And a raccoon.
Beauford slinks from the darkness, his back curved like a rainbow, walking on quiet feet. He stares up at me.
“You don’t have rabies, do you, buddy?” I sure as fuck hope not, or Cody will never talk to me again.
Chapter
Three
Cody
Halfway home, I pull over. Goddammit. I left Ari with no key and an unlocked arena. Fuck. I don’t want to go back. How can I look at him ever again? What kind of grown adult flips out over a raccoon?
… being in his arms was a little too comfortable.
I lock the doors, turn the car off, and place my sweaty palms flat on my thighs, rubbing back and forth over the rough denim.
This is so fucking embarrassing. He’s going to regret ever liking me. At first, I thought he was fucking with me. I only asked Mom to give him the job because I’d feel awful if his family didn’t have a turkey. Mom only said yes because—bless her—she’s a meddling mother and she picked up on the fact that Ari might be into me.
Mom’s so intuitive that it’s annoying sometimes. I told her that he’s probably just doing it as a bet to entertain his asshole friends. There’s that, too. On the long list of why it would neverwork between us, how would I hang out with him and his friends?
But the more we worked together, the more I got to know him, and the more I wanted him. I see the way everyone looks at him. And not just because he’s gorgeous. Ari has magnetic charisma. Everyone wants him. I thought he knew it, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t get that when he’s behind the till, we rake in the tips, everyone ready to splash the cash to impress him.
When people look at him, I want to rip their eyes out. And yeah, I know. So inappropriate, considering I’ve told him no every single time he’s tried to ask me out.
But I’ve … I’ve … I’ve come to like that while everyone has eyes for him, he doesn’t have eyes for anyone but me. The more I push him away, the more he does to show me he’s serious about us.
Us.
I love the sound of us.
I’m not a game-playing asshole, either. I don’t like what I’m doing. But I’m so fucking scared. I’m terrified that saying yes will ruin all this. That he only likes what he sees on the surface, and once he gets to know who I am—with all my weird-ass quirks—he’ll run the other way. I’d never get over it.
Never.
This feeling in my chest, the one that must be what it’s like to have a fifty-pound anvil compressing your ribcage, threatening a life without breathing the same ever again, would be my life without Ari in it. Dammit, I could kill him for this. I didn’t know what falling in love felt like, never thought I’d get to know. Because of Ari, I do and now I know what it would be like without him.
Even with my narrow experience with relationships, I know that’s not healthy. Maybe love isn’t?
But his cologne is here, and it does things to my insides, melting them. It only took a few short moments in his arms for the scent to cling to me, follow me home. Ari’s not in the car, but he’s in the car.
My fingers find my lips, still puffy from his teeth. That kiss. It ruined me forever. I’ll never be the same again and I wouldn’t want to be. Fairytale kisses aren’t supposed to exist, but somehow, I got one.
Fuck. Ari gave me a magic kiss, and I abandoned him at the ice arena.
What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
Drive back and tell him how I feel? I don’t know if I’m ready.
You don’t have to decide tonight, Cody.
True, but I also can’t keep stringing Ari along. I have to put a time cap on this. It’s a week until Thanksgiving. He’ll have his turkey by then, and he won’t need the extra job. He already works full-time as an apprentice house painter.
He already works full-time, and he opted to work more, mopping dirty floors just to be with you.
Fuck, yeah, okay. I’ve got to either commit or stop sending signals. Chasing off the people who ask for his number is definitely a particular kind of signal.
Mine.
