Page 26 of Trustfall

I chuckle and rub my fingers up and down her arm. “I think you’ll feel better once you get some sleep.”

“Will you stay here all night?”

“Emory, you said ‘one second.’”

“I lied,” she whispers.

“Go to sleep, Em.” I say into the shell of her ear.

I’ll leave as soon as she does. I have to.

She shivers at my breath and pulls the blanket up higher. And then she’s fast asleep again. I haven’t slept in the same bed as a girl since high school. I don’t do sleepovers. It’s one of my hard and fast rules. So why does this feel so right?

As close as I was to falling asleep a few minutes ago, I’m now wide awake. That’s what Emory does to me. She’s like a shot of adrenaline straight to my heart. She makes it beat faster just by looking at me. I attempt to gently move her so I can get up, but she stirs and sighs in her sleep. I try again, but I can’t physically get myself to stand up. It’s at that exact moment that I realize I’m not going to give this up.

I have to pursue this. Pursue her. I tried to stay away. I really did. But we keep finding our way to each other.

I hear a flick, and light floods through the crack in the door, which I had left slightly ajar. Allie peeks her head in, concern threading her eyebrows.

“I got her,” I say. “Go get some sleep.”

“No funny business, Luke. I swear if I find out you did anything to her while she was passed out, I'll find the dullest knife I can and make you watch while I cut it off. Slowly.”

I don't even need to ask what she's referring to. Yet, somehow, her words give me more comfort than fear. Allie may be intimidating, but she's got her friend's back, and I respect her for that.

“I hear you, Allie. Loud and clear. She asked me to stay. We're just going to sleep. I promise.”

She nods and walks out of the room, leaving the door wide open.

It takes a while, but my eyelids grow heavy, and I finally fall asleep, holding the one girl I shouldn't want anything with.

I don’t do relationships.

But fuck if Emory Caldwell doesn’t make me want to break all the rules.

10

EMORY

I wakeup with my hair matted and stuck to the side of my face, my pillow decorated with black streaks of eyeliner and mascara. My head is pounding, I feel like I swallowed a cotton ball, and there’s something warm draped around me. Like a heated blanket, but it’s made out of skin? I turn my head to see Luke sleeping behind me, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

What?

I start to remove the arm that is draped over me, but as soon as I loosen his grip, it gets tighter. I try again, and this time he groans.

“Stop trying to get away from me, Emory,” he mutters.

“Luke?”

“It’s too early, Little Wells. Go back to sleep.”

Little Wells. He kept calling me that last night.

Last night.

Last. Night.

Like a car crash in slow motion, it all comes back to me. Taking multiple shots. Ashton and Allie fighting. Flirting with those guys. Lukehaulingme outof the bar over his shoulder. He took me to get chicken nuggets. He carried me to my bed. I asked him to stay with me. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. I was drunk. What else did I say to him? Did we do anything?

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