“I know,” I practically whisper, my lips brushing against his. “I feel the same, Gareth, but I’m just so scared.”
“Do you trust me?” he asks, his brown eyes locked with mine. I get lost in the love and adoration reflecting back at me, and I feel myself nodding,yes.
“Dylan is gone for another three weeks. Let me love you how you deserve to be loved, and at the end of them, if you’re still not ready to tell him about us, then we’ll be together in secret.”
“Gareth, I can’t ask you to do that.” I shake my head, but he’s still holding my face in his hands, refusing to look away.
He kisses me again, stealing my breath. “How I feel about you defies everything I thought I knew about love and relationships. You’re it for me, Indy. I think I knew that from the second I met you,” he confesses against my lips.
I sigh, my heart pulling in two directions. “But what if this doesn’t work out? What if everything continues to work against us?”
“Then I’ll work harder.”
For the first time in eight years, since the night we almost ruined everything, I feel like I have finally taken a breath.
Gareth kisses my forehead, letting it linger just long enough for my heart to ache, then reaches down and threads his fingers through mine. “I’m going to walk you back inside now,” he murmurs, his voice low and rough. “I want you to take a couple days and think aboutus, Trouble. If you want me like I want you, come to my game on Wednesday. Be in the VIP box when I look up from the field, and I’ll know.”
We move slowly toward the entrance of Andromeda, both of us trying to prolong our time. As we walk, I stare down at his warm hand in mine, his grip never loosening. His thumb brushes gently over my knuckles, my skin erupting in goosebumps from his touch.
Stopping just before the doors, I tilt my head to meet his gaze. “Know what exactly?”
His gaze drops to my mouth, the desire palpable around us. Heat ignites through me—I’m seconds away from jumping back into his arms and picking up where we left off behind the building.
Sliding his fingers beneath my chin, Gareth tilts my face up until there’s no space between us, our lips brushing, but he doesn’t kiss me again. His presence is overwhelming, and there’s something about my Golden Boy that’s darkened in the last few minutes—another side of him peeking through.
“That you’re mine,” he says with certainty, “as much as I’m yours.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Age Twenty
Friday nights are supposed to be spent unwinding with a beer in hand, a pretty girl in your lap, and music thumping so loud through the speakers you can feel the vibration in your soul.
Everyone else got the memo, but I ignored it like it was an assignment I had months to complete. Outside of my dorm, doors slam, random clips of music scream through phone speakers as people walk by. Laughter and an overwhelming mix of body spray and cheap cologne.
I ignore it all and fall against my stiff twin bed with my hands folded behind my head, staring up at the outdated popcorn ceiling. On the nightstand, my phone vibrates and illuminates incessantly, incoming messages from friends wondering where I’m at and if I’m coming out tonight.
At just twenty years old, I have everything I could ask for. I’m at my top school of choice on a scholarship, playing baseball as their starting third baseman. On the dean’s list as far as my grades go, and I have a solid group of friends. A team in the majors ready to pull me as soon as I graduate. I still talk to Dylanevery day—he’s working his way through community college and sticking his dick in anything that moves, living it up with a smile on his face.
But no matter how happy I am, how perfect life seems, my chest feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.
Indy isn’t here.
Indy doesn’t talk to me more than a few sentences here and there through text.
Rolling onto my side, I grab my phone and unlock it, skimming through the messages. Her name sits pinned at the top of my screen, torturing me every time I look at it.
I’ve never told anyone here about her. Not because I don’t want to, but because they wouldn’t understand. A love like this doesn’t make sense at twenty, and it definitely didn’t make sense at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen either.
That was the last time I saw her. When I walked out of her bedroom feeling like I left my heart on the floor after almost giving her my virginity. I should have saved it for her. Iwassaving it for her. But the finality on her face as she slammed the bathroom door in my face broke something in me.
I lost it a week later, to a nameless, faceless girl in some random person’s bathroom at a house party.
She’s Dylan’s sister,I remind myself for the umpteenth time, the words ringing heavy and permanent.
I close my eyes, my finger still hovering over her name, and try to talk myself out of what I’m about to do. It’s been two months since I’ve heard from her.
Two months and countless deleted messages.
