Page 21

CHAPTER 21

ANYTHING CAN BE FOREPLAY IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING

EMORY

Obviously, temporary insanity is a very real thing. It's the only explanation for why I convinced Kayden to let his mom stay in his penthouse until Monday—which means I'm now staying in his penthouse until Monday. Five nights of sharing the same bedroom, all because I couldn't handle seeing him so small and lost in front of his mom.

And now he has me giving his mom a tour of a home I've never seen before.

"Emory will show you around," he announced as soon as we stepped off the elevator. "She just loves showing off our home."

The instant his mom's back was turned, I glowered at him, and he had the nerve to stick his tongue out at me.

He's lucky I'm glad to see his playful side return, otherwise, he'd find out I also love waxing people's eyebrows off while they sleep.

"And then in here, there's…" I pause as I open the door and turn on the lights. "A bed. Because this is guest bedroom number two." When Michelle walks in to look around, I spin to face Kayden, who's been trailing behind, smirking at me as I stumble my way room by room. Will you fucking take over now? I mouth to him. He just shakes his head and grins .

Unfortunately, before I get a chance to murder him, his mom turns around. "Kayden, Emory, this is so lovely. I'm so proud of you. What's the room across the hall?" She's asking Kayden, but of course, he just points at me.

"This room? Oh, this is the room I like to call… whoa."

The walls are lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There have to be a thousand books in here, and I can't resist tracing my fingers along their spines as I move through the room. It smells just like the used bookstore Dad used to take me to in Boulder.

"You can actually read?" I ask Kayden, forgetting for a moment that his mom is standing beside us. "Um, you can actually read these if you want, Michelle. Feel free. Our library is your library, as librarians probably say."

She beams up at Kayden. "My boy always did love reading. If he wasn't playing hockey, he had his nose buried in a book." Something flashes across Kayden's face. A quick pain that he masks as soon as it shows.

"So the rest of the apartment?" she asks.

"The rest of the penthouse is for me and my lover." I think he's trying to say it in a French accent, but he manages to mangle every syllable. "We'd like to keep that private, if you don't mind."

His mom chuckles as he leads her back to the living room, where she goes right to the wall of windows. "And this view!"

I can't disagree with her. From forty stories up, the glittering city lights spread out below us. The penthouse is gorgeous—a mix of vaulted ceilings and cozy spaces, with modern art hanging on nearly every wall. But none of it compares to this.

Kayden stands beside her, keeping a space between them even now. "The tallest building in the city has the best view," he says. "Wait until morning when you see the sunrise over the mountains. It's the second most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I love the way the reds and oranges erupt into fire."

He looks over his shoulder at me as he says it, and I roll my eyes. He's so good at pretending for other people .

"You two are adorable." Michelle beams.

"Also very tired," he says. "So I think my adorable girlfriend and I are going to bed. You should have everything you need in your bathroom. See you in the morning, Mom." He slips his fingers through mine and guides me toward his bedroom. I clamp down on his hand in hopes of at least drawing a wince, but he doesn't react.

Once the bedroom door is shut behind us, I shake my hand free of his. "Can't we just tell her the truth? Who would she tell? Also, you own the entire fortieth floor? Who owns an entire floor? And you have books? Why do you have books?"

His lips curl into a cocky grin as he takes a step closer. Too close for me to comfortably move around him, so I pin myself to the door. "Because I love to read. Hockey is my job, Emory. It's not my life."

I don't believe it. I remember how Seth was. Everything was about baseball. Even when we were together, it's all he talked about. And we were only in high school. Professional athletes must be so much worse.

"Don't I seem like the type of person to have a library?"

I study him. The way his jaw twitches just before his cocky grin grows into a full smile. The way his eyebrow lifts as he's questioning me. My legs go weak at our closeness—at the idea of being in the same bedroom as him. And when he flexes his biceps, they almost give out completely. It's obviously his power move, but why does it work so damn well on me?

"You're ignoring the real question," I say, trying to keep us both focused before I do something I'll regret. "Why can't you tell her the truth about us? She's your mom. She's not going to run to the team owners or the press."

His arm drops, and his eyes fix on mine for several breaths before he turns his back and walks to the bed. It's enormous, but there's no way it's big enough for us to share. It would need to be the size of a hockey rink for that.

"Because she seems so happy."

"Okay?" I move a few steps closer. But only so it's easier to talk to him. No other reason. "And she can still be happy for you after you tell her the truth."

"Not happy for me . Just happy." He shakes his head at the rug under his feet. "You don't know what it was like, Emory."

That same smallness creeps back, and I want to take his hand and tell him he's okay now. I want to drop to my knees, to force his eyes to meet mine so he understands that he's past all of that. But I don't. "You said she was like a husk?"

He sniffs. "After Dad left, she just sat all day, staring at her phone or the television. The first few weeks were nothing but crying. Then she just… disappeared. The panic attacks never went away, though."

When he stops to take a shaky breath, the pull becomes too much for me. I sit next to him on the bed and work my hand under his. He clings to it.

"She's been like that ever since. Sixteen years. But now she seems happy, and I can't be the reason she goes back to being a ghost." He finally looks up at me. Tears threaten to spill from his eyes, and I wish I could be the one to wipe them away.

"I'm sorry, Emory. About everything. Things spiraled way further than I ever thought they would. I know you never would have agreed to this if you knew what was going to happen."

The air in the room is suddenly too thick. My breaths are so loud, they're all I can hear.

I would still say yes.

Electricity starts between my shoulders and spreads as the realization dawns on me. Even knowing everything, he could ask me a thousand times, and I would say yes every single time. I try to find the courage to tell him, but all I can do is trace my thumb along the side of his hand and hope he understands.

But he doesn't. He slides his hand away from mine and walks to the closet on the other side of the room. "Don't worry. I'll sleep on the floor. You take the bed." His shoulders hang, and his eyes don't leave the rug beneath his feet as he takes a blanket from the closet and spreads it across the floor.

If his eyes met mine for even a second, I would tell him… I don't know what I would tell him, but I know it's safer for both of us to let this moment pass in silence. So I quietly unpack the overnight bag Lily stuffed and snuck over for me. Then I slide under the covers and turn off the light.

Neither of us makes a sound until exactly 3:42am. I've spent four hours in this enormous bed, staring at his alarm clock, and thinking about how much room there really is. He could be on the other side of the bed, and even if we both extended our arms, we probably wouldn't touch.

"Kayden?" I whisper, hoping he's asleep.

"Are you okay? Do you need something?"

So much for hope. "Come up here."

His silence says everything I need to know, and the weight of the blanket becomes crushing. Of course, he doesn't want to share this bed. What was I thinking? This is fake. I might be struggling to remember that, but he's obviously not. The only feeling he has for me is gratitude because I'm helping him.

"Are you sure?"

My heart hammers a staccato beat against my ribs. "Yes."

"I knew it!" The bed shakes almost instantly as he hops under the covers and slides close to me. "I mean, I can't blame you. It has to be hard to resist me. I expected you to cave after twenty minutes."

I clench my fist tight to my hip. I've never punched anyone, but I'm so close right now. "Are you serious? I didn't tell you to come up here for that! I felt bad that you're sleeping on the floor of your own bedroom. And really? Twenty minutes? That's what you think of me? When it comes to you, I can hold out forever."

"But you didn't hold out, did you? October fourth. Chloe's birthday."

I growl. "It was one time! The one and only time!"

There's just enough light for me to see the smile spread across his face. "It doesn't have to be just the one time. "

"Your mom is two rooms away, Kayden," I hiss at him. "If you can't behave, you're going right back onto the floor."

"Sleeping together for the next few days doesn't have to be a burden. We both enjoyed that time, Emory. We could enjoy this too."

I let out a frustrated breath. "I invited you up here because I felt sorry for you. Sympathy isn't foreplay."

"Anything can be foreplay if you know what you're doing."

"Why do you have to be like this?"

He cups the side of my face, and I know I should brush his arm aside.

"Why do you like it?" he asks.

"I don't."

"It doesn't sound apodictic when you say it. Maybe you have a little doubt after all."

"Do you have a thing for big words? You only used that one because it has dick in it, didn't you?"

His hand skims down my cheek until only the very tip of his finger hangs on to my bottom lip. "Right there in the very center. You know my words aren't the only thing big about me."

"You need to scoot at least four feet away from me and go to sleep in the next few minutes. Nothing is happening." I point between the two of us. "This isn't real."

"Are you telling me you haven't read at least a dozen books just like this? Two adults forced to share the same bed? Because I have."

But he moves to the other side of the bed, and it's so much colder without him beside me that even pulling the blanket to my chin doesn't replace his warmth.

"Books, Kayden. They're fake, just like this relationship. We're in the real world, and the real world is different. Go to sleep. That's what I'm going to do."

Or at least I try. Instead, I spend the next hour listening to his breaths slowly even out. Until I finally fall asleep too.