Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Yes, I get a good, long look at his face this up-close. Yes, I see the Stefan I knew. It’s like he hasn’t aged a day. Is it possible to have become even more strikingly handsome and cocky over the years? Even sleeping, his face has this curious confidence about it, like he knows he’s safe, self-assured and unworried.
I keep wiping his face even long after the blood’s gone, unable to help myself. I wonder if, somewhere in his drunken dreams, he feels me cleaning him.
That very thought makes my heart flutter desperately.
My eyes drift to his lips, where I bring the washcloth next. Even more gently than I did his forehead, I dab the dried blood from his lips and out of the hairs of his chin and jaw. I do it with the precision of an artist—careful, tender, and with adoration.
Still, Stefan doesn’t move a muscle. His breathing continues, entirely uninterrupted.
His lips are so full, so plush, so perfect.
I’m seeing him now in a light that I never let myself see him when we were young. Not truly. Not really. Now, I look at him and know in my heart exactly the reason why I got weak in the knees around Stefan Baker, why my resolve would crumble when he spoke to me, why I always craved his approval.
Yeah, I realize he’s stone-drunk, asleep, and totally missing this revelation I’m having here, but I don’t care one bit. It’s my own private revelation anyway, and it all has to do with the man in my bed and what I feel for him … and what I’ve always felt for him, but couldn’t quite put into words when we were teenagers.
This gorgeous man with the rippling, muscular body.
And the full, inviting lips.
Now would be a bad time for a boner, Ryan.
I cross my legs tightly, annoyed with myself, then retract the washcloth to my lap, deciding I’ve obsessively caressed his face quite enough for a night. Still seated, I reach over to take one of my pillows—a big blue plush one—then carefully lift Stefan’s head to place the pillow. His head sinks right into it like a cloud. After one last look at his face, I rise from the bed, discard the washcloth on the nightstand, then come around to Stefan’s feet. Gently, I untie and ease off each of his shoes, setting them at the foot of the bed one at a time. I swipe a blue and white fleece blanket from a nearby chair, inwardly smiling at the fact that it’s our team colors from back in the day. After one last look at Stefan’s sexy, shirt-clinging body—and allowing myself one rueful sigh—I drape the blanket over him, pulling the top of it up to his chest.
Just before flicking off the lamp, I catch myself staring down at Stefan Baker, and an ill-timed darkness casts its burden over my otherwise stimulated, crowded mind full of memories and feels. I can care for him now, sure, and I can be sweet to him by cleaning up his face and tucking him into my bed … but when he wakes up, the reality will hit us both.
The reality of what I did to our friendship eight years ago.
I can’t just wipe that eight-year-old dried blood away with a washcloth.
With a sigh, I click off the lamp, then leave Stefan to rest. I sit in the chair across from the bed and curl up, lost in my own thoughts for what seems like hours. The chair is at the side of the bed where his feet face, so the only view I get are his two big socked feet as I listen to him slowly inhale, slowly exhale, slowly inhale, slowly exhale.
It’s like a baseball sleepover all over again, except without all the fun. Or the video games. Or Mom’s brownies and popcorn.
And it’s just us.
Just us …
Soon enough, my own eyelids grow heavy, and it isn’t long after I shut them that my own deep breathing joins his.
03
STEFAN
I peek open an eye, then regret it immediately. Too bright.
I wince as I turn over onto my side, groaning. There’s a lot of pain in my body, but I’m not sure where it’s all at. Each movement I make is rewarded with a new bite of protest somewhere. My arm. Then my upper thigh. Then my lower thigh. Then my cheek. What the hell part of my body can I move that won’t hurt?
Figuring it out, quite frankly, pisses me off.
Not to mention my head, which feels like someone replaced my brain with a bowling ball that’s hit every damned pin in the world. Every thought I have feels like a sledgehammer.
The sound of a snort catches my attention. I peek open an eye again, despite the light from a nearby window blinding me, then realize I’m not home. Where the fuck—?