She meets my eyes. “You think?”
“I know. Maverick loved you.”
“Oh.” Her lips round into a little O shape, a sigh slipping through. “That’ll be cool.”
I can’t get a read on her. A frown furls between my brows as I try to connect the puzzle pieces that make up her blank expression. “You weren’t feeling it?”
“I was. I am. I just…” She licks her lips, the words disintegrating into the smoke. “I don’t know.”
Turning toward her, I wedge my shoulder against the wall, the frown deepening. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
A hesitant flick of her eyes. “I’m not really sure what I’m thinking. I guess I’m just in my head a little.”
“About what?”
“Everything. The stuff you confided in me, the responsibility andexpectation that come with landing a movie role, this whole way of life, so different from…everything.” She swallows, glancing away, looking unsure. “I’m kind of terrified.”
Shit.
I filled her head with toxic thoughts. Anxiety and fear. I’ve made assumptions that just because something terrible happened to me, it’ll happen to her too. And she believes it.
More guilt soars to the surface as I watch her stare down at the cracked cement, her left knee spasming slightly as she digs the toe of her boot into a weed-laden divot. “Nicks.”
She forces a smile. “It’s fine. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful. I am. Truly, this has been so eye-opening, all of it, and I know not everyone is so lucky to have—”
I drape an arm around her shoulders and crush her to me.
I don’t even think it through.
One moment, we’re two feet apart, and the next, she’s tucked inside both of my arms, her cheek landing at the center of my chest. Her breath stalls out, her whole body freezing against me. But I can’t take it back. This hug. So I tighten my arms around her, cupping the crown of her head in my palm and holding her as her breathing turns shallow and undefined.
She’s warm. Warm and soft. I think I’ve craved this contact, this genuine layer of intimacy, away from the cameras and noise. I should say something to quell her nerves, to erase the telltale fear tilting her dreams on their axis, but I can’t scrounge up any words.
All I do is hold her.
A few wordless seconds pass before she deflates, relaxing into the hug, a burst of hot breath releasing against my burgundy Henley. The fabric is thin, absorbing her body heat, along with the little croak she makes when she nuzzles closer. Her hands lift, landing on my hips. Curious, slack fingers draw patterns on my black belt before her arms extend, encircling my waist.
My eyes flutter closed.
The cigarette goes limp inside my mouth, nearly tumbling to the pavement, so I secure it between my teeth and inhale a tight drag that makes my brain spinout. I swallow, instinct lowering my cheek to the top of her head, needing to feel more. Every inch of her. My fingers graze along her scalp, tangling in strands of thick hair, her floral shampoo weakening me. I feel her heart thumping, and I hear mine, a ricochet of ill-timed beats.
Stevie lolls against me, her face angling as she inhales the musky cologne steeped in my shirt. She shivers. Her fingers tighten at my lower back, digging, pulling me closer, her lips parting with another whimper-like sound. The growing contact has my body misfiring, caught in the labyrinth of friendship, make-believe, and attraction.
A surge of heat races south, making me hard.
Fuck.
I want to kiss her, finally take what she’d been desperate to give me at that house party. I think about that night all the time, wondering if I hadn’t been so fucked up, if she would have given herself to me on that bed. Or we would have driven back to her place, under different circumstances, and spilled across the sheets in her bedroom, twisted and tangled in her teal-blue covers, two young lovers on the precipice of a new beginning.
We could have been each other’s firsts.
But I broke her. Left her stranded and confused. Abandoned her without a reason.
And she gave that moment to someone else.
My grip on her tightens. I inhale another drag, nearly choking on cigarette fumes as my hand dips lower, to the small of her back.
Stevie inches away from my chest, finding my eyes. My hand moves with her, my palm sliding against her cheek, cupping her jaw. I pull the cigarette from my mouth, tossing it to the pavement, crushing it beneath my boot. But before the moment can twist into something else, she pulls back farther, dousing me in ice water.
