Chapter Twenty-Five #3
“I should get this to the back before facilities locks up,” I said, wrapping my good hand around the edge again, like if I kept busy enough, Shane would go away, and I wouldn’t have to feel this pull between us.
Before I could get leverage, his hand came down over mine.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
For a suspended second, neither of us moved. My skin buzzed where we touched, his fingers brushing the inside of my wrist, just above the hidden bruise. I watched his gaze flick down, lingering on the flash of discolored skin peeking out from under my bracelet before dragging back up to my face.
My lungs felt like wet paper bags.
I snatched my hand back like I’d been burned, heart racing at the thought of Nathan finding us together any second, along with the thought of Shane calling my demons to the light. “You don’t have to—”
“I know,” he said. “Let me anyway.”
He lifted the box like it weighed nothing, the muscles in his forearms flexing where he’d shoved his jacket sleeves up. I stared at the spot where our hands had been, heat crawling up my neck.
“Ari,” he said after a beat, and when I dragged my gaze up, his eyes were on me, steady and serious. “About the other night…”
My heart lurched.
“I’m not going to push you,” he said quickly, clearly reading the panic that must have flashed across my face. “I just… I left your house feeling like I’d failed you. Again.”
I winced.
“And I wanted you to know that if you ever need… anything. A ride. A couch to crash on. Someone to yell at a wall with you… I’m here.”
I shook my head automatically, the denial ready on my tongue before I’d even thought it through.
“It was just a weird night,” I said. The lie came out smooth and practiced. “Hosting stresses me out. I get… emotional. It’s not a big deal. I’m fine.”
He watched me for a long moment, and I had the distinct, uncomfortable feeling of being seen. Really seen. It made my skin itch.
“Okay,” he said eventually, nodding. “If that’s what you want me to believe, I’ll believe it. For now.”
“For now?” I echoed.
He shifted the box in his hands, breaking eye contact for a second like he was giving me a chance to breathe.
“I’m going to ask you something else,” he said. “Less heavy. I promise.”
I exhaled slowly, tension easing by a fraction. “Less heavy sounds nice.”
“I heard Nathan is out of town next week for Thanksgiving.”
The way he said it, flat and assuming, made another thread of unease weave through my ribs. He was right, of course. I wondered if that was part of the reason Nathan had been so sweet all week. Was he trying to make up for the fact that he had to go back to Vegas during the holiday?
I didn’t really mind. I was looking forward to some alone time, and Georgie was going to FaceTime me.
It did sting a little that I was never asked about these things, though. Nathan just told me, the decision already made without any input of mine. And he hadn’t asked me to join him. I’d never been to Vegas. Maybe it would have been fun. But I wasn’t even a thought.
“That’s not a question,” I pointed out.
“What are you doing while he’s gone?”
I huffed, glancing down at my heels. My feet ached after walking in them all night. I didn’t even know why I’d worn them. This event didn’t call for a dress and heels. I’d have been better suited in jeans and a jersey and sneakers.
But Nathan bought me this dress…
Probably because he wanted to control how I looked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “FaceTime Georgie. Maybe volunteer at a kitchen. Order takeout, watch some trashy TV, read a book.”
Silence stretched between us for a beat. When I looked up, Shane was watching me with ghosts in his eyes.
I wondered if he was thinking about our first Thanksgiving as a couple, the one where I nearly burned our apartment down.
“It feels wrong,” he said finally, “you sitting alone with DoorDash on Thanksgiving while half the city eats themselves into a coma.”
“I won’t be alone,” I argued weakly. “I’ll have… Netflix.”
“Ari,” he said, voice soft with patience and something like amusement. “You know what I mean.”
God, I loved when he said my name like that.
“Some of the guys on the team are doing a Friendsgiving,” he said. “In honor of Daddy P’s last season. We have a game the night before and the day after, so it won’t be anything crazy, but… they’ve invited me. And I’d like to invite you.”
I shifted.
“You’ll have other friends there, too. Maven, Grace… I don’t know if you’ve met the rest of that crew yet.”
“We had a girls’ night, actually.”
“See? It’s perfect.”
The image bloomed in my mind before I could stop it — loud laughter, crowded table, mismatched chairs, someone shouting over a football game in the background.
It sounded like the kind of Thanksgiving I’d only ever glimpsed in movies, the kind I’d dreamed of as a kid, the kind where people felt safe enough to talk too loud, eat too much, stay too long.
My chest ached.
“I don’t know,” I said, defaulting to the only defense I had left. “Nathan—”
“Will be in Vegas,” Shane said gently, not unkind. “Working. Which, for the record, is fine. That’s his choice. But you get to have choices, too, Ari.”
Did I?
I wasn’t sure.
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
“I don’t want to cause problems,” I said quietly.
He shifted the box to one arm so he could free a hand, like he had the impulse to reach for me and was physically restraining himself at the last second.
“You coming over to eat turkey and argue about whether pumpkin pie is superior to pecan is not causing problems,” he said. “It’s… living. It’s being with friends.”
That hadn’t been exactly what I’d been referencing. The problem I was thinking of was what Nathan would do when he found out I went. But I didn’t correct Shane because the word he’d said landed like a stone in my stomach.
Friends.
That’s what we were now, what we were supposed to be. That had been the neat little label I’d put on whatever existed between us, because anything else was too big, too dangerous.
Too threatening to the life I’d worked so hard to build.
Funny, because some days, I felt like that life was tearing me apart from the inside.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
It was the most I could give him.
His shoulders dropped a little. “That’s all I’m asking,” he said. “If you decide you want to come, text me. I’ll send you the address and the time. You can even show up late just for dessert if you want. No pressure.”
“No pressure,” I repeated, like if I said it out loud enough, it might feel true.
Footsteps echoed down the concourse then, voices bouncing closer. I recognized one of them immediately, the cadence, the lazy drawl.
Nathan.
Shane heard it, too. He took a step back, widening the distance between us, body instinctively shifting into something that looked more neutral, more… professional.
“Hey,” he said, his voice just for me now, low and earnest. “Regardless of… anything. You should be proud of tonight. You did something good. For a lot of people.”
I met his gaze, my throat suddenly thick.
“Thank you,” I managed.
He nodded once, then turned, disappearing down the hallway with the box in his arms before Nathan rounded the corner.
“There you are,” Nathan said when he spotted me, his tone light, like he was complimenting a well-trained dog who’d stayed where it was supposed to. “I’ve been looking all over.”
I resisted the urge to tilt my head at that and ask have you?
“Just finishing up,” I said, gesturing to the half-bare table. “The volunteers took most of the stuff down already.”
He slid an arm around my waist, pulling me close enough that I could smell the whiskey on his breath. His fingers skimmed the line of my ribcage, stopping just shy of my wrist.
“Good,” he said. “Come on. Jennings cut a big check tonight and wants to talk to you about setting up a Sweet Dreams donation box inside the Jennings Financial Building. Smile and be charming, okay?”
I nodded, tucking whatever fragile, flickering thing Shane had just put in my chest somewhere safe.
As we walked down the concourse, Nathan talking about Vegas and meetings and sponsorships and how this event would play in the press, I let my head tilt toward his shoulder at the appropriate moment. I laughed when he tossed out a joke. I agreed when he told me what our next steps should be.
I played my part.
But somewhere beneath all that, like a quiet drumbeat under a loud song, another thought pulsed.
Friendsgiving.
I didn’t have to spend the holiday alone.
I could spend it with Maven and Grace, with the rest of the girls, with the team and a couple babies and pets.
And Shane.
That was the dangerous part. Not only had Nathan warned me to stay away from him, but I knew I walked a thin line when I was alone with him. It was too easy for the time between us to wane, for the young girl I was when I was with him to try to swim to the surface of my soul.
I knew he saw what so many others missed.
What scared me most was that I wanted him to see.
And I was starting to think I didn’t care what the consequences of that desire were.