my face, the moment suddenly heavy. Too heavy, actually. If I questioned before whether we shared something real during our first kiss, I’m not questioning it any longer.
I turn away. “You know what else I like about you?” I ask,trying to pretend I wasn’t just thinking about kissing him again. “Your style.”
He offers me a smile that seems forced. “True. I am fresh as fuck.”
“You know that blue hair you had for a few weeks last spring? I’ve been trying to find a picture of that exact color to show my stylist for months now.”
“Yeah, my style I got from my mom. All that other stuff you should probably give credit to Cam’s parents for.”
“Lenni told me you were close with his family.”
“Uh-huh. My mom’s always been kind of a mess, so I lived with the Forresters a lot in high school. I don’t know how, but they made it so there were times I almost forgot I wasn’t actually their kid.”
My story is nothing like his, but in his face I see the same raw emotions I carry for my own upbringing, the disappointment and resentment almost as big as the love. “It’s not often parents get to choose their children. They must’ve really loved you.”
That’s when it happens: Reeve Dalton actually looks embarrassed. I didn’t know he was capable. “Yeah, well. Who wouldn’t, right?” The pink in his cheeks warms my heart. “What about you? Perfect family, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “If by ‘perfect’ you mean my parents are still married, then sure. That’s where it ends.”
“Really?” He looks surprised.
“You know, people usually take one look at my bright hair and makeup and think I’m trouble, my parents included.”
“Youaretrouble. You’re also smart and confident and you’ve got your shit together. Usually people like that come from families straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.”
Smart? Confident? Shit together?I never expected to care one iota about his opinion of me, but now I’m the one blushing. Ishake my head. “You might have football and Spanish mastered, but your powers of perception are weak, my friend.”
“Yeah?”
“My parents are at least half the reason I’m running away to Spain. And my shit is so scattered that a century from now they’ll still be picking up pieces of it halfway around the world.”
He laughs softly. If I wasn’t watching him so closely, I’d miss the subtle way his body relaxes. Is that another wall that just came down? I’m overcome with the need to deepen this unexpected closeness. Until now,guardedis the last word I would’ve used to describe the cocky loudmouth Reeve I thought I knew. But now all I want is to be the one he opens up to.
And so I babble on about myself.
I tell him about my conservative, buttoned-up family, how my father made no secret that he would have preferred a son as his only child, how Dad still insists that I—and eventually my preapproved husband—should take over the family business because we’re like one of those ultrarich families on TV where no one outside the family is permitted into the inner circle lest any money or secrets escape ... except we lack the mega wealth to back it all up. I tell him I’ve always felt like an outsider in my family, but I couldn’t put a name to the feeling until I moved away for college and realized I had no interest in going back.
“Outsider status? I feel that hard,” Reeve says as I wrap up the family saga. “People look at me and think all-American boy; rode around in a minivan as a kid, Mom and Dad cheering from the stands every Friday night. Meanwhile, that was everyone but me. I didn’t know a single kid growing up who had to live with his friend nine months out of the year.”
There’s grief in his voice, and even though I know better than to think I can fix it, I can’t help but try. “You’ve come out on top, though. How many kids that you grew up with have anNFL contract just waiting for them? You’re about to have everything you’ve ever worked for.”
