Fumbled (Playbook #2)(56)

“So I checked my light after I got the card and the lightbulb’s gone.” I rush the words out, hoping TK understands because I’m not saying it again. “I think whoever brought the flowers took it.”

This time, TK doesn’t get red or tense up like he wants to punch something . . . or someone. No. This time he goes ghost white and takes a step back like someone punched him.

And let me tell you, this scares me more than the note ever did.

“Are you okay? Do you need water?” I grab his hand and walk him to my couch.

“Am I okay?” He looks at me with wide eyes. “You were walking home alone to your empty house where someone not only knows where you live but left you a note and tampered with one of the few safety measures you have. What if this person was waiting on the side of your house? They could’ve pushed you inside and nobody would’ve known. Fuck!” he shouts, now looking like he wants to punch something. “What if Ace was here?”

“I know,” I tell him. Because I do know. It was just one of about fifty worst-case scenarios playing on a continuous loop in my head.

“So not am I okay . . . are you okay?”

I try to avoid looking at him. I try to internalize everything, not wanting to look weak. Not wanting to feel scared.

But then TK does what he used to do when we were kids. What he would do when I’d get in another fight with my mom over whatever she decided to fight with me about that day. He pulls me into his chest, one arm drawing circles on my back, the other hand tangled in my curls, his fingertips massaging my scalp, and says nothing. No more questions. No expectations. Just the simple comfort that comes with silence and his hands on me.

“I’m freaking the hell out,” I whisper, my voice so hoarse from unshed tears I almost don’t recognize it myself.

TK says nothing. His fingers tense against my back, but the circles he’s drawing on my back don’t stop. Maybe he’s waiting for me to say more and maybe there’s more I should tell him, but those five words have drained me.

I zone out. Loving the silence and the calm that can exist only in moments like this one, when time comes to a standstill. Everything that happened tonight, hell, everything that’s happened the last ten years, fades away.

TK speaks first, probably because he knows if he doesn’t, we’ll be here all night. “You should go get some sleep, I’m going to go—”

“You’re leaving already?” My back goes straight and my entire body tenses. I do a horrible job of disguising the panic, but to be fair, I wasn’t trying to.

“No, you didn’t let me finish. I was going to say I’m going to go throw away the flowers.” TK takes a step back but never stops touching me. “Do you think after what went down tonight, I’d leave you?”

If I didn’t know him so well, I’d think he was fine. He looks fine, his facial features carefully schooled into a mask of impassiveness. But the whiskers on the left side of his beard move just enough that I know his jaw ticked three times—not once, not twice, but three times—and he is either annoyed, insulted, or both.

“I mean . . .” I pause, trying to find the right words to explain. It’s not that I thought he’d leave, I just didn’t know if he’d stay. But that doesn’t make sense in my own brain, so I know it won’t make sense to him. “Ace isn’t here and we haven’t spent this much time together alone in a long time. I just . . . I wasn’t sure.”

“Well, be sure.” He drops his hands from my back and links our fingers together. “Because I’m here to stay.”

Butterflies flood my stomach, and I bite the inside of my cheek to prevent my smile from overtaking my entire face.

Because I know he’s not just talking about one night.





Twenty-four




“I like your room.” TK’s standing next to my bed, taking off his clothes, and I’m in bed, fully clothed, trying not to stare.

“You haven’t seen it yet?” I focus on each word leaving my lips, making sure I don’t accidentally ask if I can lick him or something else equally inappropriate.

“Nope. You banned me to the living room. Ace took pity on me, though, and let me sleep on his trundle.”

My eyes go wide and I pull my lips between my teeth. “You slept on his trundle?” I ask, unable to hold back my laughter. TK sleeping on Ace’s tiny little trundle is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.

Ace’s trundle is broken. It gets stuck halfway under his bed and leaves half a twin bed to sleep on. I can’t even sleep on the thing!

He turns to me, his eyes sparkling, no doubt understanding why I’m so tickled by this discovery. “Yeah, I lasted until I heard him snore and then snuck to the couch. Which, by the way, how does a kid that small snore so loud? I don’t understand how it’s possible.”

“Oh my god! He is the loudest snorer ever! It’s why I kicked him out of my room when he was five. Between him sleeping sideways and snoring like a freight train, I got no sleep.” I throw back my head, laughing so hard I have to wipe my cheeks for a few tears. “I looked like a zombie. I went through so much concealer, I had a secret stash hidden under my bed.”

Then the laughter stops as fast as it came when a sensation I’ve never felt in this bed happens. The other side—the empty side—of my bed dips.