Chapter Eight
C ody liked to win.
He liked winning. He liked whiskey. He liked women.
Usually one led into the next, a celebratory slide into sin he greatly enjoyed partaking of along the endless road trip that was life on tour.
But for some reason, Skylar alone seemed to take the place of his usual variety pack, and he liked that too.
More than liked it.
Friday night, after he’d rode a sweet 89 like it was nothing and put himself in the lead, he’d seen her up there in the stands. And that was new. Not happening to recognize a woman he’d been with, but actually finding her and liking it when he did. Like she was some kind of touchstone.
The truth was, he’d never felt anything like that before.
His mother had certainly never wasted her time watching her only son try to kill himself riding bulls. Growing up, she’d acted like it was a phase he was going through. When he’d turned eighteen and joined the tour, she’d assured him that he’d end up crippled like all the bull riders she’d ever heard of—a friend of a friend’s cousin twice removed or any old cowboy telling lies in a dive bar—and more, that she’d wash her hands of him if he did because she already had enough on her plate with Todd and the girls.
Cody had taken that as a clear indication that he was not a man who needed to stock the stands with friendly faces. And these days he took it as a point of pride that he was so solitary. He didn’t cart family and friends around with him, much less girlfriends or pretty pieces of tail. And not only because he didn’t do girlfriends. He didn’t need it, he would have said. Better the stands were empty and he still won, because he was making his mark. He wanted to go down in history, not show off for a girl.
And anyway, friendly faces were lies. He knew what happened when friendly faces turned vicious, as soon as the door was closed and nobody else could see. More than one person had told him he had trust issues, of course. He preferred to think of it as straight-up practicality.
But there was no denying the fact that he liked looking up from the dirt in Billings to see Skylar’s blue eyes open wide and filled with something that looked a whole lot like pride as they slapped to his.
Cody would have said that the back of a bull was the only thing in the world that could silence the crowd and make him forget where he was. That sweet, brutal dance he’d been doing so well for all these years. He would have said that was the only possible way to shut off his head and make everything in him go still and right.
But it turned out that maybe Skylar had the same kind of magic in her.
“Maybe I should get your number,” he told her in a low, teasing kind of way, later that night.
She’d been waiting for him outside the arena. Out there by his truck, looking cuter than any woman should have the right to in jeans that were plastered all over her butt and pretty little cowboy boots as befitted a country girl. He been particularly taken by the little tank top she wore, as if she’d dressed to make him as hard as possible, with the delicate gold necklace around her neck and tiny little pearl nestled right there in her throat. Right where he most wanted to put his mouth.
All that and her crooked smile too.
If it wasn’t magic, he didn’t know what the hell it was.
He hadn’t said a word when he’d seen her waiting for him, leaning against his bumper with her head tipped back like she was counting stars again. Like she could stand there all night and whether or not he showed up was incidental. Maybe that was Skylar’s secret—she was the least needy female he’d ever encountered.
Which made him feel a little too close to needy for comfort.
It took one look at her for all the aches and pains that had swamped him in the locker room—the way they always did in the wake of all that adrenaline—to disappear. He kept coming, then picked her up, taking her mouth as she wrapped herself around him.
He kissed her until he thought he might get arrested, and then he tossed her in the cab of his truck.
And he barely made it to the city limits before he pulled the car over to some out-of-the-way park, and pulled her over him in the front seat. Because he couldn’t wait another minute, much less the rest of the drive out to his Airstream.
It was possible he’d expected it to be a little less wild after the previous night. After all, he’d pretty much glutted himself on her.
But it had been more of the same.
Hot. Frenzied. Insane.
He figured it would be worth whatever fine he’d have to pay if they got caught.
“I don’t give out my number,” she breathed when that first storm passed, and they’d steamed up all his windows. She’d grinned at him, as if he wasn’t still inside of her. As if he was some douchebag in a bar trying to buy a pretty girl a drink. “But I’ll take yours.”
Cody couldn’t get enough of her.
Saturday had been the usual nonsense on a tour weekend. Because he was involved in local sponsorship, he had to show up and play the smiling, genial buffoon at the Grey Sports flagship store in downtown. He sat at the table with a couple of the other riders, and did his best to look approachable while dressed in the clothes they’d laid out for him.
“We’re so happy to have a legend like you here today,” the manager gushed at him as she led him to the table where he was expected to sit and sign autographs for a few hours.
But Cody noticed Skylar’s father wasn’t around to share that sentiment. He couldn’t blame the man.
All he really wanted to do was stand up and stop pretending to be the gentleman cowboy he’d never been. He’d wanted to stop all the fake grinning into cameras with every kid and giggly woman who approached him. He wanted to stop shaking hands with men who were all belly and listening to them tell him lies about how they’d almost done a little bull riding themselves and maybe would again, if they could find a spare weekend.
He’d never liked the glad-handing and ass-kissing, but it seemed worse this time. Or maybe it was because he knew that Skylar was in the same store, if out of sight. And it was the same thing that kept happening to him. If he knew she was around, he had to have her.
“I’m working,” she told him with mock severity when he found her, after his meet and greet was done. She was back in the offices, hunched over a pile of invoices, but he’d seen the way her eyes lit up when he walked in. “I’m very busy handling an inventory situation.”
“I’m good at handling things,” he told her. “Like locked doors.”
And he’d showed her what he meant, right there against the door with the bolt thrown.
“I really should get your number,” he murmured against the side of her face when they were done, and Skylar was flushed with that bright red that made him hard all over again.
She busied herself with her clothes, stepping away from him to right her blouse and button up her jeans, then run her palms over her smooth hair.
“Why do you need my number?” she asked. She snuck a bright look his way. “You seem to find me without it.”
“Maybe I don’t want to feel like a detective all the time.”
That crooked smile made his chest feel tight, and the craziest part was, he was starting to get used to it.
“Detective looks good on you,” she said. “You should keep it up.”
“It’s like you want me insecure, darlin’.”
She laughed at that. At him, when no one ever did. And he liked that, too.
“I’m pretty sure you can handle it,” she said.
Saturday was the big night, and Cody never let anything mess with his concentration. Not even the most fascinating woman he’d ever encountered. He shoved it aside and focused on his job.
His only job: riding the best bull he could to the most spectacular finish possible.
Cody drafted a particularly rank bull and then had to wait for his turn. He watched some of the other riders score a little too high for his liking, because he wanted that top slot. He could taste it. By the time his bull was herded into the chutes, he was floating along in that strange, tight little bubble between anticipation and excitement that always heralded a big night.
He knew from experience that he couldn’t let himself go too far one way or the other. And the only way to handle it was to concentrate on the tiny little details that made each ride work. Stepping up to the chute. Positioning himself right as he went in, and working on getting his rope nice and sticky and exactly where he wanted it. It was all about the rope, and every time he wanted to kick himself for a ride that hadn’t come off the way he wanted it was because he hadn’t paid enough attention to the rope when he’d had the opportunity.
He didn’t make that mistake tonight. He took his time. The bull beneath him was feisty, jumping and rolling and having a little tantrum, just to show Cody what was in store. But that was what he wanted. Spirit and grit. And that wildness that nothing and no one could tame.
It was what made a bull a legend.
And it was what made a woman like Skylar magic.
Cody was more than ready for both. When the rope was right and he felt that little kick inside him, telling him it was time to get it done, he nodded—and that was it.
The gate opened and the flight began.
No thought.
No worry.
Just the dance.
All the training, all the strategy, the stress and the hope and the worry; all his years of practice and preparation, sacrifice and will, down to these few seconds.
One man, one beast.
One test of will.
It was amazing how the time slowed. Sometimes Cody worried it wouldn’t, that it was over and this would be the ride that felt like a sick and terrifying blur, because that would be the end. That would be his last ride.
But it wasn’t tonight.
Eight seconds were still a lifetime.
Time flattened out and ran sweet. What seemed like nothing but wild jolting and bucking, too wild to ever be conquered in any way, felt different here. Inside the bubble where it was him and the bull and the way they reacted to each other, feeding off one another, anticipating each other’s game.
He felt how the bull moved and rolled with it. Away from his right hand that gripped on tight. He could feel when his left arm strayed too close to the bull’s back and adjusted in that split second.
He had all the time in the world when he was in the zone. No crowd. No noise. No clock. No problem.
There was only the roll. The ride.
And just about when he thought that he could keep on doing it forever, the buzzer rang.
Another eight seconds down.
And time sped up again.
Cody worked his hand free, then took his jump from the bull’s broad back to the ground, letting gravity take him into another roll in the dirt. His senses were so heightened that he swore he could feel where the bull fighters were without having to see them, as they raced in to distract the snorting bull while Cody found his feet.
This was the part Cody liked best. The rush. The sheer joy of having done it one more time, eight seconds and no pain.
It was this moment where it was all his. No score, no money won or lost, no reaction from the fans. It was just his, that ride he could feel in his bones like a wicked drug and the sheer thrill of it that all these years later he still hadn’t gotten over.
It was this moment where he thought that maybe he never would.
But this time when he stood up, he was looking for a face in the crowd.
He wanted to hate himself for that kind of weakness, the exact sort of weakness he’d spent his life avoiding, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Because there she was, just where he’d expected her a few rows up from the dirt, and he couldn’t deny the jolt that went through him at the sight.
Not only couldn’t he deny it, he liked it.
He felt Skylar all over. His head. His throat. His chest and gut. His cock. Even his damned feet.
Head to toe and back again, and for another wild second that flattened out a little bit and sat heavy on him, the only thing he could see was the punch of her blue eyes from twenty feet away.
There was something about her that could ruin a man, he thought. Not only that, make him like it.
But then the announcer was belting out his score, another 89, which meant Cody was holding on to his lead. The crowd went wild. Cody doffed his hat the way he always did, and took his moment to bask in the applause.
Even if, when he made his way out of the arena to do the usual interviews, the only thing he really remembered was Skylar. Watching him as if there was no one in the arena but the two of them.
His second ride of the night was wilder. A newer bull out to prove he was a badass, and Cody equally determined to show him who was the real boss, to the tune of an even higher 89, just shy of a legendary 90.
Which meant Cody won the weekend.
He stood in the center of the ring and he waved as everyone cheered and he didn’t think about the money, for a change. He didn’t think about how to allocate it and where he should send it or count up how much time he had left in this.
For the first time in years, he relaxed and enjoyed the moment. The cheers. The rush.
The knowledge that she was out there.
And instead of his usual form of celebration, which generally ranked high in the debauchery stakes and involved enough whiskey to regret it all the next morning, it turned out all he wanted was the woman waiting for him out at his truck again. As if they planned it.
As if she’d read his mind.
“I guess I don’t need your number after all,” he drawled as he walked toward her. “Since you seem to be stalking me.”
“Oh, I might actually give it to you now,” she told him, her blue eyes dancing with that laughter he couldn’t seem to stop craving, half in and half out of the shadows. “I like a winner. Isn’t that the buckle bunny way?”
“It’s less of a philosophy and more of an act. Or a series of actions, to be more precise.”
“By all means. Let’s make sure we’re precise. About the groupies.”
“Precision is my life, darlin’.”
He drew closer. He eyed her there on his bumper but kept going. He beeped open the truck, threw his gear inside. But he kept his eyes on Skylar while he did it.
“But if you think about it, there’s got to be some kind of hierarchy,” she was saying, in a musing sort of voice as if she really had given the matter a lot of thought.
She didn’t stop talking when he roamed back over in her direction and planted himself directly in front of her. Maybe a little too close, come to that. He saw her pulse go a little crazy in her neck, but she didn’t otherwise react.
“Hierarchical bunnies?” he asked.
Well. It was more of a drawl, more smoke than laughter.
She shivered slightly, but kept on. “You know. Which bunnies think they deserve the higher ranked riders versus which bunnies will take any old cowboy just to say they’re in the game.”
“You know a lot about the inner workings of buckle bunnies, do you?”
“Not as such.” She let out a little laugh, breathy and sweet, when he reached over and hooked two fingers in the waistband of her jeans to haul her toward him. Better yet, she went to him like butter. “But I do know about groups of girls. Not sure it’s ever really all that different. Where to sit in the cafeteria during the worst part of seventh grade or the adventures of the American Extreme Bull Riders Tour buckle bunny crew. I think there’s probably some overlap.”
“Next time I see a bunny hopping around I’ll have to ask about seventh grade,” Cody murmured, his face near hers, so he could feel it when she let out one of those jagged breaths.
He didn’t kiss her.
He reveled in the crispness of the way she felt, out here in another endless Montana night. How soft her skin was against the backs of his fingers, there where they brushed against her belly. That scent she wore that drove him crazy, cedar and summer and Skylar.
And whatever the hell it was that drew him to her this way, filling up his head and making him hard. Flattening out time like he was on a different kind of ride, making him look for her blue gaze in a stadium filled with people chanting his name.
He’d only seen her.
“The truth is,” he told her, as if he was whispering the kind of sweet poetry he’d never uttered in his life, “I’ve never known a bunny to overlook an opportunity to talk about herself.”
She was melting against him, her arms looped around his neck so she could hold on, and he knew her now. He knew the way her cute little body worked. Last night he’d had her in his truck, but that had only been the start. When they’d finished, he’d kept on driving them out into the darkness until they’d reached his Airstream, and they’d both been laughing as if they’d shared a whole bottle of whiskey on the way as they made their way inside.
That was what this woman did to him. She made him feel drunk when he wasn’t.
He’d learned a whole lot about Skylar in his narrow little shower. He’d learned that she was stubborn. Determined. That when she got something in her head, she kept right on until she did it.
And what she’d wanted to do was wash every part of him. First with soap and water. Then with her mouth.
“What are you doing?” he’d asked when she inched down his front, making noises he couldn’t quite interpret in the back of her throat as she first cleaned him off, then trailed fire over him with every lick of her tongue or touch of her lips.
“I’m tracking all the scars and bruises,” she’d said. “I want to make sure I get each one.”
But she didn’t say it the way a few women had in the past, in a weird little baby voice as if they were playing nurse.
Skylar said it softly. With great certainty. As if she thought they were beautiful.
As if she thought he was.
She washed every part of him, thoroughly, and then she knelt down before him in what little space there was and proceeded to show him exactly how beautiful she thought he was. She took him in deep. She used her mouth and her hands, bringing him to a loud, shouting finish—so intense he’d almost punched his fist through the wall of his own trailer.
And then it had been his turn. He’d soaped her up and he’d washed her down, reveling in the slippery feel of all her tight little curves in his hands. Then he’d carried her out to his bed, laying her out and settling over her so he could take his time with her.
Again. And again.
But it didn’t seem to matter how often he glutted himself on her. He still wanted more.
“I think there’s some kind of party,” she whispered now.
She brought him back to the stadium. Billings. The money he’d just won and what that meant for his half-sisters. And him. And the fact that he hadn’t really thought too much about either.
“I’m not a big partier,” he told her. He moved his hands up and down her back, reminding himself how well she fit him. How much he craved her, again, as if he hadn’t helped himself to all this goodness earlier today, up against the door in that office. “You want me to take you out, Skylar? You want to go on a date?”
Cody realized once he said it that he expected it to piss her off. And more, that he was surprised he hadn’t done it already. He wasn’t a nice man. He didn’t pretend to be. And he usually made sure to disabuse a woman of any notion that there was something more between them than his dick—usually halfway through getting laid in the first place.
He’d already neglected to make it clear where things lay with Skylar. Maybe that was why he couldn’t figure it out himself, which was unacceptable.
But she didn’t get pissed. She moved her hands so she could prop them against his pectoral muscles, and then she gazed at him solemnly.
“Is that a euphemism?”
He considered. “I don’t think so.”
“Maybe we should skip the date part and go straight to the end of the night part. Because between you and me, I think I like that part better than sitting around in nice clothes pretending to be well behaved.”
“I am shocked and appalled,” he drawled. “I think you might be getting the wrong idea about me. I’m not just a pretty face, Skylar. I have a brain too.”
She let out a sound that it took him a minute to realize was a full-on giggle. A little high-pitched and entirely too cute.
If she’d taken out a dagger and stabbed him, he doubted he would have felt it any less. Like a shot straight between his ribs.
“That sounds like something a buckle bunny would say,” she said when she stopped giggling. “Are you a buckle bunny, Cody?”
“Buckle bunnies don’t talk that much, darlin’. I think you’re missing the entire point of buckle bunnies.”
“You’re the one who wants to go on a date. You know that it’s generally a public activity, right? You have to keep all your clothes on your body and your hands more or less to yourself. Pretty much the exact opposite of anything we’ve ever done together.”
“I’m getting the distinct impression you’re only in this for my body,” Cody said, sorrowfully.
“More what you can do with it.”
“You’re a shallow woman.”
But he kissed her then. Deep. Hot. As if they were already naked. As if he was already so deep inside her, she’d started making that little keening sound in the back of her throat that told him she was close to coming.
Just thinking about it made his cock ache.
He picked her up and put her in the truck on the driver’s side, mostly so he could keep his hands on her a while longer. And when he swung in beside her, she hadn’t moved over all that far on the bench seat, so he hooked his hand over the curve of her thigh and held it there a minute.
Held them both there until he heard that little sigh she made when she was totally relaxed.
And this was the time to end things. Cody knew that.
He didn’t spend consecutive nights with women because he’d always worried that it would get to exactly this place. He knew her too well. They were joking around instead of getting straight to the good stuff. It already felt a hell of a lot more intimate than anything he’d ever wanted.
He’d always thought that he didn’t want to get here because he would find it boring. He liked sex, not conversation. It had never occurred to him that it would be just the opposite. That the more he knew about Skylar, the more he wanted to know. But that surprising fact didn’t change anything.
He was a man who lived on the road. A new city every weekend, and he’d seen what a toll that took on all the riders around him. He’d seen broken marriages, pissed-off kids, and how exhausted the men were when they tried to race home for a couple of days every week only to head back out for a new show every weekend. He’d seen the cheating, the divorces, and the toll all that took on each cowboy’s performance. Cody had never wanted any part of that. He took himself from city to city, and the only baggage he brought with him was what he could fit in his Airstream.
He needed to cut this off. Because tomorrow he needed to get on the road and start heading west toward Missoula, where next week’s show took place.
“Skylar,” he began.
And she didn’t tense up at the serious note in his voice. There was no sudden spike of anxiety in the cab of the truck. He had his hand on her leg and he could feel that she didn’t so much as breathe heavy.
Not Skylar. She shifted so she could look at him, that lopsided smile on her lips, and waited.
Just waited.
And he’d said some version of this a million times. Don’t get too attached. I don’t want to lead you on. It’s not you, darlin’, it’s me. All that same old cowboy shit.
All of it was true. And necessary to get out there, so there were no expectations or recriminations later when he drove away the way he always did. Without a single regret or glance in the rearview mirror.
So he didn’t know why he was having such trouble opening up his mouth and saying it now.
Maybe it was because if she wanted anything from him, she sure didn’t show it. He hadn’t called her. She hadn’t complained about it. He’d joked about getting her number, but she hadn’t written it down. Or snuck it into his jeans pocket. Or straight-up written it on his hand.
Every time they parted, she kissed him, smiled at him, and then walked away.
Cody had the sinking realization that Skylar might not actually require any letting down easy. That she might be the first woman he’d ever met who didn’t want more from him than he could give.
It should have made him jubilant. So he had no idea why it just irritated the hell out of him instead.
“What are you doing next weekend?” he asked.
He actually asked her that and was so appalled by the fact it had come out of his mouth that he sat there, something like winded.
“Oh, you mean because the rodeo won’t be in town?” She laughed at that, apparently unaware that he was losing it beside her. “That’s a good question. What do buckle bunnies do when there are no buckles around?”
“This is Montana.” And maybe his tone was a little too dark. “There’s always another cowboy.”
When she was quiet beside him for a moment he thought he’d finally managed to get to her. And then wondered what the hell was wrong with him that pissing her off was something he even wanted. And worse, why he didn’t like doing it, when he’d never minded one way or the other before.
Because before it was never Skylar, a voice inside him piped up.
“If you want my number that badly, Cody, you can just ask for it.” Her voice was even. Her gaze was steady. And he felt like he was ripping apart from the inside out. “And if you don’t, that’s perfectly okay too. A whole lot of people seem to be under the impression that I don’t know what this is. But let me assure you, I do.”
If she was actively trying to piss him off, she couldn’t have picked a better way to do it. Because if he didn’t know what this was, how the hell could she?
“Do you?” He tried to take the crazy out of his voice. With limited success. “What is it?”
“I’ll assume that’s a little test. Don’t worry, I’ve always been really good at tests.” She shifted beside him, straightening up in her seat as if she was mimicking some kind of perfect pupil. “You don’t have to tell me that you’re a commitment phobic cowboy, Cody. That’s pretty obvious. It goes with the laconic thing. And all that swagger. And the good news is, a commitment phobic cowboy is pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered.”
“Perfect. Now I’m a prescription.”
“Better than Xanax,” she said brightly. And the craziest part was that she was smiling. Actually smiling. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to get the wrong idea. I’m not going to freak out. I don’t want more than you can give and there’s definitely no need for any emotional scenes. What you see with me is exactly what you get.”
“Bullshit.”
He didn’t know where that came from. But he didn’t take it back.
She only raised her eyebrows. “Okay. Don’t believe me. I can call a taxi right now, you know. We don’t even have to have this conversation.”
“Here’s the thing.” Cody shifted around on the seat so he could look at her a little more closely, and then he hooked a hand over the nape of her neck. Just so he could pull her in a little further. Because he wanted her so close it was almost a kiss. Because he wanted her to feel all the things that he felt. And maybe also because he was a dick. “I’ve scraped off so many women I don’t even know their names.”
“How charming.”
“I’m not bragging. It’s a fact. I’ve had this conversation a thousand times.”
“And there’s absolutely no need for this to be a thousand and one.”
“I’m tired,” he told her. Starkly and without any flourish. “In bull-riding terms I might as well be the crypt keeper. That’s how old I am. And I’m tired of everything. The tour. Living on the road. The hustle of it all. I’ve been over for it for a long time.”
“That’s no way to live.”
That was all she said, and then seemed content to sit there in the dark of the truck. And Cody didn’t know what it was about this woman. He didn’t understand why nothing seemed to get to her. Why all she did was gaze back at him, calm and easy.
Or why the fact she kept doing it made him…somebody he didn’t recognize.
Someone chatty.
“All I have are eight seconds on a bull,” he told her, because apparently this was who he was now. A guy who never shut his mouth. “Eight seconds where none of the rest of this crap matters. Whether I’m old, whether I’m young, whether the next fall will cripple me—it doesn’t matter. I get eight seconds of glory, that’s all.”
“That’s more than some people ever get,” she said quietly, as if she knew.
And he was still a total stranger to himself, because he kept going.
“There’s only one thing that feels anything like those eight seconds, Skylar. One thing, and I’ve tried a thousand.” He pulled her face another inch closer. “You.”
He couldn’t really believe he’d said that out loud. And from the stunned look on her face, neither could she.
But the craziest part was that it was true. He didn’t know why he hadn’t realized it the first time he’d seen her, standing at her father’s front door with ghosts in those blue eyes of hers.
“I’m not making any declarations,” he told her gruffly, ignoring the fact he already had, whether he wanted to admit that or not. “I’m not that guy. I’m never going to be that guy. But I’m not ready to be done with you.”
Her lips moved into that lopsided little tilt that wedged its way deep into him. Again.
“Be still my heart.”
Cody wanted to be inside of her. He should have waited until he was to have this conversation he hadn’t known he planned to have. He needed to be deep inside her because that was where everything made sense. More than made sense, it was right.
But even the thought of it soothed him a little bit. It took the edge off. It made him imagine that he hadn’t just said the most insane thing he could possibly have said. Out loud.
To her.
“You got something to do next weekend?” he asked her.
This time with a little more intensity.
“As a matter of fact, my schedule is wide open.”
And her voice wasn’t calm anymore. There was that hitch in it. Just like the ghosts in her eyes that told him she wasn’t nearly as calm or controlled as she pretended she was. Somehow that soothed him too.
Cody shifted his hand from the back of her neck to the sweet little V of her T-shirt. And he played with the hem, tracing it up one side and then down the other until he got that shiver he was after.
“I’m going to be in Missoula,” he told her, as if it was the kind of sweet shit he didn’t know how to say. “Tomorrow I’m going to hitch up the Airstream and head west. I’ll probably take my time. I like to see a little bit of the country while I’m out here on tour. Or the years disappear without my really noticing it.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan.”
“That’s not a plan, that’s my routine. Same old, same old.” He traced that V again. Up, then down. Then once more. “Skylar. Come with me.”
And everything in him froze. He was intent and still and poised there on a knife’s edge as she stared back at him.
She made him wish he was the kind of man who could pull out a poem and make it work. But the only poetry he’d ever known was the hard work of a sweet ride, and he’d asked her to come with him. He didn’t have anything but that.
“Cody,” she said, using his name the same way he’d used hers. Serious. Somber.
He thought she was going to say no, and that was another moment that went on for a lifetime, telling him things about himself he didn’t really want to know.
But then she smiled. And leaned in close.
And whispered her number in his ear.