Page 4

CODY

“ P lum.” I kissed a line down her neck to her shoulder and hooked my finger beneath the strap of her tank top. “I missed you,” I whispered against her warm skin. “Where have you been?”

“I’m always right here.” She shivered beneath my touch as her hands cupped my face and brought us together. The kiss was languid and filled with heat as her tongue slipped into my mouth and my hands tangled into her dark brown hair.

“You’re only here when I close my eyes.” I kissed the corners of her mouth and ran a hand down her back to her ass, grabbing as much of her as I could and tugging her up to straddle my legs with her own.

I wanted to stay there forever, staring into her dark brown eyes. I could die there and know true happiness. I brushed a thumb over her round jaw, plump bottom lip, and across her rosy cheek, taking in every delicate, goddess-like feature she bore.

“Your eyes are wide open, silly.” She smiled at me, her shoulders bouncing as she giggled.

Her dark hair draped across the dark purple lace bra she wore and tickled my skin as she leaned down. She rolled her hands over my chest and kissed a crooked line across my skin, sucking and nibbling on my neck. Heat pooled in my stomach, but the icy feeling of distance sparked at my fingertips, and I knew she was slipping away.

“You’re too far away,” I groaned as she leaned away from my touch. “Don’t go,” I whined as she rolled over into the darkness.

“Kitten.” Arlo’s sneaker dug into my ribcage and I clawed at him in the hazy light of sunrise.

“This is a nightmare. You’re supposed to be in Dallas.” I rolled over.

“That was two days ago, Cael,” Arlo snapped. “Let’s go for a run.”

“No, Asshole.” I pulled the pillow over my face. “You ruined a really good dream and, for that, I hate your guts and will not be partaking in your five a.m. torture session you describe as a run!”

My body was still sore from the day before with Silas, and the therapy, though doing its job to rehabilitate my shoulder, was exhausting and frankly dull. Silas had been slowly taking over my sessions from Ella because, according to Grandpa, together we never got anything done. That was just a lie. That fun vampire wouldn’t understand enjoyment if it slapped him in the face.

“I got news,” he said, and I peeked out from behind the pillow to see him standing awkwardly beside my bed with his hands in the pockets of his black hoodie. “Ten minutes. Outside . Don’t make me come back up here.”

He left my room, and I rolled back into the pillow, inhaling the lavender scent as deeply as possible before straightening my arms and pushing from the bed. I tugged a sweater on to block out the cold air and laced up my sneakers with one eye open.

“Have you seen—” Arlo handed my baseball cap to me as I bounded down the stairs of the Nest toward him.

“Cool,” I flipped it up and over my overgrown hair. “I still hate you.” I looked him up and down. “But curiosity will always kill this cat.”

“I’m pretty sure you have more lives than any cat I’ve ever met,” he groaned and led the way.

“So, news?” The burn from the chilly morning air started to sink into my lungs as we rounded down the hill toward the stadium.

“Dallas offered me a position as a pitching coach for the season.”

The silence was pulled so tight I could look at it wrong, and it would snap.

I had known this day was coming. Arlo wasn’t going to stay at Harbor forever—that was a foolish little dream that sobered me up, held onto like it would save my life.

“Breathe, Cael,” he laughed, slapping my chest. “It’s an interim position, a trial run. I’ll be gone a lot, but not permanently. ”

“You say that now,” I shook my head, desperately fighting the selfish monster that wanted to make it about me. “But they’ll love you, and then we’ll never see you again. Dallas isn’t close.”

I knew the distance to Texas down to the inches.

I had spent nearly seven years measuring them with my heartache.

“No,” he agreed, “it’s not.”

It’s one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two miles.

“And Ella?”

“She has her job here.”

“You’re going to leave her?”

You’re going to leave me? I stopped in my tracks with a heaving chest because I couldn’t run and sort through all the thoughts in my head.

“I’m not leaving either of you. Enough,” Arlo barked and stopped, turning around to look at me. He walked back to where I stopped, hunched over with my palms braced against my thighs.

“Going to Dallas sounds like leaving,” I huffed, looking up at him. The attempt failed, and the monster was loose. “What? Is the team not offering you enough money to stay here? I’ll talk to Dad or Silas. Someone has to be able to offer you what you want!”

“Don’t be a brat.” Arlo stomped back toward me. “It’s not about the money. It’s about the experience.”

“This is bullshit. No one just ups and leaves across the country for experience.”

“That’s exactly what they do! Are you listening to yourself? If you want everyone to start treating you like an adult, you have to start acting like one, Cael. Pouting when things change isn’t the correct response.”

“I don’t want things to change,” I confessed. “Aren’t you happy here? With us! This is our family, and you’re leaving for some stupid job?”

I watched as all the pieces clicked into place behind Arlo’s dark eyes. Shit .

He had knitted together the real issue faster than I had, and I walked right into a scolding.

“I’m not your Dad, Cael,” He dropped the tone of his voice. “Ella isn’t your Mom. ”

“Please keep talking to me like I’m an idiot.” I clenched my jaw and deflected his statement even thought he was right. I was being selfish, acting like a child.

My fingers were itching for release and my heart was racing. Arlo watched on patiently, waiting for me to regulate myself as I counted to ten, bringing myself back to reality. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m figuring out how to regulate without the drugs, and it’s harder than I thought it would be.”

Arlo gave me a sympathetic smile.

“I’m not going to leave you for a job, and she won’t get sick. This will be hard and different, but we aren’t abandoning you.” Arlo had read me like a book, and I hated that it made me feel better when he did.

“It feels like you are.” I chewed on the inside of my mouth to control the tears that threatened at the corners of my eyes.

“I can’t change how you feel. I can only show you that I mean what I say.”

He pressed two fingers to his chest, and I mirrored the gesture even though I was still tripping over the anxiety inside me. Like a cruel joke, every time I finished the race, ten more hurdles were set up for me to jump.

“Besides, I need someone here to handle our girl while I’m in Texas. Do you think you can manage that?” He clapped a hand against my face and took off running again.

“I’m telling her you said ‘handle our girl’ the minute I see her.” I shook my head. She was going to love that.

“Please don’t,” Arlo groaned. “She'll give me the speech, and then I’ll spend my entire weekend groveling.”

“All the more reason.” I picked up my pace, letting my long legs do the work as we circled the path down around the stadium.

Lately, it has been quiet. After the win, all the press died down, leaving only a few reporters who thought they might be able to get an exclusive.

Today was the day that the one reporter lucky enough to be awarded the privilege arrived to interview all of us. Dad said she’d be here for a few weeks as she got through the entire team and staff. They wanted both a print piece and a television piece. It felt like overkill, but the Shores wanted the press, and we didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t looking forward to their questions about my shoulder or the accident. It was healing from surgery, but it was sore, and I couldn’t play for a little while. The timeline was completely up in the air, and ultimately it was Ella who decided on it.

Our sessions were going well but it was still tough to watch most of the guys on the team be able to practice like normal while I was stuck in the medical wing, rolling my arm above my head like a toddler.

Ella did her best not to remind me why I was stuck in that position but sometimes, when the whine dropped from my lips about the situation, she cocked her eyebrow at me and waited for the guilt to sink in. I had brought myself to that point and needed to work to get myself out.

They gave me the space to figure it out but Arlo leaving felt like punishment when it should have been something to celebrate. I sighed, slowing my pace to a walk as we approached the side door.

“I’m happy for you,” I said with a tight smile that I knew he’d deem as such. When he scrunched his brows together, I knew he had seen right through it. “I am,” I admitted. “You’re basically my brother, and I don’t know how to function without you around. I need a new brick wall to talk to in your absence.”

Arlo punched me in the arm. “I’m a great listener.” He rolled his eyes.

“Let’s agree to disagree on that one.”

“I’m going to go talk to Silas, you’ll be okay?” Arlo asked as I swiped my player’s card against the black box for us.

“That was always the plan.” I nodded, to be okay.

Arlo gave me a sharp, concerned look, waiting for me to force a smile on my face. I did it only for him. He stared for a moment longer before deciding he could trust me. Two fingers raised to his chest, he tapped, and I followed in unison. I’m fine.

He nodded, taking it to heart, and wandered toward the medical wing of the stadium.

Fine with the decision he made, but not fine with anything else. I needed to fix this.

Maybe there was something I could do. I ground my teeth together and turned tail to my father’s office. The little monster within me screaming for justice, for blood. I didn’t bother knocking. I walked through, past his messy, unused secretary desk, and into his main room.

“What the hell is wrong with you, letting Arlo just leave? Offer him a long-term position, more money, something. You can’t just let him go to Dallas!”

Dad stared at me with a morose expression. He was dressed in a brand-new, button-down shirt, and his hair was washed and combed back. He looked put together for once, and it was unsettling.

“Cael.” He swallowed tightly. “It’s not a good time.”

“I don’t give a shit,” I said, stepping into the room further, only then noticing the girl sitting on the couch out of the corner of my eye. “Sorry,” I look at her properly, nodding, and then back to my Dad.

“Cael,” he said again as my head snapped back to the girl on the couch.

Short, dark brown hair brushed against her round jaw. Gorgeous, voluptuous curves covered in a tight shirt that framed her entire chest and painted-on jeans that extenuated her full thighs sank into the couch. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, but her eyes watched me with a tight, agitated expression.

“Clementine?”