Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“In the linen closet. Third door down the hall.”
Macy is so desperate to hide her inflamed cheeks and wet eyes that she’s forgotten a broken glass circles her. I yell for her to wait, but she’s already moving. As she steps on the shards of glass, she winces and blood blooms from her heel.
I cross the room in three lengthy strides, uncaring that I stomp right through the glass I just warned her about. My foot throbs, but I collect Macy in my arms and head to the bathroom, ignoring the pain.
After setting her on the edge of the tub, I grab a towel and press it against the cuts in her feet. Cameron hovers in the doorway. Her eyes are wide but not at all apologetic. She’s not at fault, but concern is free. It can be given to anyone.
“I’m fine,” Macy says when I hiss upon removing the towel and finding a large shard wedged in her heel.
When she attempts to stand, she howls, and it rips through me like a knife.
“Sit.” I hit her with a stern glare that sees her backside returning to the tub’s rim before I can remind her that I carry my cuffs everywhere I go. I have ways I can make her sit, and not all of them involve an instrument. Most that run through my head include only the use of my body.
After gathering a first aid kit I spotted peeking out of the bottom of the vanity upon entrance, I kneel in front of Macy.
“Stay still,” I plead when her foot naturally jerks from me placing tweezers near the shard.
I can’t hurt her.
I won’t.
I remove the shard with a bit of coercion, wipe her foot clean, and then check for any more felonious debris. A handful of minor cuts surrounds the larger gash, but nothing overly deep or concerning.
“I’ll patch up your foot with a couple of Band-Aids, but when we get home, I’ll need to bandage it properly.”
After she drags her teeth across her lower lip, she nods.
As I mend her foot the best I can with Cameron’s minimal supplies, Macy whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry about. It was a glass. I’ll pick her up a new set tomorrow.”
“I’m not talking about the glass.” Before she even speaks, her eyes reveal that she thinks Cameron and I were kissing in the kitchen. “I shouldn’t have snooped. I just…” She chews on her lower lip as she struggles to find an appropriate response. “There’s so much I need to tell you.”
When tears gloss her eyes, my hand instinctively moves to caress her freckled cheek. The tension shifts from distraught to electric with a single brush of my fingers against her skin, and it brightens the hue on her cheeks rather than fading it.
“You can tell me anything, freckles. You know that, right?”
The bob of her chin brings her lips within touching distance. I could use the firmness of her bite as she battles her desires as an excuse to drag my thumb over her mouth, but as I said earlier, I’m done lying.
After tugging her lip free from her teeth, I smudge her lip gloss with my thumb like my mouth is dying to do. The air is heavy with need before a loud huff rips me out of a dream too surreal to be reality.
“Just friends. Right!”
When a black shadow appears in the corner of my vision, I shelter Macy with barely a second to spare. The bottle of perfume Cameron tosses across the room hits me square in the back, but it doesn’t get close to Macy. Thank fuck. I don’t know how I’d react if she had gotten hurt on purpose.
“That’s not how a friend treats a friend!”
It is at this moment I realize this isn’t a dinner party.
It’s an ambush.
This is why I finished senior year with hardly any friends. It was easier to distance myself from my friends and brothers than try to protect them from Cameron’s aggression when she got jealous.
While standing with my back to the door to protect Macy from further onslaught, I say, “You should go.”
Macy looks at me as if I have grown a second head. “No, she’s—”
“Cameron. This is Cameron.” I thrust my hand at the hallway, which is echoing Cameron’s rant about how men can’t keep their dicks in their pants even after they’ve caught the winning catch.
I can’t believe I forgot this side of her. Her jealousy featured more than anything when we dated. The fights were insane, but I thought the makeup sex made them bearable.
I was an idiot.
Macy moves to stand next to me, hobbling. “Grayson, I need to tell you—”
Cameron’s nasally squawk interrupts us as she returns to the bathroom. “Get out of my house! Now!” Her words aren’t for me. They’re for Macy, whom she glares at as if she is dog shit stuck in the tread of her shoe. “I invite you into my home for a meal, and how do you repay me? You eye fuck my boyfriend in my presence.” When Macy doesn’t flinch at her vicious words, she shouts again. “Get out! Now!”