Chapter 18 #2
“Nah, you’re okay. It’s not that interesting. I guess I just like the perspective from here.” His voice has changed from its usual loud presumptuousness to a low, smooth tone that seems perfectly in tune with the dark night air.
“Is that all?”
He doesn’t look at me, but his expression changes, like he’s hearing me for the first time since we left our study table. “You want to hear about it? You might think I’m nuts after I tell you.”
“Don’t worry, I already do. Your level of self-confidence simply doesn’t happen among the mentally stable.”
“Last year there was a guy on this roof watching me. He totally changed my game.”
My eyebrows go up. “Do go on.”
“I was on the field right as the game started. I happen to look this way and there he is—some dude on the roof waving a Shafer flag. He was there right until the fourth quarter, cheering us on, and we crushed that team. He was there for most of the home games after that, and we smoked every one of them.”
“So Flag Dude is your good-luck charm. And you come here to do what, commune with his spirit?”
“It took me a while to figure out it was the library roof he was on. From down there, the other buildings block the view. But, yeah, I found the spot. I don’t know what I expected to find up here, but I like standing in his place and seeing what he sees down on the field.”
“Not to jinx this guy and his magical flag, but don’t you guys pretty much crush all the teams you play? You’re a top-ranked team; even I know that.”
“Most, not all, but it’s not just that we won. It’s how I played. I was on fire.”
“I don’t get it. You don’t seem like the type to give credit to someone else for your victories, especially not some weird guy on a roof.”
Reeve looks at me, uncertainty in his eyes.
I give him a small smile, not sure what I’m trying to encourage except maybe his confidence in me.
“Okay, yeah,” he relents. “There’s something else.
But this might actually make me nuts, so no running off and telling my stories to Lenni or your other friends. ”
I feel myself softening, touched by the fact that he trusts me with a secret.
“When I first saw the guy standing up here, I thought it was my dad.” He gives me a grim look, like he’s just dropped a bombshell in my lap, but I don’t see the significance.
“Oh. Well, was it?”
“No chance. I mean, I knew after five seconds it couldn’t be him, but before I could process it, that’s where my mind went. Boom: Dad.” He sees my confusion and adds, “It wasn’t him. He’s long gone.”
“Oh, Reeve. Is he . . . I mean, he passed away?”
“Nah, he’s still kicking. I haven’t seen him since I was four, though. Believe me, my football games aren’t on his radar.”
Ouch. My heart.
I guess the look on my face says it all, because he nods. “Yeah, it sucks. But then, so does he. Not a huge loss.”
“Well, someone raised you right.”
He cocks his head and leans closer to me. I catch the cool, marine scent of his skin as a breeze moves around us. “Excuse me? Jade Kelly, is that you?”
I laugh. “Your mother obviously went a little too hard at building your self-esteem, but she got some things right.”
“Which ones?”
I wonder briefly whether I’ll regret rattling off a list of compliments to a guy who’s drip-fed them all day every day. Would they even mean anything to him? But the careful way his eyes search my face tells me, yes, my words mean something to Reeve.
“You’re a good teacher,” I tell him. “You’re patient. You’re kind when you could just as easily be a condescending asshole and totally get away with it.”
“Excuse me, when have you ever let me get away with anything? I blink wrong and you’re on my ass.”
I give him a little smack on the shoulder, and it’s not until I do that I realize how badly I’ve wanted to touch him all night.
There’s an instant of delicious, tension-heavy silence as we look at each other—I know he feels what I do—before I look away and pretend my whole body isn’t lit with electricity.
“It’s true,” Reeve says. “Nobody lays into me like you do. Especially not girls.”
“I’m glad I can give you what you need.”
“Yeah, right, you shrew. You’re annoying as hell.” But his voice is playful.
“Then why do you keep coming back for more?”
He angles his body toward me. “Same question I’ve been asking myself.”
The air feels thick, harder to breathe. Reeve stands in front of me, but I feel surrounded by him, and I’m reminded how solid his body is, impressive and intimidating in turns.
He’s close enough now that it would take only a few inches of movement to bring his lips to mine.
The smile is long gone from my face, the moment suddenly heavy.
Too heavy, actually. If I questioned before whether we shared something real during our first kiss, I’m not questioning it any longer.
I turn away. “You know what else I like about you?” I ask, trying to pretend I wasn’t just thinking about kissing him again. “Your style.”
He offers me a smile that seems forced. “True. I am fresh as fuck.”
“You know that blue hair you had for a few weeks last spring? I’ve been trying to find a picture of that exact color to show my stylist for months now.”
“Yeah, my style I got from my mom. All that other stuff you should probably give credit to Cam’s parents for.”
“Lenni told me you were close with his family.”
“Uh-huh. My mom’s always been kind of a mess, so I lived with the Forresters a lot in high school. I don’t know how, but they made it so there were times I almost forgot I wasn’t actually their kid.”
My story is nothing like his, but in his face I see the same raw emotions I carry for my own upbringing, the disappointment and resentment almost as big as the love. “It’s not often parents get to choose their children. They must’ve really loved you.”
That’s when it happens: Reeve Dalton actually looks embarrassed. I didn’t know he was capable. “Yeah, well. Who wouldn’t, right?” The pink in his cheeks warms my heart. “What about you? Perfect family, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “If by ‘perfect’ you mean my parents are still married, then sure. That’s where it ends.”
“Really?” He looks surprised.
“You know, people usually take one look at my bright hair and makeup and think I’m trouble, my parents included.”
“You are trouble. You’re also smart and confident and you’ve got your shit together. Usually people like that come from families straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.”
Smart? Confident? Shit together? I never expected to care one iota about his opinion of me, but now I’m the one blushing. I shake my head. “You might have football and Spanish mastered, but your powers of perception are weak, my friend.”
“Yeah?”
“My parents are at least half the reason I’m running away to Spain. And my shit is so scattered that a century from now they’ll still be picking up pieces of it halfway around the world.”
He laughs softly. If I wasn’t watching him so closely, I’d miss the subtle way his body relaxes.
Is that another wall that just came down?
I’m overcome with the need to deepen this unexpected closeness.
Until now, guarded is the last word I would’ve used to describe the cocky loudmouth Reeve I thought I knew.
But now all I want is to be the one he opens up to.
And so I babble on about myself.
I tell him about my conservative, buttoned-up family, how my father made no secret that he would have preferred a son as his only child, how Dad still insists that I—and eventually my preapproved husband—should take over the family business because we’re like one of those ultrarich families on TV where no one outside the family is permitted into the inner circle lest any money or secrets escape .
. . except we lack the mega wealth to back it all up.
I tell him I’ve always felt like an outsider in my family, but I couldn’t put a name to the feeling until I moved away for college and realized I had no interest in going back.
“Outsider status? I feel that hard,” Reeve says as I wrap up the family saga.
“People look at me and think all-American boy; rode around in a minivan as a kid, Mom and Dad cheering from the stands every Friday night. Meanwhile, that was everyone but me. I didn’t know a single kid growing up who had to live with his friend nine months out of the year. ”
There’s grief in his voice, and even though I know better than to think I can fix it, I can’t help but try. “You’ve come out on top, though. How many kids that you grew up with have an NFL contract just waiting for them? You’re about to have everything you’ve ever worked for.”
“You make it sound so good that I’m going to let that one slip.”
Let what slip? Without thinking, I reach out to turn his face toward me, wondering what he means. Longing fills my chest, wanting him to say more. Does he feel as alone as I do? But our eyes lock and I’m trapped in his gaze.
“Jade,” he says so quietly I barely hear it.
I know he’s going to kiss me, and I want him to so badly that desire is almost enough to drown out the voice in my head warning me off—almost enough but not. I turn from him with a jerk. “I should get home,” I mutter. “Feels like we’ve been up here for hours.”
I head toward the stairs without waiting for his response, but he’s right behind me.
Except for the familiar smell of old pages and old wood, the library feels like a different space than the one we left.
Maybe it’s me. I didn’t know what to think going into this night, but now that it’s ending, I’m even more confused.
What is this thing between us? Desire makes people do wild things and believe in the impossible.
Maybe I’m only under the spell of attraction to a profoundly attractive man.
But my brain argues that’s not all it is.
Every conversation with Reeve reveals another layer to him, complexity and intelligence and, dare I say it, a kind heart.
As we breeze through the silence of the library, I’m hyperaware of him behind me and the weight of his gaze on the back of my neck. A faint sense of embarrassment spreads heat through my body, and I kind of wish I had a prettier neck for him to stare at; ridiculous.
We pass rows of bookstacks and then his hand catches mine, pulling me into the privacy of an aisle. I catch only a glimpse of the fiery look in his eyes before he kisses me. Cold metal shelves press into my back and his warm lips cover mine and all I can think is, Of course he gets what he wants.
This must be what my body was craving all night, because it takes only a second and then I’m kissing him hard, reaching for him like this was my idea all along.
My hands take in the warmth of his body while my mouth absorbs the heat of his.
The thrill of novelty washes through me, but our mouths fit together like we’ve done this a hundred times.
Goose bumps rise on my skin as he teases me with his tongue, making me wait and then kissing me so deeply our teeth clash.
His hands close firmly around my hips and pull me closer. When the bulge of his cock presses against me, I go weak with desire. His knuckles brush the fly of my jeans, a touch as electrifying as it is subtle.
Please keep going, I think.
I don’t care that we’re in the library. Pressed against the solid, protective power of Reeve, it seems entirely possible we could tear our clothes off right here and drop to the floor and no one would ever know. He could make that happen. And even if he couldn’t, it would be worth it.
“Ahem. Excuse me,” a voice says brusquely, shocking me out of my sex-charged cocoon.
We look over to find a dour-looking middle-aged woman eyeballing us over the rim of her glasses.
She’s not wearing a Shafer University Library tag like the librarians usually do, but clearly she has some kind of authority over us, because I feel instantly cold, every bit of horniness drained from my body.
Reeve tips his head charmingly toward the woman. “Sorry, she’s got a blood vessel disorder. If I don’t do that on the hour, she loses circulation in her extremities.”
I want to smack him, but to my shock, the lady in glasses actually chuckles. I can’t believe it. It wasn’t even funny! Is no one immune to Reeve’s good looks?
“Do your warm-up dance at home, then,” she says to him, still holding on to a little smile. I, of course, don’t exist.
Reeve tips his head to her again and heads the opposite way, taking me by the hand. I glance back at the interloper just before we turn out of sight. She’s actually ogling Reeve. Unbelievable! Forget money—good looks, charm, and having a penis are the ultimate power cocktail.
Reeve is grinning by the time we walk out the library doors.
“I can’t believe you said that to her.”
“She liked it. So you want to go do the warm-up dance at home?”
“You’re unreal.”
He moves closer and puts his mouth to my ear. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
I laugh and push him away. “I’ve never been less interested. I think I owe that lady a thank-you note.”
He walks me home, being his cocky, grinning self the whole time.
What happened at the library—the kiss, the talk of our crappy home lives, the near confessions that I might’ve just imagined—doesn’t linger awkwardly.
But now I know for certain how quickly I can lose myself around him, how easily I get spun around and lose direction completely.
I can’t let that happen, not with Reeve of all people.
At my door I barely look at him as I say thank you and hustle my ass inside before there’s any possibility of another kiss.
I silence my phone and leave it on the couch, then take my time washing off my makeup and changing into pajamas in case he texts me asking if I’ve reconsidered his offer to dance.
When I finally check my phone thirty minutes later, there’s nothing from Reeve, which is how it should be; he and I can never be. I want to feel relieved, but I don’t.