“What the hell?” Paisley signs, nose scrunched in disgust at each of us, in turn. “Stop being so weird.”
Then she grabs her plate and leaves us to our middle school standoff.
He sits across from me, eyes coasting everywhere but in my direction.
Like at my eighth-grade graduation dance, when I’d been so sure Toby O’Roark was going to ask me to dance. He kept finding me from the other side of the auditorium, and yet he never came over.
I wait and wait and wait for Camden to say something, but he never does.
So, I offer a subdued, “See you tomorrow,” and head home.
It’s the next morning when he already has my tea steeped and waiting for me when we both finally try.
“I wanted to ask?—”
“We should?—”
“You first.”
“No, you first.” I gesture. His cheekbones flush a ruddy red, and I’m right back to that dance with Toby.
“I was hoping you’d come to my game on Sunday,” he says, one hand on the counter, the other pushing the mug of my morning Earl Grey toward me.
“You want me to bring Paisley?”
He nods, motioning vaguely, and it’s cute. That he’s so nervous. None of that overconfident Camden Long I know in sight. But from the way his mouth quirks to the side, I think he likes that he has the ability to quell my attitude now and then.
“I want you to bring Paisley, yes, but I wantyouthere,” he tells me. “I have seats saved with the other guys’ families.”
Molly attends every once in a while, but I myself have neversat in the WAGs section. Me being there for Camden would be a declaration of sorts.
Before I can agree, I revisit that text. “You missed me?”
He nods. “I always miss you.”
“An uptight bitch?”
“I have never called you a bitch,” he says with this finger in the air. “Uptight, yes. Never bitch.”
“You told me I needed to get laid.”
“It was an invitation, of sorts.”
When he shrugs, I lose the fight against my growing smile. “What about the hot tub melting my skin off?”
His eyes rove over me, and my nipples pebble beneath my bra as his gaze practically devours me whole. “There are some things I’d like to melt off, yes, but…” He skates his tongue over his lower lip, his teeth following before his dark eyes lift to meet mine, and they’re practically black. “There are much better things I can think of for your skin.”
I shiver, incapable of coming up with any words to respond to his outright flirting. His sexual innuendos.
Clearly pleased with himself and his ability to make me stupid with lust, he smiles and combs his fingers into my hair, holding on to the side of my head, leaning down, his intention obvious, and I lift up, ready to meet him. To finally taste his lips. Learn what his smile feels like against my mouth.
But Paisley stomps into the kitchen, huffing and puffing. I suppose it’s because of the big test she has today in science. She hates science. Even more than math.
And I fling myself away from Camden, even as his hands are slow to leave me, his fingers grazing my side as I turn away from him to greet his sister. Being a Friday, he would normally take her, but he’s been doing some extra deep tissue massages after that hit aggravated some old injuries. So it’s on me to drive her in this morning. I motion for her to take her stuff, and I don’t bother saying goodbye to Camden. Not able to form even the simplest of words after those confessions.
At least on his part. I was too mesmerized to tell him how I felt.
That I think I might be in love with him.
