16. Solomon
SIXTEEN
SOLOMON
I usually have this voice in my head. The one that tells me when I’m screwing up—and the voice always thinks I’m screwing up—or when people might be looking at me weird or when a situation is getting out of control and I should go.
I hate that voice. It’s the bane of my existence.
If I had known that kissing Cecelia Ransome would make the voice finally shut up, I would have done it ages ago.
There’s just no room in my head for anything else when I feel this good.
I’ve imagined kissing her a hundred times since I first noticed her on campus two years ago.
I’ve imagined a lot more than just kissing.
But even my imagination—which is typically very detailed—couldn’t have known how amazing this would be.
She’s so warm in my arms and her mouth is sweet and so fucking perfect and I seriously want to do this forever—
“Oh!” a high, sharp voice says behind us.
I decide to ignore it because nothing could be important enough to distract me from this.
But then I realize Cecelia has gone rigid in my arms and suddenly that voice in my head is back in full force, louder even than usual, like it’s pissed off that I tried to silence it for so long and now it’s going to have its revenge.
What the fuck are you doing? You’re kissing the person you’re supposed to be training. She’s practically your client. The department has rules about this. You’re in public. Anyone could see. You’re going to get kicked out of your program.
And underneath all that noise is a deeper fear, one I’ve been trying to push down since the day I found out I’d be working with her. If you try to get close with Cecelia Ransom she’s going to know you. And if she knows you, really truly knows you, there’s no way you’ll be able to keep her.
I pull back like something burned me, breathing hard. It belatedly occurs to me that the owner of the high voice that interrupted us is still talking. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you guys all hidden away over here and—I’m so sorry. I’ll just leave now. I didn’t see anything.”
I feel dazed and pretty out of it, like I just woke up from the world’s longest nap, but I’m pretty sure that voice belongs to Vega. I don’t know anyone else capable of talking so fast. Cecelia is still tense but she mostly sounds exasperated as she addresses her cousin.
“It’s fine, Vega. Can you just give me a second?”
“Of course,” Vega quickly agrees. “Actually, I’ll just go. Is that better? I can talk to you later. You don’t have to, you know, um, stop what you’re doing or—”
“Vega,” Cecelia says sharply, and I’m struck by the strangest urge to laugh.
This isn’t funny, I know that. It’s dark in our little corner of the patio but if Vega saw us, that means someone else could have, too. Most of Cecelia’s team is at this party. There are any number of people who could make my life a lot more difficult.
But at some point, while her cousin prattled on a few feet away, Cecelia slipped her hand into mine. And I’m having a hard time caring about anything except how warm her palm feels against my skin. Or how calm and comforted I feel by just that little bit of contact with her.
Vega finally leaves and Cecelia lets out a long breath. “Sorry,” she mutters, and I really don’t like that she’s looking away from me. Avoiding eye contact is usually my thing, but I find I really don’t want her to avoid mine right now.
I put a finger under her chin to tilt her head up so she’s looking at me and I swear, my heart stops beating. It will never not shock me, how beautiful she is. When we got here tonight, she smiled at me in the entryway and I literally couldn’t breathe for several seconds.
“You don’t need to apologize,” I tell her.
“My cousin is obnoxious. All of my cousins are obnoxious. I have no idea why I spend so much time with them.”
That makes me laugh, and she seems to relax a little at the sound.
“I’m not sorry I kissed you,” she blurts out. “I know I should be—I know we’re not supposed to do this and there’s your clinicals and all of that.” She looks up at me, her expression fierce, the way it looks when she’s going after the ball in the offensive zone. “But I’m still not sorry.”
“I’m not sorry, either,” I tell her, meaning it.
We stand there for a long moment, just looking at each other in the dark. Eventually, she sighs. “But we probably shouldn’t do it again, right?”
“Probably.”
She didn’t say anything different than what the stupid voice in my head has been bleating at me for the last few minutes. They’re both right—my program doesn’t allow me to have a romantic relationship with someone I’m training. If I want to stay in my program, we definitely can’t do that again.
But when Cecelia smiles up at me and squeezes my hand before releasing it, I know that I am absolutely, one hundred percent fucked.
Because in that moment, I don’t care about my clinicals or all the years of work I put into my education.
I don’t care about the accelerated degree program or getting a good job.
If Cecelia Ransome wanted to kiss me again, I’d agree, no question.
So I guess I just have to hope that her willpower is stronger than mine.
“You’re being weird,” Emery tells me on Sunday afternoon.
“I’m always weird,” I shoot back, and Em glowers at me. She doesn’t like it when I’m self-deprecating.
“I mean, you’re being all quiet. Broody.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “A, we’re studying. We’re supposed to be quiet. And B, I’m always broody.”
“He is,” Jay agrees from the recliner where he’s sprawled, supposedly reading his Trig notes, his feet sticking out over the chair’s arms. “Quiet and broody is totally Sol’s thing.”
Em turns to glare at him. “Can you sit normally in a chair for five minutes? You’re not a toddler.”
“I’m comfortable,” he shoots back. “If you’re going to make me study for hours on end, I’m going to be comfortable.”
“No one is making you study,” I tell him. “We just said that we needed to study and you decided to join us.”
“Well, what else was I going to do?” he asks. “It’s boring when you’re both busy. You know I’m not good at entertaining myself.”
I look at Em over the piles of books and notebooks on my dining table. She rolls her eyes at me and I grin. It wouldn’t be a cozy Sunday if the Miller siblings weren’t arguing about something.
Jay manages to last another fifteen minutes before boredom gets a hold of him. “I like it better when we do our Sunday studying at The Daily Grind. At least they have food. I’m starving.”
“There’s an energy bar in my purse.”
Jay makes a gagging noise. “Those things taste like cardboard. And they have a bunch of like, seeds and stuff in them.”
“They’re healthy,” Em says, not lifting her head from the book in front of her.
Jay sighs. “You and your healthy shit.”
“We can’t all exist on a diet of Doritos and Mountain Dew, Jason.”
He groans. “Well now I want Doritos.”
“Then go get Doritos,” her voice is getting tight, the way it sounds when she’s annoyed—usually at Jay.
“Sol, can I take your car?”
“The last time I let you drive my car you left a half-eaten sucker on the console and I got ants,” I remind him.
He pretends he didn’t hear me. “Em, can I take your car?”
“No. Because the last time I let you drive my car, it got dented by a shopping cart.”
“That was not my fault.”
“You have two legs,” Em says. “You are perfectly capable of walking to the store.”
“It’s like, three miles away!”
Em slams her hand down on her book, apparently reaching her limit of patience. “It’s not even a half mile away. Either go and get your snacks or shut the hell up. Some of us have work to do.”
He grumbles something under his breath as he climbs out of the recliner, but I know he won’t actually challenge her now that she’s legit mad.
I’ve never met someone who enjoyed annoying his sister as much as Jay—but he’s also completely terrified of her.
His life is a constant balancing act of bugging her just enough to not get his ass kicked.
He moves slowly, putting on his shoes and pulling a hoodie over his head at a glacial pace, like he’s hoping one of us will feel bad and offer up our car. No one takes the bait and a few moments later, he’s dragged himself out the door.
As soon as he’s gone, Em surprises me by putting down her pen and folding her hands on top of her notebook. She fixes a serious gaze on me, and I shift in my seat, uncomfortable.
“What is this?” I gesture at her. “You look like you’re playing lawyer.”
“I want to talk to you.”
I shift again, already knowing I won’t like where this is going. “I figured you’d want to use this quiet time before he gets back to knock out some work.”
“Solomon.”
“Emery.”
She glares at me and I sigh, tossing my pen onto the table as well. “Do I need a beer for this conversation?”
“I don’t know,” she shoots back. “Do you?”
“Just say it,” I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck.
“I saw you at that party.”
I figured this is where she was going. She’s been making little quips about how I seemed off all day and watching me when she didn’t think I was looking.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” I say, trying to believe it myself. “It was one kiss.” Well, two, technically, but I’m not sure it really counted when she kissed me and I stood there like a statue because my mind was too blown to react.
“You kissed her?” Em shrieks. “When? Where?”
Well, shit. “Is that not what you referring to?”
“I was referring to the way you watched her like a sappy love sick puppy the entire night!” she cries. “I didn’t know you actually kissed her.”
“Em—”
“You know that’s a bad idea, right? Like, a terrible, terrible idea Sol.”
“I know,” I grit out, wishing I could argue with her, wishing I could tell her it was the best kiss of my life—maybe the best moment of my entire life—and there’s no way something that good could be a bad idea.
“You’re training her.”
“I know.”
“You could get kicked out of your program, Sol.”
“I know, Em.” I’m getting annoyed now. I really do not need this reminder. “We agreed nothing else is going to happen. It will be fine.”
She looks skeptical. “You actually think you can control yourself around this girl?”
Something about the way she says this girl has my hackles rising. “You don’t like her,” I say flatly. Not a question.
Em rolls her eyes. “I have no problem with CeCe Ransome—besides for the fact that she’s a soccer player and I am very familiar with the way they operate.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I don’t think Jenny cheated on you because she’s a soccer player. I think she cheated on you because she’s a heinous bit—”
“I just mean, that athletes at that level can be very single-minded. It’s all fun and games until they start missing dates because they’re too bogged down in practice and you end up sitting alone at Olive Garden on your anniversary.
” She stops her rant and takes a breath.
“That’s not even my point. I was trying to say that I have no problem with CeCe, but when I was dating Jenny, I did see her at plenty of parties and team events. ”
I make a get going motion with my hands. “And…”
“And I’ve never seen her with the same guy twice.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “That’s a problem?”
She’s looking even more annoyed now than she did with her brother earlier. Good. She deserves it for meddling.
“I don’t want you getting hurt because she doesn’t do commitment.”
I narrow my eyes. “You realize that you’re also describing me, right? When have I ever done commitment?”
My best friend just stares at me. “You would want to with her.”
I open my mouth to argue and then realize I have nothing to say, so I shut it again.
Em’s face softens. “You think I haven’t seen the way you look at her? It’s been two years of you watching her from a distance, Sol. And it’s only gotten worse since you started working with her.”
Yeah, I definitely don’t like this conversation at all.
“So you think I’m going to get in over my head and get my heart broken?
” The words taste as bitter as they sound.
It’s nothing different from what I’ve thought a million times.
It’s the entire freaking reason I never tried to approach Cecelia all this time despite having a crush on her since her freshman year.
Getting close to her will only end one way—with her moving on with her life while I’m left alone and hurting.
I’m not sure what Em reads on my face, but her expression shifts. I’m not always the best at reading this kind of thing, but it’s pretty obvious she looks sad.
“I just want you to be careful,” she says softly. “The program means so much to you.” Her face tightens. “And if the department finds out, you’re the one who’s going to bear the brunt of it. It’s not like they’re going to kick her out.”
She has a point there. No way does a likely future Olympian get punished over some nobody. And that’s not even taking into account that half the people in her family are incredibly famous.
“I know,” I mutter. “I know nothing can happen. I’ve got it under control, okay?”
I’m pretty sure she doesn’t believe me but whatever she sees on my face has her dropping the subject.
She simply reaches across the table and gives my hand a tight, hard squeeze.
I’m not always great with touch. Pressure is good, but anything gentle—especially when unexpected—makes my skin crawl.
And if there’s any one in this world who knows that about me, it’s Em and her brother.
Funny, it hadn’t bothered me at all to feel Cecelia’s soft, gentle fingers twined with mine right after we kissed.