You're to Blame(41)

I set up again and hurl the ball down the lane, only for it to slip by without grazing one of the pins. Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.

“Better luck next time.” He kisses the side of my head as he passes. His eyes widen, mirroring my own, but neither of us say anything. The sweet contact causes my heart to stutter and catches me off guard. The idea behind the kiss is friendly, but the intent is much heavier.

I sit down behind the score screen, and Duke rolls a strike. He cheers, raising his arms in the air, and spins to me for equal enthusiasm, his lower abs exposed and a grin on his lips a mile wide.

“Did you just see that?” He plops down next to me.

I slump down in the seat, and the lanes blur in front of me. “Yeah, I saw.”

“Char, you’re up.”

“Why did you do that?” The better question is why did I like it so much?

“Do what?” He shakes his head as if I’ve confused him.

“You just kissed my temple. You text me to say goodnight. We flirt, but that... that was something entirely different. It was intimate.” Please don’t stop doing these things. As confusing as they are, they make me happy.

Duke stalls, scanning through the settings on the screen before slumping back into his seat.

“Remember when I said how easy it is to be around you?” Duke drums his ring on the plastic surrounding the screen. “Like impossibly easy.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“It is when I’m me, and you’re you.” He raises his brow, challenging me to contradict his words.

I can’t though. He’s completely right. Duke and I are impossibly easy, and our simple connection makes everything much more difficult.

We don’t mention it the rest of the game. Actually, we don’t mention anything. Instead, we watch every move the other makes without exchanging a single word.

“Is there any way you could drop me off at the hospital?” I ask Duke when he pulls into traffic.

He clutches the steering wheel, strangling the leather under his grip.

“Yeah, sure thing.” He shakes his head, a distant look in his eyes.

The parking lot is no more packed than any other hospital in America. Emergencies. Trauma. It’s the way of my world these days.

“Thank you for today, Duke.” I swivel in my seat. “It was exactly what I needed.”

He smiles. “Tell Jacob I said hey.” With a shift of his spine, he no longer looks at me, and I instantly miss his eyes.

I shut the door of his truck and wave as he drives off, catching him peeking at me in the rearview mirror.

The nurses say hello as I pass with slow, calculated steps and uncertain feelings.

“Hey, Jacob,” I whisper when I enter the room. The lights are dim, and the television makes quiet noise in the background. The whir of machinery rings deep in my ears, a sound I’m growing too accustomed to.

“Looks like someone didn’t want you to be alone.” I click the power button, and the screen turns black.

“These one-sided conversations are becoming weird.” I reach out for his hand. Lifeless but warm. “We’ve failed each other. You’re all I’ve ever known, Jacob. You were my own slice of Heaven.”

The only problem is Heaven brings happiness. It’s shiny lights and cloudless days. Everything anyone could ever want. Sometimes, when you get past all the euphoria, you catch a glimpse of hell wrapped in tattoos, darkness, and torture. The kind of torture that kisses you on the temple to remind you it’s there, waiting.





Chapter Twelve





Duke


I slip in line behind Charlotte at the campus coffee shop. She senses someone, so she glances over her shoulder and does a double take.

“Hey.” Her eyes are wild and unsure. The barista drags her attention away, and she orders her coffee. Decaf, black. Her coffee order is imbedded into my mind.

Charlotte steps off to the side and blows on the lid of her coffee.

The girl behind the counter smiles when her eyes pass to me in line. I step up and order my black coffee. The way the girl pulls her hair behind her ear, tossing it over her shoulder in a display of catching my attention is obvious. It may have worked for me in the past. Not when Charlotte is standing beside me with that damn stirring straw in her mouth. It’s not even in her coffee cup, so why does she have it?

“Thank you,” I say to the barista, taking the coffee. I grab a sleeve and eye her name and number scribbled on my drink.

Charlotte flicks the cup. “Dolly, huh?” A sarcastic laugh waits on her tongue.

“Seems so.” I shrug. A barista scribbling her name and number on my cup is a normal occurrence. “What brings you to campus?”

“Finishing up some last-minute questions for my interview on Sunday,” Charlotte explains. “What about you?”

At the mention of her interview, my mind goes blank. Since my visit to the warehouse, I haven’t had another run in with Ari.

Everything Jacob and Ari related has been quiet. I’ve managed to keep my hands clean of the whole mess. Lydia put the whole thing into perspective. When I mentioned maybe paying him another visit, she made it clear Ari would take it as a threat and lash out even more. My biggest worry is once Charlotte waltzes through his office doors, he’ll have no choice but to make a move.