Chapter 4 #2
Damn, the kid could work for the secret service. He knew how to pin someone down with questions. “Yes. Like your mama said, we were best friends.”
“Why didn’t you stay friends?”
He swallowed hard. “Because I moved away.” Needing to get off this line of questioning, he glanced at the book. “So what dinosaur is your favorite? T-rex?”
Camden rolled his eyes. “T-rexes are clumsy, stupid oafs compared to raptors. Did you know the first Pyroraptor was discovered in France and nicknamed the Fire Thief? And the Utahraptor, which is the largest raptor discovered so far, can grow to over twenty feet long.”
Huck wasn’t sure why Camden sprouting facts about raptors made his chest swell with pride. “You know a lot about raptors. My favorite is the Velociraptor.”
“Yeah, everyone likes those because of Jurassic Park. Have you seen the movies?” When Huck nodded, Camden rushed on excitedly. “What ones?”
“All of them.”
“Lucky!” Camden shot an annoyed look at Cadee.
“I wish I could see them, but my mama thinks they’ll give me nightmares.
She still thinks I’m some kind of a baby.
But I’ll be eight years old in just a few days.
” Huck was stunned that he didn’t even know his own kid’s birthday. He started to ask when Cadee cut in.
“Sorry, buddy. Maybe when you’re nine, I’ll let you watch the Jurassic Park series.”
Huck looked at Cadee. “But we watched the first movie at my house when we were seven.”
He realized his mistake when her eyes widened and Camden jumped up from the beanbag like he had a spring in his butt. “What? You saw Jurassic Park at seven and I can’t see it until I’m nine? That’s so unfair!”
Cadee shot Huck a glare before returning her attention to Camden. “And I had nightmares for weeks afterward.”
Huck stared at her. “You did? Then why did you watch the second one with me?”
“You got to watch two of them!” Camden bellowed.
Between Camden’s reaction and Cadee’s death glare, Huck realized he’d screwed up badly. The last thing he’d wanted to do today was piss off Camden and Cadee. But she looked like she wanted to kill him and Camden looked like he was about to drop to the floor and throw a major fit.
Huck quickly tried to fix things.
“Now hold up there, buddy. Getting to watch some stupid movie about dinosaurs is not a big deal. To be honest, the first one is the only one worth seeing. The rest suck. And if you’d quit acting like a spoiled brat when you don’t get your way, maybe you’d get your way more often.”
He thought it was a pretty damn good speech.
Camden didn’t agree.
“I’m not a spoiled brat, you dipshit! And I’m sure as hell not your buddy!” He threw the book down and raced off.
Huck turned to Cadee for help, but she still looked pissed.
“He’s not a spoiled brat. He’s just a child who found out his mom got to do something as a kid she won’t let him do. Thanks to you.”
“I’m sorry, but how was I to know that was going to upset him?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Because it would upset any kid and most adults know that.”
He thought he’d been hurt when Camden had called him a dipshit, but it was nothing compared to how hurt he felt now. Cadee had always been his cheerleader. The one who built his ego up when his mama had done something to tear it down.
But not anymore.
What hurt even more was that she was right. He hadn’t acted like an adult. He’d acted like an immature idiot by jumping into something he had no business jumping into—all because he’d wanted to gain favor with Camden. It had certainly backfired.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right and so is Camden. I’m an immature dipshit who knows nothing about kids.” He swallowed hard and said the words that needed to be said. “I’ll stay away from him.”
He turned and walked away, but he didn’t even make it to the stairs before she grabbed his arm and dragged him around a bookcase to one of Time To Read’s many secluded reading nooks.
As soon as she released his arm, she placed her hands on his chest and shoved him back against a shelf of books. Her blue eyes snapped with fire.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to give up and walk away?”
Talk about being confused.
“Wait a second, you didn’t want me to meet Camden and now you’re mad because I’m backing off?”
“Yes! You didn’t know him before, but now that you’ve seen what a great kid he is, it pisses me off that you can just walk away.”
“But that’s why I’m walking away. I don’t want to screw up such a great kid. And there’s little doubt after what happened today, that I’ll screw things up.”
The anger faded from her eyes, and she lowered her hands from his chest. “You didn’t screw anything up. Camden will get over it. That’s what kids do. They throw fits and then two seconds later they’re over it and want to go get ice cream.”
“I don’t think Camden will ever want me to take him for ice cream.”
“Because he doesn’t know you, Huck. It took you and me awhile before we gelled. I thought you were just another stupid boy when I first met you.”
“No, you didn’t. From the first day we met in kindergarten, you followed me around the playground like a mama cat with her kitten.”
“I did not!”
“You most certainly did. You even spit in my hair.”
“I did not spit in your hair. I spit in my hand and then smoothed down your hair because I didn’t want the kids calling you Alfalfa.”
“You were the one who called me Alfalfa.”
She glanced up at the top of his head. “Because that wayward piece of hair has a mind of its own.”
His breath hitched in his chest when she reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. It was like she’d walked across carpet in her socks before touching him. A current of electricity ran through him and every cell in his body arched.
Time stopped.
Or maybe reversed.
He was five again and standing on the playground looking into the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Then he was eighteen, woozy from the pain in her eyes and teenage hormones . . . feeling things he had no business feeling but couldn’t seem to stop.
Those same feelings welled up now. If it had just been desire, he could have ignored it. But mixed with the raw lust that clawed at his gut like a raptor was something much stronger. And much more dangerous.
There was no way to ignore it.
There never had been.
His hands lifted without any prompting from his brain and settled on her hips, his palms and fingers gauging the differences of this woman from the girl he’d left behind.
He hesitated a second, waiting for Cadee to stop this craziness. But when her gaze met his, her eyes held no sign of resistance. And the fingers in his hair tightened as if he might try to escape.
But there was no escaping Cadee.
He’d learned that the hard way.
“Cadee.” Her name came off his lips like both a curse and a prayer as he lowered his head.
But before he could get more than a sweet sip of her soft lips, every clock in the bookstore started chiming, donging, and chirping.
Still, he refused to let her go . . . until she fisted his hair and tugged hard.
“Oww!” He drew back and grabbed his head. They stood there staring at each other and breathing like they’d just finished an all-out sprint before her eyes widened.
“Shit. Cam’s soccer game!” She shoved past him and disappeared around the bookcase. “Cam! Come on! We’re late!”
Once he heard them going down the stairs, Camden grumbling about how he didn’t want to go to soccer practice, Huck’s knees gave out and he wilted down into an overstuffed chair.
He’d learned two things today.
One, he sucked with kids.
And two, no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t over Cadee Stockton.