“Oh! Yes. I have a Netflix and chill date coming over. Can I use the projector thing? Put the show thing on the ceiling?”
I told her where it was, and she left.
Then I sat and waited for my date.
He never showed.
He was found hanging later in the night.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Blake
I was drunk. And dancing, blissfully dancing.
After the last fight, the lights went low, and the music turned up. I let loose.
I couldn’t deny that it was nice to be spending time with Levi again. He was wrapped all around Palma from behind. The two were doing a sexy slow grind that would make me uncomfortable if there was better lighting where I’d have to see them. Right now, they were more just a hint of what was going on with them.
It was even fun to see Lassiter. Even though he was usually an asshole.
The only one missing . . .
No. I shook that thought away. I was drunk. That was the only reason it slipped through.
Except, as if on cue, hands came to my hips from behind, and after pausing a moment, after I relaxed back into his arms because I knew, I just knew who it was, he pressed against me.
Tingles shot down my spine. My breath hitched.
Creighton was here.
A part of me melted. The other part had alarms blaring.
They were so far in the back and muted and fuzzy from the other warm feelings happening right now. I was with my family. Levi and Creighton, they were mine. These new people, Palma, Marshall, even Heath, they could maybe be someone to me. I didn’t know. It was too soon. I’d gone through too much, so it took a long time before anyone got into my heart space, though Palma was working her way in there.
And Levi was all about Palma.
Palma was all about Levi.
And that made me happy. Maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe I should be worried about the aftermath, if there was going to be an aftermath, or hell, of course there would be, so whenever that aftermath would happen, it would happenthen. I wasn’t thinking about that now.
I’d kept myself away, tried to keep away from Creighton, tried to warn him away. But I just wanted to give in.
I burrowed farther into his arms, my body heating, awakening. Ineeded.
I turned around, fitting myself against his chest, and with that desperation clawing its way up my throat, I reached for his neck, a mewling whimper tearing from my throat.
My mind shut off.
My body was operating on its own.
I was done fighting against myself. I couldn’t remember why I ever had been.
As I reached for him, he bent down, and I lifted myself up at the same time. I didn’t even want to be dancing anymore.
I. Just. Wanted. Creighton.
He stood, lifting me in his arms. My legs wrapped around his waist, my arms tightened around his neck, and I breathed into his neck, filling myself with the smell of him. A fresh coldness from outside along with a whiff of peppermint and forest. I didn’t even know where any of those scents came from, but they were him.
