“Like what?” Her hands go to her hips.
“A love triangle from years ago that’s biting him in the ass.”
Her shoulders tense. “There’s no love triangle. What José, Asher, and Ty have is complicated and none of your business.”
She’s wrong. I make it my business to know every piece and part of Ever’s life, down to her class and work schedule, when she’ll be studying at the library, which parties she’ll be at with her friends for the next two weeks, and when she’ll visit her father in prison next.
I’m not a stalker.
I’m upping my game by having the upper hand. I gathered intel on her the moment I watched the taillight of her car disappear into the night.
Later that night, or more like zero one thirty, my phone pinged with a text.
ThatOneAwesomeDancer: Home
That one word hit me straight in the chest like a bullet at close range. Home.
Taking Ever’s hand, I walk us to the house. She looks up at me with her eyes narrowed. I bring her hand to my mouth and drop a kiss on her knuckles. Her face softens. I smile. I have the secret to changing Ever’s mood. Kisses. Tender ones.
We walk the few steps to the house behind her rental. My thoughts wander. Home is what I’ve been searching for since I realized I’ve never had one to begin with. Not a physical place, but a feeling.
I didn’t feel like I belonged, not in McMillan, where I grew up, or in Alexandria, where my mom moved us. She said the move was for better schools for me and more job opportunities for her.
What she left out was that she couldn’t stand running into Branson’s wife and kids. Genevieve Bliss owned and ran a lavender farm in McMillan.
I didn’t feel part of anything, even when I was the star quarterback, and the parties and girls came into my realm of reality so fast and furious that my head spun with the elation of finally thinking I belonged.
But it was an illusion. It wasn’t me they wanted to hang out with or get screwed by. My quarterback position and my winning games became status symbols.
Strip me of that and I’d be a nobody, a mistake, a shameful reminder that my mother was the other woman, and the man she’d fallen hopelessly in love with had chosen his wife over his lover. What hurt most was that in the end, on her deathbed, my mother asked for him.
He came. Thank fuck he did. Otherwise, I would’ve hauled my father’s ass to the hospital myself.
I shake thoughts of my mother aside and refocus my attention on Ever. If everything I have planned goes down without a hitch, I’ll remove every obstacle and fear of Ever’s. Then I’ll keep my word and take her dancing at Crimson for all to see she is my woman.
At the end of the sidewalk on the dead-end street, I stop and stare at the house, then Ever’s small feet.
She’s wearing the Chucks that her best friend gave her for learning the bachata. That’s what she said on the ride back to Sweet Creations’ parking lot.
The sadness in her voice filled my helmet. There was also relief, as if she were glad to have someone to talk to. Carlos was the best friend. He meant a lot to her, and what she felt and still feels for him doesn’t fuck with my head. Jules cheating was a mindfuck. Ever speaking about Carlos?
I understand a different side of him that he would’ve never shown me—the softer side of him who fell in love with a young girl with an old soul.
No way in fucking hell will I let her ruin her shoes with shit bombs littered in the grass. I pick her up by the waist. Muscle memory takes over, and she wraps her legs around my waist. Fuck, I’m in heaven.
She opens her mouth. I love when she talks, but I love it more when my mouth is on hers. With my mouth, I silence whatever Ever was about to say and walk us inside the house. My tongue sinks inside her mouth, and I eat up her moan. Her body relaxes against me.
Before I can deepen the kiss and take this heat to a level that’ll have me rushing to her place for more than mouth-on-mouth action, Slate calls out my name from behind a broken and large window in what must be the living room.
“Bro, my bad. Buying this place was a shitty fucking idea.”
“Be right there.” With Ever’s arms and legs around me, I walk across the shit-littered grass and get to the back gate.
I open the gate and walk us through the open sliding glass door. Ever taps on my shoulder and looks at the floor.
Uh-uh. She is staying put until I do a walk-through with the guys.
I pull my shirt over my head one-handed, clear a spot on the kitchen island, put it there, then her on it, with an order for her to stay put.
