“And you did.” I took his hands in mine and squeezed them. “Maisie loves you already.”
“What about Duke? He’s your best friend, and he thinks I’m going to ditch you or something.”
I frowned. What the hell had Duke said to him? “He’s just protective. I’m a big boy, Lucy. I can handle it if you don’t want to see me after this month.”
Lucy bit his bottom lip, but I saw the wobble anyway.
“Lucy?”
He raised his gaze back to mine. “I want to.”
I tilted my head. “You want to?”
“I want to see you after this month,” he clarified, settling the nerves that had set back up in my stomach. “I like you.”
I grinned and swept him back up into another kiss. “I want that too.”
“But Duke said–”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what Duke said. I will happily knock his head in if he keeps saying shit that makes you shrink again, though. Just say the word.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “Knox, no. You can’t do that."
“I’ll handle it. He’s saying shit because he’s protective, just like I am of him. But that doesn’t mean he gets to tear you down.”
“He wasn’t, really.”
“He tried to tell you not to ditch me, when I want you to spend time with me by choice, not by guilt, Lucy. You have enough of that to deal with already.” The last part came out under my breath, making me want to knock Mr. Sterling’s teeth out for using that part of Lucy to his advantage. “But we can talk about that later. Right now, I guess I owe these guys some hot dogs. Then we can go home.”
Lucy nodded. “I can buy the hot dogs.”
“I’m the one who lost, Lucy.”
Lucy bit his lip. “But I’m the one who distracted you.”
I hummed. “I believe I was the one who jumped you, actually. Come on. It’s just hot dogs. My treat.”
It might hurt the wallet, but that was better than making Lucy feel like I was using him for his money.
13
LUCY
Maisie must have done a number on the boys, because when Knox and I had emerged after that last round of laser tag yesterday, there hadn’t been another word of teasing about the compromising position they’d found Knox and me in.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment. Knox had been a man on a mission, and I’d been helpless against him. My brain had short-circuited, and all I could think about was his strong grip, his spicy cologne, and the timbre of his moan as he pressed it against my throat.
But Duke’s words had rung in my head since Knox and I came back to my apartment, since we’d parted ways in the hallway after feeding Jackson, who was all too eager to see us come back home after being gone all afternoon—really, he was spoiled with how much time I spent at home with him; maybe both of us needed to get out more.
“How well do you think you know him?” Duke had asked.
He said it like I was missing something obvious, something that had taken him out of town for a long period of time. He’d gone to school recently, Knox had said, but he didn’t say anything else.
Not to me, at least.
“Lucy?”
I glanced up from where I sat, Jackson purring in my lap as I petted him.
