Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits #1.5)(75)

“Tilt-a-whirl, Guess Your Weight, cotton candy and hot dog purging, Traumatized Goldfish Games. Carnie sideshow.”

“It’s not a carnie sideshow, but there’d be a ton less pressure on me if it was.” She gets lost in the painting again.

I walk over, rest on the bed beside her and slide my fingers along the nape of her neck. “Jesus, Echo. You’re cement blocks.”

Echo waggles her eyebrows. “Are you going to rub the tension away?”

Any room I had before in my pants vanishes. She means the tension in her neck. In her neck alone. I cup both hands over her shoulders and begin to knead out the knots. I love how she dips her head forward, and her muscles melt under my touch.

A soft moan leaves her lips, and screw me, that sound vibrates to my toes. I clear my throat. “Denver’s a good thing, then?”

Any ground I’d gained with her muscles I lost with the question, but I keep massaging her shoulders. It’s not a sacrifice to have an excuse to touch her smooth skin.

“It’s a good thing,” she replies. “He wants to put up the sketches I did of your hands.”

My fingers still. “My hands?”

“Uh...yeah... I...um...” Heat radiates from her neck, and red splotches develop. “Sometimes, after we made out and stuff, you’d fall asleep, and I’d sketch your hands because...well...” The blush spreads from her neck to her face. “I...uh...liked how you touched me so I wanted to draw your hands.”

When Echo used to draw, I saw the picture on the paper. Being with her this summer, seeing her create, experiencing the same day together, I understand now that there’s a meaning in what she chooses to draw. Echo wasn’t drawing my hands, she was drawing us.

“You can draw my hands anytime you want.” A surge of pride wells deep within me. Unable to contain it, I let the hands in question glide down her arms. I press my lips to the spot below her ear, and she leans back into me.

My hands sneak around her waist, and she links our fingers together. I pull her tight to me, and Echo admires the canvas again.

“When’s the art show?” I ask.

“The end of next week.”

Next week. Thursday or Friday. The time we need to leave so I can attend Jacob’s last game. My teeth click together.

“If he puts my work in the show, I’d like to be there,” she says quietly.

I’d miss my brother play ball. He asked me to come. I told him I’d try. “I don’t know.”

“I know.” Echo slips away. “You don’t have to decide now. He was sort of speaking gibberish by the end of the conversation, so I have no idea if it’s going to happen.”

Guilt eats at me over how casual she’s behaving. This is important to her, but part of me is ready to head home. It’s time for us to go back to our real life and figure us out there. It’ll be easier when we go home. Much easier. That is if Echo wants to return home with me.

She releases my hand and turns to face me. “If my work is displayed in the show...what if I stay and you go home?”

My eyes flash to hers. “Leave without you?”

She shrugs and immediately casts her gaze down at her lap. “It’s not like you enjoy the shows anyhow, and I know you’re ready to go home and see your brothers, and we’ll be okay away from each other, right? Like we’re okay if we don’t see each other every day?”

“Are you asking for time away from me?”

“No! I’m saying there are things that are important to you, and there are things that are important to me, and we’ll be okay together if we pursue them separately, right?”

It’s happening. What Mia said, what Hunter said, all of my fears...Echo’s moving forward...without me.

“Noah...” Her head falls back, and she stares at the ceiling like she’s saying a silent prayer. “Hunter asked me to study with him here in Colorado...for the year...and I might want to do it, and I was wondering what you thought?”

I think someone slashed me open with a rusty blade, and I strive for numb. Why did I decide to feel again? I was good at numb. I survived well on numb.

Echo’s eyes plead with me as she waits for an answer.

Stay with me.

Not here.

Not with him.

With me.

That’s my answer. My fingers twitch with the need to grab her, shake her, tell her that she’s killing me with this, but I don’t. I made her a promise. A promise that I’d take care of what she had given to me.

“It shouldn’t matter what I think. You’ve got to make this decision, and you’ve got to make it without worrying about me or your dad or your mom or even Hunter.”

Her eyebrows pull together. “You still want me, right? I mean...if I do this, we’ll still be together? Because we have to work. I want us to work.”

Long distance. Thousands of miles. Echo in an art studio where she belongs and me back flipping burgers. I drop my head, and my hands dig into my hair. “All I want is for you to be happy.”

She sniffs, and her voice cracks, the sound pushing a knife through me. “What if I chose Colorado...do you think that...maybe you could...come with me?”

I’m bleeding out. “I just got my brothers back.” And I have a shot at college. A chance at being something more...the more Echo deserves.