“I don’t know what happened, it just got easier to keep everything inside, to keep it to myself. It was just easier. Like, it wasn’t even a conscious decision. And I just kept thinking to myself that you were going to leave again, and it felt like I couldn’t fully pull away either. You kept showing up, inserting yourself in my life, and yeah, it made me angry because it was all going to happen to me again. Shit, I’ve missed you forever,” I admit into his chest.

  “Forever. It was hell while you were gone, especially in the beginning, and then I kind of got numb to it, focused my sorrow elsewhere. I was only eighteen, how could I feel so much? How?”

  Brody snorts, hand petting my hair. “I’m bigger than you, always was. Pretty sure I felt more.”

  “Lies,” I say, pressing my forehead against his chest and taking a deep, deep breath. “I’m sorry again. I’m sorry for hurting you, for making this all about me.”

  “Well, it is about you, and it’s about me, too. Just tell me straight, Amber, do you want to be with me?”

  I lift my head, so we both can look at each other. For once, I don’t plan on hiding anything.

  “Yeah, more than anything. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

  “I’m sorry you were waiting so long.”

  “You’re here now, though, right?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got some interviews lined up and I’m going to figure out my work situation. My agent’s been blowing up my phone, too. She even called me yesterday, demanding an answer about how my recovery’s going from my side of things. I mean, I get it. She must’ve been stressed out ’cause of me.”

  “Let me know if you need me to fight to defend your honor at any given point in time.”

  “Okay, baby, I’ll let you know.” He grins. “I love you, you know.”

  I nod against him, rise up on my tiptoes, making a fish-face like I used to when asking for a kiss.

  Brody gives me one, a soft press of lips, making me sigh against him. “I love you, too.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Five!” Evie yells at the top of her lungs, champagne sloshing from her glass from all the excess movement.

  “Four!” Vick yells, groaning at the mess her younger sister made.

  “Three!” Max crows, both hands cupped around her mouth, me holding her flute of champagne until her antics are over but we’re running out of time.

  “Two!” Brody’s voice booms loudly in my house, ricocheting off the walls so it feels like we’re getting hit by it from all sides, sides, sides.

  “One!” I yell at the ceiling, handing over Max her champagne and yanking Brody down for a midnight kiss, the first of many, many, many more to come. “Happy New Year, Brody Kane.”

  Brody smiles against my mouth and it’s everything, everything.

  “Happy New Year, Amber Prewitt.” He kisses the smile from my mouth, then gives me another one, and we’re sharing smiles between kisses until we get yelled at by Max and Vick, and little (not-so-little) Evie screams about her eyeballs melting.

  “I mean, it’s like seeing Mom kiss Dad with too much tongue! Like it’s cute and heartwarming for a nanosecond, but shit, I don’t wanna see that!” Evie whines, and Vick shushes her with a pinch that makes her yelp, all of this going on behind Brody’s shoulder; my height extended by the killer heels I’m wearing inside the house because we’re not party people.

  I kiss Vick and Max on the cheeks, and get a group hug, and the girls hug Brody, too, until we’re doing some weird soccer chant thing in the middle of my living room, all a little tipsy and a little too happy, the kind of happy that you feel during a new beginning, waving so long to a bitter end.

  We all take our seats eventually, watching the pandemonium that’s happening in Times Square, hosts and artists and performers alike getting doused by fist-sized confetti, people from all over the world freaking out in the crowds on the streets, inevitably freezing their asses off.

  Max claps her hands next to me, looking at each one of us, her face a mess of glitter that she’s been taking furious notes on all night. I guess some brand is going to get a scathing review once the new year’s filming schedule starts.

  “New Year’s resolutions time!” Max says, sticking her index finger up towards the ceiling, extending her arm straight up as if we’re back in class and she’s begging to ask a question, giving me PTSD-like flashbacks of stressing out over school all that time ago.

  “Come on, we do it every year, and this year’s no different.” She stabs her finger into my shoulder and gasps when she hits the muscle. “You cyborg, what the hell?”

  “It’s part of my New Year’s resolutions, actually. I’m training for a fitness competition,” I say, equal parts thrilled and terrified voicing that out loud for the second time, ever. “Maybe I’ll give up halfway, but I want to try. And besides, I have to get buff like Vick, or else she’s liable to kick my ass whenever I inevitably piss her off.”

  I’ve been looking into ways of challenging myself, ways to deal with my stress that isn’t going to put the same kind of strain on my relationships, that’s going to challenge me in new ways instead.

  “Holy fucking shit, yeah?” Vick says. “I’m coming with you…I need to change up my routine, something. I swear, I practically wheeze when I move from the couch to the floor since the holidays started. Too much food, too much drink, just too much.”

  I shake my head, laughing at her. “Yeah, sure, come to the gym with me,” I say, inviting her.

  “Hey, I thought I was your gym partner,” Brody says, slinging an arm over my shoulders, bringing me close to lay down a kiss at my temple, making me feel all warm and fuzzy.

  “You are, but that doesn’t mean Vick can’t show up, too.”

  “Honestly, if you’re both going to be this disgusting, I don’t want any part of it,” Vick says, waving off the suggestion.

  I shake my head. “Nah, he’s just there to run off the creeps. Apparently, I don’t know how to operate the squat rack by myself,” I say, nonchalantly. “It’s fine. You’re on, I’m not going to let you give up.”

  Vick nods. “I think…getting healthier is always a good decision, and eating properly, you know, sounds like a good idea. But the real resolution is getting that sponsorship I’ve been talking about.”

  “Nice, nice, nice,” Max says, then puts a hand to her chest, as if she’s accepting an award and getting ready for her speech. “I’m going to go ahead and make the resolution that I will reach one million subscribers this year. I’ve got my action plan all written out, and it’s gonna happen.” She slams her fist down onto her palm, face set in determination, giving herself a nod and to each one of us in turn. “Somebody say something, please, I’ll kick your ass.”

  Evie snorts, being a little shit. “What? I didn’t say anything!”

  Vick puts her in a headlock and the champagne would have gone everywhere if Evie hadn’t already drunk it all.

  Small favors.

  “You, Brody? What’s your resolution? What will the new year bring you? Fame, fortune, love?” Max says, wiggling her eyebrows, but she sort of looks like a disco ball and I don’t wanna even move or open my mouth or else I’m going to start laughing.

  Brody shakes his head, moving his arm from around me so he can look down at me, so our eyes can meet.

  It feels like the room drops away, and it’s only me and him, and someone whistles, but I’m not taking any bets on who it is—they’re all a bunch of brats and it could have been any one of them.

  I blink at Brody, waiting for him to speak, getting struck dumb with the grin slowly spreading across his mouth, the one he kisses me gently with before saying, “I’m going to talk to my dad about something very important.”

  Oh.

  Oh, shit!

  TWENTY-THREE

  Valentine’s Day…

  I’m putting away the bouquet of red roses that Brody got me for Valentine’s Day, fluffing them and rearranging the straggler that doesn’t want to fall in line with the rest. Their perfume’s slight but still fragrant enough that it’s pleasing and not cloying, and I give up on getting everything to look perfect when my phone vibrates along the kitchen counter, scaring the shit out of me.

  I pick it up and press it to my ear, frowning at my inexpertly arranged flowers.

  “Hello?”

  “HEY!” Max practically yells, and I jump in my own damn kitchen, looking around to see where the danger’s coming from. There’s noise coming from her side of the conversation, off in the background somewhere, like the kind of noise you hear at a restaurant.

  There’s the din of conversations, people milling around, the are we ready to order or do you still want a few more minutes? being uttered in English and French, and the clattering of forks and knives, and of course, the occasional screaming child losing their collective shit.

  “Max, what the hell are you yelling for?”

  “I DON’T KNOW, I CAN’T REALLY HEAR YOU?”

  “Yo, Max, what the hell? Why are you yelling at me?!”

  “Gonna call you back!”

  I stand there like an idiot, glancing down at my phone, waiting for it to brighten again with an incoming call that I will answer, and try to figure out what the hell my cousin is doing.

  I get a text instead.

  Max: Help me, I’m on the worst date imaginable and I’m ready to jump out the window of the front of the restaurant, but there’s wicked icicles and I don’t want to get speared to death, and that would ruin all of my makeup. It took me half an hour to blend the shadow on each eyeball, and it’s not going to waste on this idiot, all right?

  Holy shit, this girl’s dramatic, oh my god.

  Me: What do you want me to do? I can come and get you?

  Max: Can you? I called Vick first because I knew you had plans tonight, but Vick didn’t tell me that she had plans and now I’m in a creek without a paddle.

  Max: Jesus, he just keeps talking about himself, and I’ve gone on eighteen imaginary shopping trips in my head and updated my makeup wishlist three times since we got here.

  Max: The food isn’t really great, either, so really, this whole night is a bust!

  Me: Yeah, no worries, I’ll come get you.

  Max: I thought it would be romantic to have him pick me up. I’m so stupid.

  Me: Not stupid <3

  Me: Text me the address, I’m on my way

  I start grabbing things, my purse, the keys to my car and house, stuffing my feet in boots when the text message comes in, and my brain catches up.

  Brody, I gotta say something to Brody.

  It’s not that I forget that he’s part of my life, it’s just that it feels like a dream come true most of the time, and I’m seconds away from waking up. I’m headed out the door while he opens it to come inside, surprised to find me there, eyebrows raised, a delighted grin on his face, happy to see me.

  It makes my heart flutter, makes a smile break out on my own face, and I know he’s got me.

  But I got him, too.

  “Where you headed?” Brody asks, eyes dropping down to my boot-clad feet and my winter coat that has yet to be zipped. He does the honors for me when I explain the situation to him, how Max needs an emergency evacuation, and I don’t want her to take public transport since it’s so cold outside.

  “Let’s take my car,” he says. “It’s all warmed up.”

  I grab onto his hand as he’s turning out the door and halt him to the spot.

  “You want to come with me?” I ask.

  “It’s Valentine’s Day, our first one in a long, long time. Wherever you go, I go.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, voice barely above a whisper.

  Brody blinks at me, then swoops in to kiss my mouth sweetly, better than any Valentine’s Day chocolate. “Yeah. Come on, let’s go.”

  Fin

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  Read on for a sneak peek of the Book Two in The Cuffing Season Series, Cuffing and Turkey Stuffing and see who Vick falls in love with! You can also pre-order it here.

  CUFFING AND TURKEY STUFFING

  October…

  I end up dying for the third time in a row, struck down by a haze of hellfire from the Demon Lord himself, my vision going fuzzy around the edges.

  I toss my controller (carefully but still with a shit ton of frustration) against the blankets of my nest on my couch, tearing off my headphones and tossing them (gently) onto it once I untangle my legs from the blanket over my lap, and drop my feet to the floor.

  I let my body get adjusted to the new position, hissing when the blood flow resumes and starts travelling down to my toes now, and the aches and pains of my body start to remind me exactly how long I’ve been sitting in one spot.

  I ease myself out of the couch, plop myself onto the carpeted floor, and start bending at the waist and reaching for my toes, feeling a glorious ache in my hamstrings and lower back until something pops in my shoulders as I reach, reach, reach for my blue-painted toenails, and I groan and sigh.

  My ears are doing that ringing thing that they do after they’ve been under headphones for too long, where everything feels muffled, like I’m walking through water, sounds being filtered through another layer of space before they can reach me, sounding more far off than they actually are.

  After I’m done stretching out my legs, I rub at my gritty and tired eyes, reaching blindly for the bottles of saline solution I keep around in practically every nook and cranny (seriously, I found two tiny bottles in the cushions of my couch), and plop a few drops in each eye, closing my eyes and letting the saline do the work, letting the excess spill out as would-be tears.

  It takes me another twenty minutes to fully reconnect with my body, wiggling out my fingers and cracking my knuckles, my fingertips numb and tingling after pressing down on the keys for so long.

  I need to see Amber, or somebody, who can ergonomic the shit out of my one-bedroom condo, so I’m not so sore after doing a twenty-hour stint of gaming, practicing my runs, foregoing all of my body’s needs—I haven’t drunk a single drop of water today, I don’t think—and I’m exhausted even if my body hasn’t been doing anything all day, just my brain and fingers, really.

  I head to the bathroom, clutching at the walls when I feel a little light-headed, spots dancing in front of my eyes, but I know that if I stand still and just breathe nice and slow, this feeling’s going to pass while my body adjusts itself to moving around again after being immobile for so long.

  I know sitting down as much as I do isn’t good for me, but I’ve got a tournament coming up, and I have to make sure I’m ready.

  Gaming equipment isn’t cheap, and I’ve rigged everything so that my living room has become my gaming station, and I wonder, yet again, how I haven’t ruined my eyes yet.

  I squint at the bright-bright lights in my bathroom, catching only a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my electric-blue hair not really electric-blue anymore, fading out to some sort of murky teal travesty that it now is.

  I head into the shower, wash off all of the last twenty or so hours, letting the warm water revive me and soothe away the aches and pains that are plaguing my body. I feel like an arthritic old woman, and my body doesn’t really feel like my own.

  Shit.

  Once under the spray, I run a passing glance over the bucket of lotions and bath bombs, and basically all that extra shower/bath shit that Max keeps buying me so I can take care of myself, but it’s still there, collecting dust. I don’t have time for a relaxing bath or anything like that, this shower is purely for being functional now that my stomach’s starting to growl.

  I walk out of the bathroom and into my living room with a towel wrapped around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides so I don’t drop it, with my hair wrapped in a towel, too. I squint blearily at the curtained windows and the amount of sunlight streaming through them, my hair dripping bits of blue onto my white towel around my chest, down my arms as I stand shivering in the cool air.

  I didn’t turn on the heat, like an idiot—I forgot.

  I go through the motions of making my condo hospitable and livable again, turning the lights on, getting dressed in my comfiest, warmest clothes, and using the towel to mop up as much moisture from my hair as possible, all to find out that I’m going to have to leave the house once I open the fridge. There’s only a sad looking a jar of pepperoncini hanging out in the back, and a bottle of hot mustard hanging out right next to it.

  Great. I’m going to have to go outside and face people.

  Shit.

  I tie my wet hair up in a sloppy bun at the top of my head and pull up my socks to stuff them in my oxblood Doc Martens, tuck my giant ratty T-shirt into my sweatpants, tying a knot that feels a little tighter than the last time I did it, then pull on one of my comfortable and giant hoodies. I tuck some cash and my keys into the kangaroo pocket, pulling the hood over my head, and heading out the door, only to freeze as I try to futilely put my key in the lock to lock up my door.

  Of course I had to run into him, of course.

  I mean, you collapse one time in front of a guy, and apparently that makes him worried about you non-stop, as a good neighbor and all, which really isn’t a thing anymore when you live in a building like this, all of us thrust into the building together, one on top of the other.

  “Hey,” he calls, and I hunch over my key in the lock, thinking fast—which isn’t my strong suit when I haven’t been to bed yet—but I’m too hungry to fall asleep, and hence have to venture outside and get food because I forgot to do groceries.

  So now I’m here, trying to fuse my human molecules with the door molecules and become one, anything but saying hi to him.

  I thud my forehead against the door, hoping that if I make a small enough target, Michael Nash, my next-door neighbor, will forget about me existing entirely, instead of greeting me with a hello every single time we’re in the same vicinity together.