“I didn’t—”

  I pressed the thumb of my opposite hand against her lips, halting her words.

  “You did, you just didn’t have to try that hard. I think I knew that first day I saw you in Porter’s that you were the one girl who would knock me on my ass. I felt it that day and every day after, even though I didn’t even know your name.”

  Her throat bobbed when she swallowed hard.

  “Just do me a favor.” She nodded. “Answer me when I call before a game. If I keep playing the way I did tonight my team and coach may kick my fucking ass.” She smiled beneath my finger but agreed with another nod before moving in closer. I lowered my hand just before she lifted herself up higher to press a kiss to my lips.

  “I promise,” she whispered and suddenly the fact that I had just played what was probably the worst game in the history of my football career no longer mattered.

  “Tell me you’re staying.” If she said no, she would be quickly assured otherwise. There was no way I was letting her drive back tonight.

  “I kinda have to.” She stepped back the little amount I would allow and looked up at me. “I kind of used all the gas I had in my car to get here and forgot my wallet at home.”

  “So you’re stranded?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lucky me.” Damn lucky. “Looks like I have the upper hand. It would seem that you need me in order to get back home and I need you to relieve this tension I feel.”

  “Lucky me.” I smiled when she bit her lower lip. Fuck, my girl was a secret seductress.

  “Lucky us,” I corrected just before I began dragging her toward the parking lot. “I’ll text Coach and tell him I have a ride.”

  She giggled as we hurried across the asphalt in search of her car. “Are you in a hurry?”

  Seeing her car, I continued to move; when we stepped up to its side I pulled her body in front of my own. I pinned her between me and the car, looking her over. “How have you managed to make me miss you so much in less than one fucking day? I feel like it’s been days, weeks even.”

  Was it possible to be addicted to someone else’s touch? If so, I was. Fuck, her hands, her lips, they were all something I felt I needed to survive.

  “You’re going with me on the camping trip, right?”

  “Camping trip?”

  I figured she’d heard, being so close with Morgan and Marcus.

  “Every year all of us guys from the fraternity get together and go up to Lake Griffin. We canoe, hike, and just chill out for a long weekend.” She was still just watching me without agreeing to or denying my invite. “We sleep in tents, yes, on the ground, though don’t tell the guys but my aunt bought me a self-inflatable mattress.” I winked when her smile widened. “I’ll even share with you, but you have to sleep real close because it’s only meant for one.”

  “I’ve never gone camping before.”

  “We’ll have a fire each night and I’ll keep you warm and safe.”

  “I’m sure you will, I never once doubted that.”

  “What do you say?” I waited for her to reply, feeling my chest tighten with the idea that she might say no.

  “I’m still trying to imagine you,” she looked over me, my shoulders and my chest before looking back into my eyes, “fitting into a canoe.”

  Unable to hold back my laughter, I leaned in closer and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Always a smart ass,” I teased. “You gonna go with me or what?”

  “When?”

  “Two weeks over the extended weekend during Columbus Day.”

  “Okay,” she says, “but I’m sure Pete is gonna love the idea of both Morgan and me being gone at the same time.”

  “I’ll handle Pete.”

  “No.” She looked up at me with the most serious look I’ve ever seen her convey. “I’ll talk to Pete.”

  Between her and Morgan…I swore they had some type of protective nature over the guy. X and I wouldn’t hurt him; just maybe intimidate him a bit into granting them time off.

  Chapter Twenty

  Catherine

  “You got an A.” I leaned forward when someone said this very close to my ear. “How the hell?”

  Twisting to the left enough to see who was behind me, I saw a blond guy I’d never spoken to before. I’d been in this class for close to two months yet he had never even looked at me until now.

  “I got a D,” he complained, looking back down at his paper.

  “It’s a topic I’m passionate about.” I shrugged as I slowly began to turn around.

  I had not lived or knew anyone who had lived during the time of the Holocaust, but when given the topic “children of the Holocaust” in my History class, I was inspired. The idea of sifting through stories from that time, told through the eyes of children, was intriguing.

  “It was disturbing,” the guy said, regaining my attention.

  “It’s all disturbing. Imagine the terror of a child being trapped during that time. Imagine the images of what they saw and the sounds they heard. The world around them was chaos, full of nothing but fear and heartache and they were powerless to stop it.”

  He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

  Shaking it off, I turned in my seat and began gathering my things as our professor dismissed the class.

  I could hear his feet smacking hard against the floor behind me as he closed the distance between us. “So wait, you’re telling me that you connect with these kids.”

  “No one could connect with them unless they, too, were there,” I said without looking back. “What I’m saying is imagine that type of fear. Imagine the life you love being flipped upside down while you’re forced to watch those you love suffer beyond means. You can’t read a few chapters about the Holocaust and expect to write a term paper showing depth. You have to thrust yourself into that time. You have to imagine what you would feel like being powerless.”

  When he didn’t respond I looked back at him only to find him staring at my ass instead of listening to what I’d just said.

  “Really?” I said, narrowing my eyes. I turned all the way around, blocking his view of my backside.

  He shrugged and smiled wide, “Sorry, I’m a guy. We’re programmed that way.”

  “You want to know why I got an A and you got a D—that’s why.”

  “Because I’m a guy?”

  “No, because you’re a pig.”

  The guy was about to speak when his back went rigid and his eyes widened just a bit.

  “There a problem?” Eli’s arms wrapped around me from behind as he pulled my back securely against him.

  “Hey Red,” Mr. Blond said as if he knew Elijah. “There’s no problem here, right?” He looked at me almost like he was begging me to agree.

  “We were just discussing our history papers.” I twisted in Elijah’s arms and arched enough to kiss his jaw. “Just telling your friend here that it’s helpful to research the topic first.” When I looked back at Mr. Blond, I almost felt sorry for him. He looked so uncomfortable.

  I chose to completely ignore him and redirected Eli’s attention by turning in his arms and placing my palms against his chest. “To what do I owe this surprise visit?”

  I ignored the way he still continued to watch over my shoulder. Boys and their need to stake their claim, I thought, rolling my eyes.

  “I got out of practice early,” he said, still not looking at me.

  “How did you manage that?”

  A slow smirk covered his lips as if he had just remembered something. Slowly he pulled his gaze away from the guy he apparently had some type of beef with. “I sacked everyone on the field and Coach said I needed to take off early before I put all his other players on the disabled list.”

  “Bully.” He shrugged, only making me laugh.

  I absolutely loved how relaxed things had become between us. It was an unexpected twist that I was so thankful for. I felt like I actually had someone to turn to. Even though I still wasn’t quite ready to tell him about my home life or the truth behind the red mark on my jaw the other day, he was still my escape. When I was with Eli I felt like none of that mattered. He managed to make me forget about all my hardships.

  I decided I’d tell him soon. When I was finally out and in my own place I’d share my life with him. What worried me most was his reaction to knowing that for the first time in my life, I had been hit by a man.

  “I thought I’d take you to grab an early dinner before your shift at Porter’s.”

  “What sounds good?”

  “You,” he said, brushing a soft teasing kiss over my lips. “But we don’t have time for that because you know I love to make that shit last for a long time. We’ll settle for whatever sounds good to you.”

  I casually wrapped my arms around his neck and held him securely, kissing along his jaw and neck. He returned the hug as we stood in the center of the walkway. Students dipped and dodged around us but neither of us cared.

  I was exactly where I wanted to be, in the arms of the only person who managed to make me feel safer than I had ever felt before.

  ***

  With a huge duffle bag on my bed I continued to stuff item after item inside, including sweatshirts and sweatpants, though I wasn’t sure I’d be wearing them much once we were inside our tent. I smiled at the thought of spending the next forty-eight hours in Eli’s arms. Falling asleep tucked against his side, waking up securely wrapped in his embrace. It all sounded pretty close to amazing.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I spun around, placing my hand against my chest as I tried to gain my composure. My heart was racing so fast I thought it might skip right out of me. There my mother stood, an unlit cigarette hanging half out of her mouth. She held a glass of something clear in her hand that I assumed was vodka. She drank that stuff almost nonstop. I wasn’t sure it even got her fully drunk anymore; she was practically immune to it.

  “I’m going camping,” I finally said.

  I ignored the look of surprise on her face and turned back to place the remaining items still piled on my bed into the bag Elijah lent me. It had his football jersey number—16—on it.

  “You’re going camping?” She laughed as if I’d just told her a joke. “You do know there’s spiders and dirt involved when camping.”

  I wanted to say I would be fine because I had Eli to kill the bugs and carry me over the mud, but instead chose to ignore her.

  “You are definitely like your father.”

  We rarely talked of my dad.

  “He always enjoyed things like that, camping, fishing, hiking. I thought it was always a waste of time, much like he turned out to be in the end.”

  And that was why we rarely talked of him. I hated how she put him down like he was some awful man. The only thing my father ever did that I’m sure he’d regretted was not fighting her harder to gain custody. My mother was a hateful, unhappy, spiteful woman. I’m not sure there was a person on earth who could actually change that.

  I didn’t bite back; it would only fuel her. I’d be told once again as I had heard for years that it was my fault her life sucked the way it did. Forget the fact that she was a grown woman and should take responsibility for her actions; her hell lay in the hands of her child. I forced her to be a low life. I forced her to marry a sack of shit and to allow him to control her. It was all my fault she was a whore, his whore. None of those things lay at her feet, oh no, she was the victim here.

  Instead I ignored her.

  “So you aren’t working this weekend?”

  “Nope,” I said, already knowing there would be backlash when my check came in short. But I’d deal with that later. Nothing was going to ruin this weekend for me.

  Nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Elijah

  “Yeah, I’ll bring her,” I told Aunt Meg for the third time. “She should be here soon and then we’ll run over.”

  “You’ve been telling me you were gonna bring her over so I could meet her for the last three weeks.” I could almost imagine her placing her hand on her cocked hip and that narrowed-eye look she gave when she was displeased. “Yet, here I am still waiting.”

  “You’ll meet her today.”

  “Does she know this?”

  “Nope,” I said, the grin obvious in my voice. “It’ll be a fun surprise.” I looked up when I heard the sound of tires against the hot asphalt. “And here she is.”

  “Great, now get moving.” Meg didn’t even wait for me to say anything further, just ended the call.

  I hurried off the porch toward Catherine, though I preferred calling her Blake. We’d get there, though. I’d snuck it in a time or two but wasn’t sure she’d caught it. She was a little preoccupied at the time. I chuckled at the thought of her head thrown back, her back arched, and her eyes squeezed tight as I whispered her name.

  “What are you smiling about?” she asked with her own matching smile.

  “Happy to see you.” I leaned in and kissed her softly. “Looking forward to our weekend together.”

  “Me too,” she whispered just as I pulled back.

  “Also, my aunt is waiting to meet you.”

  “What?”

  I shrugged as I dragged our bags to my car. I ignored her concerned and questioning expression and tossed them into the back seat. Her bag, the one she’d borrowed from me, was stuffed to the brim. “What the hell did you pack? We’ll only be gone for a couple days.”

  “I didn’t want to under pack and be unprepared.”

  I opened the passenger door and guided her inside. “You most definitely are not under packed.”

  Ignoring her glare, I made sure she was safely tucked inside. Hell, I even buckled her seatbelt before kissing the tip of her nose and closing the door before she had the chance to say more.

  Of course, she waited until I was inside, buckled, and backing out of the driveway to start panicking.

  “Why do they want to meet me? What if she thinks you can do better? Hell, you can do better.”

  “Enough.” I hated when she did that shit. Putting herself down without actually calling out any faults. To me she had no faults; they were all characteristics and quirks which I fucking loved. They all made up the girl who challenged me and triggered all sorts of shit inside me that I was still trying to sift through.

  “I’m just saying that it makes me nervous,” she mumbled, which only made me feel like an ass for interrupting her ramble.

  “Aunt Meg, she loves everyone. I don’t think the woman has a mean bone in her body. She’s going to adore you just as much as I do.”

  I looked over and saw her grinning. Though she attempted to hide the joy she felt from me saying I adored her, I saw it clearly.

  Five minutes later we were pulling into my aunt and uncle’s driveway and I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw Meg sitting on the porch. An eager look on her face, she stood and moved down the front stairs.

  Catherine and I climbed out of the car at the same time and began moving toward the house.

  “Gee, woman, slow down,” I tell Aunt Meg as I leaned in to hug her. I said it loud enough for Cat to hear as well. It was a way to break the ice. “You’re gonna have her running away thinking you’re some type of stalker or a lonely old lady looking for a friend.”

  “Oh you stop it,” she said, swatting at my chest. “I’m just excited to meet the Catherine I’ve heard so much about. Or is it Blake?”

  I caught the surprise on Cat’s face as she looked to me quickly before returning her attention back to my aunt. I didn’t butt in; I allowed her to take the reins on this one.

  “My name is Blake Catherine.” She seemed nervous as my aunt stepped closer to her. “I’ve just always gone by Catherine or Cat. More my mother’s doing than anything because my father’s name was Blake and they didn’t get along much when he was alive.”

  “Elijah told me about your father. I’m sorry to hear of him passing.”

  “Thank you.”

  In true Meg fashion she embraced Cat. I couldn’t help but smile proudly at her compassionate reaction to my girl. She gently rubbed Cat’s back as she said how happy she was to finally meet the beautiful girl she’d heard so much about. That seemed to surprise Cat and she looked over at me curiously.

  “We’ll let Eli get the camping gear while you and I go have us some girl talk.” Meg dragged Cat off and I stood there watching as they disappeared inside the house.

  ***

  “He’s always been our little bulldozer.” I stood just inside the front door, quietly listening to the conversation between my aunt and Catherine. “He used to stand right there in that open doorway, bent at the waist and holding one of the couch cushions under his arm as he took off for the living room. I don’t know how many times he tackled the recliner, or heck there was one time he tackled his uncle just as he entered the door from work.”

  I could hear Catherine laughing as my aunt relived my younger years.

  “Then he hit high school and the coaches flocked to him, he was their key to a winning year. Miles was ecstatic but I was terrified. He may have been a big boy but the idea of him out on that field where anything could’ve happened terrified me. He may carry himself like the Hulk,” I rolled my eyes at how she referred to me, “but he is still breakable.”

  “My gentle giant,” Catherine said. I had no fucking idea why but it warmed me to hear her call me that, especially when she referred to me as her gentle giant.

  I began to move toward the kitchen when I decided I’d heard enough.

  “Okay, ladies, you can stop talking about my delicate body.” I playfully flexed my muscles as I walked by and opened the refrigerator, grabbing the grape Gatorade Meg always had ready for me, and turned around to face them. “Good to see the two of you getting along so well.”

  “Of course you knew that I’d love her.” Meg smiled brightly. “We already have an appointment for nails and facials with Francine next week right after I cut and highlight this beautiful girl’s hair.”