Chapter 23
We Drown Under the Waves of Words We Are Not Saying
Aria
I’m sitting in the kitchen sorting out our “no-point” cups when there’s a knock at the dividing door. Mom isn’t home. She and Will are bringing the horses back to the stable and preparing things for tomorrow’s town hall.
I hang Daniel’s cup on a hook and go to the door. I open it a crack and see Wyatt, his hands in his pockets and that grin I fell in love with eternities ago on his face.
“Hi,” he says.
Just like that. I open the door a little wider and lean against the frame. Although Wyatt has seen me looking like a slob millions of times, my jogging-pants-and-baggy-white-shirt ensemble makes me blush. “Hi.”
“You doing better?”
“Yeah.” Pause. “I put ointment on my wound.”
Wyatt leans forward on the balls of his feet, his grin dimpled wide. “I was sooo certain of that, Moore.”
Everything about his movement electrifies me. I break out in goose bumps and Wyatt notices. Of course he does.
I clear my throat. “Well… What do you want?”
Wyatt takes his hands out of his pockets, balls one into a fist, and begins to punch it into his palm in an easy rhythm. “Camila is talking with her girlfriends on the phone.”
“And?”
“I’m bored.”
I cross my arms. “That’s not my problem.” But then I realize what day it is and add, “It’s Friday night, Wyatt,” as if that said enough.
He tilts his head. “No shit, Sherlock.”
“No, I mean… Your game is going to be on ESPN. Snowdogs against the Bullhead Bulls.”
He beams. “You knew that?”
I shrug and pick at a knot in the wood. “Wanted to take a peek.” When I add, “because of Paxton,” I cast him a quick glance from the corner of my eye, accompanied by an apathetic expression, even though my heart is beating double time as I wait to see his reaction.
To my surprise, his face darkens. “You’re making me want to punch him, you know that, Aria?”
Oh?
“Just like that?”
Wyatt scratches his collarbone. Three red stripes. “If I was out on the ice today, we’d lose because, instead of going after the other team’s center, I’d be going after Paxton.”
His words undo a knot in my chest, and within a few seconds a pleasant warmth begins to spread throughout my body.
That’s no good because that isn’t supposed to happen, not at all.
With Paxton, yeah. With Wyatt? Not so much.
I’ve got to switch topics to something that doesn’t have to do with our emotions and feelings and quick.
“Why aren’t you out on the ice?”
If a shadow passed over Wyatt’s face before, it was nothing compared to what’s there now. His features twist into a tortured expression as if he were in great pain. “Aria. That… I mean, I… I’d like…”
Seeing him like this does something to me. His fragility is tearing my heart out. It’s like someone’s peeling off my skin. I know that’s heavy, but that’s what it feels like.
“It’s all good,” I say quickly because I can’t stand to see him like this. I add softly, “You don’t have to say it, Wyatt. It’s okay.”
He lets out a trembling breath before nodding. He’s pale. God. What happened?
With jittery fingers he takes his hat off and runs a hand through his hair. “I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to The Old-Timer with me. There’s an Iron Man marathon today, and I know how much you dig strong dudes.”
He sure does. And, damn it, I just can’t say no. Not when he’s looking broken like this, not when he’s looking so hopeless.
“We wouldn’t be alone,” he adds quickly when he sees me hesitating. “Paisley and Knox will be there. Aaron and Levi, too.” My eyes meet his, and he knows immediately, immediately, what I’m thinking. “Gwen’s working at the diner.”
Gwen. Not Gwendolyn. I swallow hard. “How do you know that?”
“I asked Paisley before coming over here.”
Friends, Aria. You and Wyatt could be friends, and all this pain would be a thing of the past. You could look at him without having to feel everything.
“Okay.” I take a quick scan of the kitchen. “Give me ten minutes.”
His eyes twinkle. “Stay like this. I like it.”
“Sure. You like licorice, too. Clearly, your sense of taste is screwy.”
His expression changes. There’s something, well, horny in it as he stares at me and lets out a sound when stopping to look at my lips. “My sense of taste is excellent, Aria.”
I melt. A prickly warmth that definitely shouldn’t be there begins to spread out between my thighs.
I think of him in my room earlier today, between my legs, catapulting me into another world.
Everything within me is longing to pull him toward me and do the whole thing all over again.
I couldn’t think of anything else all day long. And that’s bad. Real bad.
“See you in a sec.” I close the door, lean back against it, and take a few moments to breathe and collect myself.
Lopez, Lopez, Lopez. Could you please stop screwing around in my heart as if it were yours? Could you please accept that the two of us are definitively done?