“I shouldn’t have let it get that far. I’m sorry. I can’t.”
I interlock my fingers with hers, rubbing my thumb over her gently. “It’s okay. Maybe we can just cuddle?”
She side eyes me. “Who are you, and what have you done to Levi?”
“Are you kidding me? I’m an Olympic level cuddler.”
She fans her face again, taking in deep breaths. It’s clear she’s uncomfortable.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
She rolls her eyes. “My arms.”
“I think I can handle the sight of your arms.”
“I can’t even handle the sight of my arms,” she snaps, then lowers her voice. “Please don’t ask about it again.”
I swallow. I want to push the issue, but she’s vulnerable right now, and I don’t want her mind stuck on that. I have things I need to talk to her about. Plans I need to convince her of. So, instead, I move next to her, putting my arm around her shoulder.
“Levi, really, I’m overheating.” She shrugs me off and scoots away. The bed is so huge, she’s able to put a lot of distance between us, and then she fans the sides of her robe.
My brain almost doesn’t compute this. I’ve had to untangle girls from my body before, and now this one is willingly—and effectively, I might add—getting away from me. “Ouch. That’s a hit to the old ego.”
“You could use one or two,” she says, and it’s then that I hear the strain in her voice.
“Tab, are you okay? Do you need something?”
“I’m so hot.”
“Strip down.”
“Not in front of you.”
“Do you think I fucking care about your burns? That it’s somehow going to make me pick up and leave?”
She wipes at her neck. The hair at her nape is soaked. After swinging my legs off the bed, I walk to the attached bathroom. I raid her cabinets and find a washcloth before running it under cold water and bringing it back out to her.
She tries to take it from me, but I hold it out of reach. “I got this.”
I swipe the cold washcloth across her forehead, on each cheek, then down over her chin and neck. “Is this helping?”
“Yes,” she breathes. “It just got a little much for me there.” She inhales deep and lets it out, her eyelashes fanning over her cheeks.
My goodness, she’s exquisite.
When I first met her, I noticed how beautiful she was, but that’s nothing nowadays. There are tons of beautiful girls in Nashville, and they always end up where I am. In the clubs, postgame parties, bumping into me at the supermarket. Tab was just another pretty face, but I was so, so wrong. There’s nothingjustabout her. She’s everything.
Seeing her lying on the sidewalk that day woke me up. It made me understand things in a way I hadn’t bothered to look at before. Our lives are precious. The people we have in it are too. I used to make fun of Micah and some of the other guys for acting like their girls walked on water. Now I understand they do.
Tabitha Riley is my girl now, whether she wants to believe it or not. If she wants to walk on water, I’ll figure out a way.
“I’m starting to feel better,” she says and tries to grab the washcloth from me again.
“No way. It’s my duty to keep Rapunzel in good shape.”
“What makes you think you’ll get the chance? We’d have to see each other again for that to happen.”
My body full-on rejects the idea that we’ll never see each other again, a mix of anger and revulsion jolts through me. “You’re not dumping me that easily.”
