Chapter Twenty-Three
Brady
Okay, so my mom is going to kill me, and I’m still in the same situation as before—totally falling for a girl I have no business being with, keeping a massive secret from her, and letting her keep one from me.
I still feel like crap for selling her out.
I still can’t ignore the fact that I might have put her in harm’s way.
If the feds get ahold of her, her family will know, and her jig will be up.
But as soon as she let me touch her, the world tilted back onto its proper axis and the blood that had been limping through my veins came roaring back. I was back where I belonged. And I never want to leave, consequences be damned.
“Fuck, I missed you,” I whisper, nuzzling her neck, smelling her hair, totally eating up all the cornball shit I never thought I’d be susceptible to. I want it all with her. Dates, Netflix, spooning, you name it. If it’s girly relationship shit, I want it with Angela Pines.
“You sure had me fooled,” she says, angling a little bit of a glare my way.
“You had me fooled, too,” I say. “Jesus, Pines. Not a single pissed-off ‘WTF’ text? Not a glance in my direction? You could have tripped me in the hallway or something. You just looked right through me like I wasn’t there.”
“You’re a real piece of work, Brady,” she says softly.
Coconut, citrus, warm girl smell. I want this smell on my skin, on my sheets, in my car, all the time, for as long as possible, until we hit that dead end. I’ll protect her as long as I can, but I won’t do it by running from her.
“I want to do normal stuff with you, Pines. I want my hundred dates, then I want to have sex for three days in a row, then I want another hundred dates. Movies, dinners, studying, whatever you want. If you can put up with football on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, then that, too. Or even just Sunday, unless the Giants are playing on one of the other days. What do you say?”
“You want me to be your girlfriend.” She says it drily, matter-of-factly.
I swallow, not quite believing I’m doing this. This is suicidal. Like, literally. If Angie doesn’t kill me herself, someone in her family very well might. But I’ve run into the burning building, and that’s where I’m staying until it burns down around me and takes me with it.
“Yeah, Ange. I want you to be my girlfriend.”
“Who was the girl with you in the pictures?” she asks. The slight hint of vulnerability in her voice makes my heart smile and break at the same time.
“Were you trolling my Instagram, Pines?” I tease her, earning myself an elbow to the ribs.
“That was my sister Siobhan. She has an open position for a girlfriend for me, and your resume’s at the top of her pile.
If you take the gig, she’s willing to offer a full benefits package, including unlimited eighties movies and nonstop talking shit about me. So, what do you think?”
She lies there for a couple of minutes, making me sweat it out. I mean, I really didn’t expect anything less, you know? But it’s still excruciating. “Yeah, okay,” she finally says, shrugging her tattooed shoulder.
Yeah, okay. Eh, I’ll take it. I roll on top of her and look down into her fake blue eyes. They don’t look very “Yeah, okay” to me. They look more like “Hell, yeah.”
“You’re looking pretty happy there,” I observe.
“Just make sure you don’t kill my buzz, McDaniels.”
“I won’t. I promise.” It’s an easy promise to make now that the damage is already done. I have no more dirt to dig up on her, no more debts to pay. One day she’s going to find out, but not today. Today she’s mine.