Page 18 of Craved

We’ve been best friends since that day he took me to his castle, and I think I would die without him in my life. But I don’t want to be besties anymore.

I want to be his everything. Because he’s already mine.

But I can’t say that. How can I say that knowing it just might ruin everything?

“Hey, you okay?”

I realize we’ve reached the counter. “Sorry. Large fries and a Big Mac.” He orders, too, then pays, and we take our food to one of the round booths, and I slide in next to him.

There’s nobody else around, and I start pulling bills out of my bra and flattening them on the table. The score’s over five hundred dollars, which is seriously spectacular. And totally justifies taking the rest of the day off.

“Wanna hit the museum?” We’re outside again, the money sorted and our bellies full.

He shakes his head, and I sag a little.

“Then what? Just head back to the basement?” Not that I hate the basement storage area that’s become our home. I don’t. How could I with Maxim with me and no Professor Gerald Green to make my life miserable? But it’s not exactly a cozy place. And it’s better to stay away during the day, anyway, since that’s when folks needing stuff from their storage areas will head down into what’s essentially our back yard.

“We’re not going back to the basement,” he says. “Not ever.”

“Very funny.” But when I look at his eyes, I can tell he’s not joking.

“I have a birthday present for you.”

I laugh. “I have a whole week to go before I’m seventeen.”

“Then call it an early present. Or a really late Sweet Sixteen. Does it matter? Unless you don’t want it,” he adds with a tease in his voice.

“Are you kidding?” I throw myself at him, and he catches me in a tight hug. “I totally want it.”

For a moment, he holds me tight, our eyes locked on each other. I feel my heart pick up tempo, and I wait, craving more. But then he lets go, stepping back before I can work up the nerve to take what I want.

“Then we should go.” I think I hear an edge in his voice. The kind of edge I want to hear. To feel.

But it’s probably just my imagination.

I lecture myself about getting over this growing crush during the entire walk. And even though it’s at least three miles, we barely talk at all.

Then he stops in front of a gray brick building in a neighborhood that’s only slightly dodgy. I hold my breath, certain this can’t be what I think it is.

Except it is.

It’s an apartment. It’s our apartment. A tiny seventh-floor walkup already occupied by a zillion roaches who scurry when Maxim opens the door. It’s a studio with barely a kitchen and a bathroom that rivals the worst public toilets in the city. There are five locks on the door, one window, and one very saggy looking bed.

And all our stuff sits in a pile in one corner.

“This is ours?”

He nods, and I know him well enough to read his expression—he’s nervous as hell about whether I like it.

I do.

“This is amazing,” I whisper. “How—”

A grin lights up his handsome face. “We make a hell of a team. I’ve been saving for the deposit, but with as much cash as we have stockpiled and how much we’ve been scoring weekly…” He trails off with a shrug. “We can afford it.”

“Wow.”

He glances toward the bed. “I know there’s just one. But I figure we shove a foam mattress under the bed, and at night I’ll just pull it out. Easy-peasy.”