Chapter 11 #3
I stared at the thread for a full minute trying to remember every reason Cade was a bad idea. Unfortunately all my brain wanted to do was picture Cade kissing my neck… as he beat off with my name in his mouth.
Massive catastrophic failure.
ME: okay I need another turn. what’s your biggest red flag
There, let him make that about the closet.
CADE: obsessive personality
CADE: hyper-focused
CADE: competitive
CADE: if I care about something I care intensely
Something about that answer made my stomach tighten differently.
ME: that sounds like you are a one man carnival
CADE: probably
CADE: but honesty matters right?
I lay here tangled in blankets and Cade’s hoodie—turned on and restless even though he just told me his red flags.
ME: okay honesty then
I take a deep breath and tell him one of mine.
ME: I think I’m addicted to attention when it feels safe
The typing bubble appeared instantly.
Stopped.
Started again.
Stopped again.
My pulse was beating so hard by then I felt stupid.
CADE: Pip you know with an obscene amount of certainty how intensely focused my attention is on you
My breath caught in my throat as multiple message chimed on my phone.
CADE: The way I look at you
CADE: spend time with you
CADE: fantasize about you
CADE: joke with you
CADE: Make potatoes with you
CADE: or get caught in my closet rubbing one out because I was hard as fuck from working out with you
My entire body went hot reading it. Cade threw the gauntlet.
ME: oh my gosh Cade… you’re doing it again
CADE: I know
CADE: Just talk to me
I stare at the screen so long my phone dims in my hand. Because there it was. The line in the sand. The moment this stopped feeling accidental.
My fingers hover over the keyboard before I finally answer honestly enough to terrify myself.
ME: I don’t know what to say
ME: tonight changed our entire chemistry
His typing bubble appeared immediately.
CADE: everything that happened today was BECAUSE of our chemistry
I bite my lip smiling helplessly into my pillow.
ME: What happened today was hormones
And that should’ve been where the conversation ended. It absolutely should’ve ended there.
It didn’t.
CADE: what happened today will keep happening if we don’t talk about it
I groan out loud into my mattress. Because at this point choosing the bear was fully off the table. I want the more dangerous option. Which honestly feels like the most humiliating realization of my entire life.
Not because wanting Cade was wrong. It wasn’t.
That was the part my brain kept trying to outrun and failing.
He was gorgeous, funny, sharp, annoyingly observant, and somehow able to make me feel like the safest girl in the room while also looking at me like he wanted to ruin every thought I had ever had.
Wanting him made sense. Anyone with a functioning nervous system and access to eyeballs would want him.
The terrifying part was that I wanted him specifically.
Not the idea of him. Not the hockey-player fantasy. Not the campus-god version girls whispered about between classes or filmed from the stands during open practice.
Him.
The guy who had washed potatoes in my kitchen and asked what answer I accepted when I said I was the baby of the family.
The guy who had seen Luke for who is really is and somehow knew the words “I’m fine” did not belong anywhere near the truth.
The guy who stopped when I said stop. The guy who asked before taking.
The guy who had looked at me from that closet tonight like my staying had almost wrecked him.
I pressed my face harder into the pillow and let out one pathetic, muffled sound. Because fighting it was starting to feel stupid. Not safe. Not simple. Not smart.
But stupid.
My phone buzzed again.
CADE: don’t disappear on me now
I rolled onto my back, Cade’s hoodie bunched around my thighs, the fabric still smelling faintly like him. Clean laundry. Cold air. Something warmer underneath that made me hate myself a little because I pulled the collar closer to my nose before I could stop it.
ME: I’m not disappearing
CADE: then talk to me
ME: I am talking to you
CADE: no you’re hiding behind jokes and avoiding today happened
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I hated him a little for that. Mostly because he was right.
ME: it’s confusing
CADE: is it?
The tiny bubble disappeared.
Then came back.
CADE: or are you scared because it isn’t?
My stomach flipped so hard I had to set the phone against my chest for a second.
Rain tapped softly against the window. Somewhere down the hall, Aura’s TV had dipped into the kind of muffled dialogue that meant she had probably fallen asleep with Netflix judging her life choices.
My room glowed soft from the twinkle lights strung around the ceiling, gold light catching across the edge of my laptop and the discarded pile of notes I had absolutely no intention of reading now.
My whole world had gotten very small. Just my bed… My phone… And Cade on the other side of the screen.
ME: I’m scared because I know exactly what I want and I keep trying to rationalize it into something else
The typing bubble appeared immediately.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
Stopped.
I bit my lip so hard it almost hurt.
CADE: say it
My breath caught. Of course he wouldn’t let me drop the truth halfway between us and then step around it like it wasn’t there. Cade Mercer did not do halfway. Not with hockey. Not with focus. Not with me.
ME: Cade
CADE: say it, Pip
My entire body went hot at the command, even through a screen. I stared at the message until the letters blurred slightly.
Then I typed before I could lose my nerve.
ME: I don’t want to stop looking back
The second I sent them, panic shot straight through me.
I threw the phone onto the mattress like it had bitten me and sat up fast, heart slamming, breath caught somewhere high in my chest. My cheeks were burning. My hands were shaking. I almost grabbed the phone back and followed it up with something stupid to soften the impact.
I almost grabbed the phone and followed it up with something stupid to soften the impact, some pathetic little excuse that made it sound less true than it was, because the second the words left my phone, my survival instincts tried to drag them back.
I wanted to say I meant it as a friend, or theoretically, or for science, or blame some temporary hormonal possession and pretend my body had stolen the phone from me.
Anything to make it less naked. Less honest. Less impossible to take back.
CADE: yeah?
I made an actual sound. A terrible one.
A strangled little half-laugh, half-whimper that would have gotten me bullied by both Aura and Charm if they’d heard it.
ME: don’t make me regret being honest. You have no idea what it’s costing me to go against everything I have sworn I would never do
CADE: never
The word landed so simple and steady that it knocked some of the panic loose inside me.
Then another message came through.
CADE: but I need to know what you mean when you say that
My breath went thin.
CADE: because I know what I mean
Holy fuck.
The room felt warmer instantly.
I pressed my knees together beneath the blanket, furious at my own body and even more furious that Cade could probably guess exactly what he was doing to me from across town.
ME: I think you know
CADE: I want to hear you say it
ME: you’re bossy over text too?
CADE: only when you like it
I stared at the phone, mouth parted, heart punching at my ribs.
ME: you’re very confident
CADE: I’ve been paying attention
ME: to what?
CADE: the way you stop breathing when I lower my voice
CADE: the way you look at my mouth then pretend you didn’t
CADE: the way you said no when I asked if you needed me to step back
CADE: the way you stayed tonight
My grip tightened around the phone.
There it was.
The closet.
The moment we had been orbiting since I left Hockey House.
ME: I should have left
CADE: but you didn’t
ME: no
CADE: why?
I closed my eyes. The answer lived right there. No joke. No shield. No cute little deflection dressed up as banter.
Just truth.
ME: because I wanted to watch you…
ME: because I knew you were thinking of me
The typing bubble appeared and disappeared three times.
That did something dangerous to me. Cade, composed and controlled and always so annoyingly certain, actually needing a second.
CADE: fuck, Pip
My stomach dropped.
CADE: you have no idea what that does to me
ME: I think I have some idea
CADE: no
CADE: you really don’t
I swallowed, my fingers slow over the keyboard.
ME: If it’s anything like I felt watching you-trust me I have an idea.
ME: Besides, fair is fair right
CADE: I was thinking about you and it intensified with you watching me. IDK if that can be classified as fair.
ME: so, what would make it fair?
The second I sent it, I froze. Because that was not accidental. That was not flirty by mistake. That was me stepping onto the line and looking back to see if he would follow.
Cade did not make me wait long.
CADE: where are you?
My pulse kicked.
ME: my room
CADE: door locked?
I glanced toward my bedroom door, then slid out of bed on unsteady legs to turn the lock. The tiny click sounded obscenely loud in the quiet room.
ME: yes
CADE: alone?
ME: yes
CADE: wearing my hoodie?
I looked down at myself, heat blooming across my chest.
ME: maybe
CADE: that means yes
ME: unfortunately
CADE: nothing unfortunate about you in my clothes
I let out a shaky breath, leaning back against my bedroom door with the phone clutched in both hands.
ME: you’re doing it again
CADE: Fuck yes I am
My thighs pressed together beneath the hem of his hoodie.
I hated that he knew. Hated that I wanted him to know. Hated that fighting this was becoming less about self-preservation and more about clinging to a rule that had already started cracking.
CADE: what are you doing right now?
ME: texting you
CADE: besides that
I stared at the screen.
ME: lying in bed
CADE: thinking about tonight?
ME: yes
CADE: which part?
My mouth went dry.
ME: Cade
CADE: tell me
ME: the gym
CADE: what about it?
ME: your hands
The typing bubble appeared instantly.
CADE: where?
I squeezed my eyes shut.
This man was going to be the death of me.
ME: my hips
CADE: keep going
ME: my waist
CADE: keep going
My breath came out uneven.
ME: my wrist
CADE: and?
My stomach tightened.
ME: behind me
There was a pause long enough to make my whole body pulse.
CADE: you felt me
I stared at the words.
ME: yes
CADE: and you still said no when I asked if you needed me to step back
ME: yes
CADE: why?
I sat back on the bed, the mattress dipping beneath me as rain tapped harder against the window.
I could have lied. I could have said I didn’t know.
Could have hidden behind adrenaline or tension or the fact that everything had happened too fast when it had been happening since that first night at Hockey house that now feels years ago.
But I was so tired of pretending my own want was some kind of accident.
ME: because I liked it
My breath stopped after I sent it.
Cade FaceTimed me. The screen lit up with his face so fast I almost dropped the phone.
CADE MERCER
For one frantic second, I just stared at it, heart in my throat, body hot and shaky beneath his hoodie.
Then a text came through beneath the ringing call.
CADE: answer me, Pip
My thumb hovered over the button. I knew what answering meant.
I knew this was not project territory. Not friendship. Not accidental chemistry we could laugh off later and pretend had gotten away from us. This was a choice. Mine. His. A line we were both looking at with our hands already reaching.
I answered.
Cade filled the screen in low light, hair damp and messy, jaw tight, eyes so dark I forgot how to breathe for half a second. He was in his room, propped against his headboard, one arm braced behind his head like he had been trying and failing to look relaxed before the call connected.
The second he saw me in his hoodie, his expression changed into something hotter. Hungrier. More honest.
“Hi,” I whispered.
His eyes moved over my face, then lower, catching on the oversized black fabric swallowing me whole.
“Hi, Pip.”
My stomach flipped at the roughness in his voice.
For a few seconds, neither of us said anything. We just looked at each other through the screen while the room around me felt too quiet and too loud at the same time.
Then Cade’s voice dropped.
“You still want fair?”
My breath hitched and I nodded before I could make myself speak.
His gaze sharpened. “Tell me, Pip.”
Heat rushed straight through me.
“Yes.”
His expression softened for one second, just enough to remind me that underneath all that intensity, he was still watching me carefully. Still leaving me the door. Still making sure I was choosing this.
“Then we go slow,” he said. “And if you want to stop, you say stop.”
My throat tightened. “Okay,” I breathed.
Cade’s eyes held mine through the screen, dark and steady and full of a restraint that somehow made the moment hotter instead of safer.
“Good,” he murmured.