“We shouldn’t,” she says, her voice ragged. But despite the protest, she doesn’t move.
“I know.” I lean in just a little closer, her vanilla and lavender scent surrounding me and her skin warm under my palm. “I know this is complicated as hell, and I know you have yourreasons for wanting us to keep our distance. Your job is important to you, and it should be. It’s important to me too. But fuck, Maddy, I can’t get you out of my head. I’ve replayed our night together a million times. I think of you, even when I shouldn’t. When I dream, it’s you I see.”
“God, Cameron.” Maddy’s voice is a plea. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” I ask, my free hand taking hers, winding our fingers together.
“Because it makes me want things I shouldn’t.”
“What things?”
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens them, there’s a kind of determination in her gaze that has my stomach swooping. “To kiss you.”
I smile, running my thumb over her bottom lip. “So, kiss me, Wildcat. I’ve been waiting weeks to feel your lips on mine again.”
She pauses for a beat, and then the space between us slowly disappears until her breath flutters over my face and my heart gallops in my chest. The world around us slowly fades away until it’s just her and me and this perfect slice of stolen time.
The blaring from my phone has us jerking apart. Maddy exhales heavily as I grab my cell from the ground, panic lancing through me as the weather notifications come pouring in.Severe thunderstorm warning.Flash flood warning.Pittsburgh, PA.
No missed calls from my family.
My breath backs up in my lungs and my vision blurs as my brain serves me up a thousand worst case scenarios in a spiral that’s worse than the last. Worse, that is, until Maddy moves fast to wrap her soft arms around my waist from behind and holds tight. Until she lays her cheek on my back and rests her legs alongside mine, her flip-flop clad feet brushing the outside of my calves.
“Breathe, Cameron. Breathe with me, okay?” she says softly, splaying one hand directly over my pounding heart.
I feel her chest rise and fall against my back, and my own breath stutters out once, twice, three times, until it starts to match the cadence of hers. Leaving my phone on the ground, I cover her hands with mine, and as my brain starts to clear, I have the wild thought that nothing would ever be wrong again as long as I could have Maddy’s arms around me.
“Good,” she murmurs, bending her hands back to weave our fingers together. “Just keep breathing. I know you’re scared, but you’re not alone. I promise you don’t have to be alone.”
I close my eyes, taking another deep breath and letting her words soak in. The softness in them. The care. I’ve been dealing with these little panic attacks alone for a long time, and it’s a relief and a revelation to have her with me now. I focus on that, on her, until my ringtone shatters the stillness. Grabbing the phone, my breath whooshes out when I see it’s a video call from Riley. And when I swipe to answer and see she’s sitting in my living room at home, the relief that crashes through me is so strong it’s almost painful.
“Hey, Ry,” I say, trying to make my voice more upbeat and less like I’ve spent much of the last three hours freaking the fuck out about weather.
Riley’s hair is damp and her eyes are bright. “Oh my god, Dad, it wasinsane. It’s raining so hard that a ton of streets are flooded, so it took usforeverto get home from play practice.”
“We saw, like, ten trees that fell down on the way to pick up Riley after hockey!” Ethan’s head pops into the screen, his eyes so comically wide that I laugh, relieved as fuck to see my kids’ faces.
“We’re fine,” I hear my mom call from the background. “Everything is under control.”
“I’ll leave you alone,” Maddy says quietly, trying to scoot away from me.
But the last thing I want is to be alone. I want her. Right here. Possibly forever, but at the very least, for now. So, I clamp my hand down on hers, making it clear that I don’t want her tomove an inch, and when she doesn’t protest, instead sliding the hand on my chest back down to my waist, my heart does an achy roll, my fingers tightening on hers. I’m tall enough that the top of Maddy’s head isn’t visible behind me, and I angle the phone so my kids can’t see her arms around my waist as they regale me with stories about their days.
And with my family on the phone, and Maddy pressed up against me, my free hand covering both of hers, my world rights itself, and right now, in this moment, everything is perfect.
CHAPTER TEN
MADDY
“And this one?” I ask, pointing to a triple spiral tattoo on the very impressive right bicep of Drew Ellicott, the Renegades star wide receiver. A triple spiral I’ve seen before right on Cam’s ribs.
While he was naked.
Because I’ve seen Cam naked.
That is a thing that happened, and it’s been even harder to forget since he opened up to me on the rooftop in Tampa last week. Since our almost kiss. The kiss that in my most introspective moments I wish hadn’t been interrupted the way it was by weather apps and kids and Cam’s second brush with a panic attack in as many hours.
Seriously though, fuck introspection.
