Blind Side(64)

Right next to me.

His body heat enveloped me as his thigh pressed against mine. “It’s fucking brutal out here today, eh?” He shook his head, looking over the pond before his eyes flashed down to where my hands were clasped in my lap. “Jesus, you don’t have gloves on?”

Before I could respond — to any of his greetings — he pulled his glove-covered hands from his pockets and reached for me, pulling my hands into his.

He smoothed the warm fabric over my icy digits, and then, carefully, he pulled my hands up toward his mouth, blowing hot breath on them before he rubbed them between his palms once more.

And I must have been about to start my period because my eyes flooded with tears when he did.

“Hey,” he said, frowning, his grip tightening on my hands. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth in an attempt to keep my shit together as I stared down at our hands, vision blurring and fogging up my glasses. Just a few weeks ago, I would have had a stomach full of butterflies seeing that, feeling him holding me in such an intimate manner.

But now, all I could do was think of another pair of hands, larger and rougher and so familiar with me now that they felt like my own.

“Come here,” Shawn said when I didn’t answer, and he tucked me under his arm, wrapping me in a warm embrace and shielding me from the wind. He was quiet for a long while before he finally asked, “It’s Clay, isn’t it?”

I buried my face in his chest more, heart squeezing just from the sound of his name.

Shawn let out a long, slow breath, and for the longest time, he just held me, his hands smoothing over my arms to warm me through my jacket that was doing a poor job. After a while, he gently pulled back, still holding me but waiting until I lifted my gaze to meet his.

“I hate to leave you like this, but I’m playing at the coffee shop. My set starts in twenty minutes. Do you want to come?”

I shook my head immediately, but couldn’t find the word to tell him I wasn’t up for anything right now, least of all a crowded café.

He nodded in understanding. “Look, I don’t want to overstep, Giana, but… do you think…” He paused, swallowing. “Could we maybe hang out Friday night?”

I blanched. “What?”

“Is that all I had to do to get you to speak? Ask you on a date?” Shawn smirked.

I couldn’t help the genuine chuckle that left me then, and I wiped the wrist of my jacket against my nose. “I have a boyfriend,” I reminded him, though my conviction was weak.

“To be honest?” Shawn dipped his gaze until I was looking at him again. “I don’t care. Not when he treats you like this.”

My brows bent inward, heart squeezing in my chest at the insinuation that Clay treated me any way but with respect. But this was the picture we’d painted for Shawn, that Clay was a cocky athlete, that he neglected me, that I couldn’t see that I deserved better.

This had been the plan for me.

While we’d played the game to get Maliyah back in his life, we’d also weaved the perfect story to get Shawn in mine.

And both had worked.

This was what I’d wanted. This was what Clay had offered to help with, what I’d asked him to prepare me for in more ways than he originally signed up for.

Shawn Stetson was asking me out.

So why was my throat shutting down at the thought of saying yes?

“Hey, I’ll behave,” he promised, smiling when he saw the worry in my eyes. “Just friends. We can hang out as just friends, right?”

I let out a long breath. “I don’t see why not.”

His smile widened. “Great. I actually have a Friday night without a gig for once. What do you say we keep it low key… you come over to my place? We can talk, get to know each other, maybe watch a movie?”

My cheeks warmed with that last part, because we all knew what watch a movie meant in college.

But this was what I’d been planning for, what I so painstakingly wished for. Even now, the thought of Shawn leaning in to close what little distance was still between us, the idea of him kissing me? It was intoxicating.

Maybe I was just reading too much into everything with Clay. Maybe I’d let my feelings get caught up in something we both agreed to keep feelings out of.

Everything we’d done, it was all fake.

The public appearances, the hand holding, the kissing, even the nights he’d shown me how to please myself, how to please him… it had all been a ruse.

Clay had Maliyah now. He’d proven Friday night when he’d walked away from me that that was what he wanted.

He wasn’t caught up in feelings for me.

I was a fool to stay tangled up in mine for him.

“I’d love that,” I finally answered, holding my chin higher. “I really would.”

And just like that, I had a date with Shawn Stetson.





Clay



I looked like an absolute idiot as I walked across campus, the bouquet of flowers in my hand blowing precariously in the wind. More and more petals blew off and joined the decaying leaves rapidly covering the grass, and try as I did, I couldn’t shield them enough to save them.

“Giana, I know I don’t deserve it, but I want to explain why I left Friday night,” I mumbled to myself, reciting the words I’d planned out in my head. “It wasn’t because I didn’t want you. Trust me,” I breathed. “I wanted you so fucking badly I could barely breathe when I left.”