Unfinished Ex (Calloway Brothers, #2)(95)

“Way too close,” he says. He stands, picks up the blanket, and hauls me onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before heading for cover.

I laugh as he walks us to the dugout, the rain coming down heavier now, soaking my rear end.

But I don’t care. I love being this close to him. It makes my body tingle in places I’ve only read about in Mom’s romance novels.

He descends the three steps and sets me down next to the bench along the back wall. He pounds on the wooden structure. “Good thing this isn’t made of metal, or we’d be toast.”

“Actually, that’s a myth. The presence of metal makes absolutely no difference in where lightning strikes. Height, pointy shapes, and isolated structures are the dominant factors.”

He spreads the blanket on the bench, and we sit, dim streetlights from the distant parking lot providing just enough light for us to see. “How do you know so much about this stuff?”

I shrug, embarrassed about my geeky tendencies. “I watch The Weather Channel a lot. And I read books about meteorology.”

“Really?”

I draw in a breath, ready to reveal something I’ve never told him before. “I know it’s stupid, but I think I want to be a meteorologist.”

He pulls back. “How have we been together almost a year and I didn’t know this about you?”

I lean against the wall. “I guess I didn’t want you seeing me as a science nerd.”

His hand covers mine. “Nicky, I’d never think that. In fact, I think it’s great that you know what you want to do at fourteen. I do, too.”

“You do?”

“I want to be a teacher. In fact, I want to teach right here at CCHS.”

His revelation doesn’t surprise me. Jaxon gets along with everyone—well, except the McQuaids. He’s patient. Smart. Empathetic. I cuddle next to him. “I think you’d make a great teacher.”

“I think you’d make a great weather girl.”

“They aren’t called that anymore, especially if they have a degree. They’re called weather forecasters. Or just meteorologists.”

He wraps his arm around me. “My girlfriend is so cool.”

I can’t help my smile. Every time he calls me his girlfriend, I’m reminded of how lucky I am to be dating the nicest guy in Calloway Creek. “You think it’s cool that I want to study the weather?”

“I think the probability of us ever getting struck by lightning just went way down,” he jokes.

He squeezes me. “And yes, it’s very cool. Now how about we stop talking about sciency stuff and start making out again?”

Butterflies dance inside me. We’ve never done much more than make out and roam each other on top of our clothes, but the way he makes me feel with just those innocent moments makes me wonder what he could do to me when we take it further. And I know, right here, right now, that he’s the one I want to go there with. He’s the one I want to do everything with.

As if he can sense what I’m thinking, he looks into my eyes. His lips inch closer to mine. Just before his mouth lands on me, he stops and declares, “I’ll never have another girlfriend, Nicky.

You’re the one for me.”

And as his kiss detonates me, I know that someday, I want to marry Jaxon Calloway.

By the time three a.m. rolls around, my regret has turned into a sense of emptiness, and not just because Jaxon is gone. I fear I may have made a huge mistake. But it’s one I can’t take back.

Yesterday, I saw Neil Pittman roaming the halls with Barry. Neil is the meteorologist for an NBC

affiliate in New Jersey. And Barry looked happy. Barry’s never happy.

I sip my coffee knowing I blew it to the extreme.

When I walk up to the XTN building before dawn, I find a familiar face in the lobby. Instantly, he’s in my arms. “Marty!”

“I’ve missed you,” he says. He pulls back and studies me. “As someone who hasn’t seen you up close in almost four months, I can say you are dangerously close to being found out. Your face is rounder, not to mention the bump that was just squished between us.”

“I know. We were supposed to tell everyone last night, but then…”

“I know what happened.”

I narrow my eyes, confused. “Did Makenna Kendall call you?”

“Jaxon Calloway did.”

“Jaxon? Why did he call you?”

“Maybe he thought I was the only one who could talk sense into you. He wanted me to beg you to come back to WRKT.”

“But that’s so far away. Why would he want that?”

“I kind of get the feeling that man would do anything to make you happy. Even if it means having you fifteen hundred miles away. Nicky, people like you, type A-ers who need to work like other people need to breathe, you’ll never be happy unless you’re going eighty miles per hour, wind in your hair. Jaxon gets that. And I have to tell you, not a lot of men would.”

I nod, knowing how badly I screwed up. “Can you come up and stay for the broadcast?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Clarice catches me on the way to my dressing room. “A word?”

I direct her inside and introduce her to Marty. “You can speak freely. He knows.”