Page 34 of Running from Drac

“Yeah, we don’t mind escorting you girls around while you shop. It’s no big deal. I promised to buy my mom some of her favorite perfume for Christmas and forgot to grab it while we were in there earlier,” Rich comments.

Poppy shrugs. “I’m okay with it if you are, Amber.”

Just being near him has my whole body on edge. But I want to spend more time with him. I miss him. “I’m fine with it.”

Eddie’s face lights up. “Where to first?”

“Poppy wants to go into the game store to buy her cousin a game he’s been wanting, and I want to buy my mom something, but not sure what yet. I haven’t really thought about it to be honest.” My strained relationship with my mother makes gift giving a little unbearable. I try to be nice and buy her things, but she always seems to forget to return the favor. Christmas and birthdays have tended to suck over the years for me.

“Well, we’ll just tag along while you shop, if that’s okay?” There’s a look of almost desperation in his eyes, like the idea of me saying no would shatter him.

“Sounds good.”

His smile widens as he takes his rightful place beside me, the heat vibrating between us zings through the hairs of our arms like cosmic static electricity. Even my body knows how badly I miss him. We stay silent until we get up to the mall’s doors. Everyone enters before us, but Eddie hangs back, holding the door open for me.

Our eyes meet, and I lose my ability to breathe. He must feel it too because he shyly looks away, almost like he can’t look me in the eye.

I’m halfway through the door before I feel the familiar roughness of his palm as it curls around my arm, halting me in place.

He clears his throat before he says, “It’s really good to see you, Amber. You look good.” His cheeks burn with embarrassment. It’s adorable, and so foreign, but the sheer vulnerability shining in his eyes is a welcomed change.

My hand slides into his, our fingers locking together with ease before I give his hand a soft squeeze. “It’s good to see you too, Eddie.”

We don’t say anything else; we don’t really need to. It’s like we can feel how much we miss each other.

“After you,” he says seductively.

Our fingers detangle, and I already miss the familiarity of his touch. So, before my tears threaten to appear, I disappear inside, desperate to catch up to our friends.

Chapter Ten

Eddie

Fuck, this is so wrong.

I should tell her… I need to tell her.

But it’s been almost a month since I’ve seen her smile that way. She looks so fucking happy, and god, do I miss her. When I saw that guy manhandling her the way he did, I lost it. Wesley and Rich couldn’t even hold me back as I sprinted across the parking lot, ready to kill.

The bastard deserved more than a few cheap punches. He deserved a shallow grave and his skull crushed beneath my boot. But hearing Amber’s voice soothed the rage inside me. I didn’t want to disappoint her, and I knew if I went any further, she would’ve walked away from me forever. I don’t know if I could ever handle that.

Now I’m following her around like a lost puppy, longing for her touch, missing everything about her. There hasn’t been a day since we broke up that I haven’t thought about her. The amountof inner turmoil I’ve put myself through since that night Pippa seduced me has been straight up hell. She wasn’t too happy with me the next morning when I jumped out of bed, groggy and feeling like shit, while being angry and pissed off that she took advantage of me.

“You wanted this!” she yelled.

I threw a throw pillow across the room in a fit of rage when I saw our clothes scattered across the floor, both of us naked and not a condom in sight.

“Fuck that!” I screamed back. “I was fucking drunk, and you took advantage of me being broken and missing Amber.”

“It’s always about her!” she shouted, throwing up her hands. “Why can’t you just see what’s in front of you, Eddie? I’ve loved you since the day I met you. I’ve been here for you through everything, and you treat me like I don’t exist. Now we finally fuck, and you’re saying it was a mistake?”

Why was she looking at me that way? She knows I don’t love her. I may have thought I had feelings for her at one time, but that was before I met Amber. Now there’s nothing there but platonic feelings. “A big mistake! Biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I swear, Pippa, if you so much as tell Amber, I’ll—”

“You’ll what? Hurt me? That’s not what you do, Eddie. You don’t hurt women, remember?”

Searching the ground, I look for any sort of rubber, but see none. “Did we even use a condom?”

She shook her head. “No, we were too into it.”