Page 75 of Royal Crush

I had Cillian, but I knew what he meant. I think he’d suffered it a bit worse than me, but it was nice to have someone get it. “It doesn’t matter. I like you now.”

“Yeah?” His ears pinked.

Urging him up, I pulled him in for a long, slow kiss. “I will show you how much just as soon as I can.”

“I like the sound of that,” he said. There was no resentment in his tone for what I couldn’t do right there. His words were full of truth and contentment. And that was the moment I knew I was falling in love with him.

God help me.

God help us both.

Twenty

CAMILLO

“You’re different.”

I spun in my chair just in time to catch the ball flying at me. Usually I missed, but today, my fingers caught on the rough rubber, and the ball slapped against my palm.

Erik’s brows lifted. “Damn.”

I shrugged, trying to hide my grin as I passed the ball over to Sam and wheeled toward center court. Erik was quick behind me, and I allowed myself to be distracted for the rest of practice by the squeaking sound on the polished floor and the rhythmic slapping of the ball on the hard ground.

By the time our coach blew the whistle, I’d had two shots on the basket, and one had gone in. It was my first point-getting throw in months. The guys were all definitely less annoyed with me now, though apart from a few high fives, they kept their normal distance.

This time, it hurt a lot less to be held at arm’s length. This time, I had someone waiting for me.

“Okay. What Wheaties have you been eating?” Erik asked, knocking his wheel into mine.

I laughed and shook my head as I followed him into the locker room. I swapped into my everyday chair since I alwaysleft my sport one at the center, and I followed Erik toward the showers.

“Not gonna say?” he prodded.

My gaze flickered around at the guys, who were all doing a shitty job at pretending not to listen. “Let’s grab lunch after this.”

He looked surprised. It was rare when I suggested lunch. Usually, it was him asking me to do something and me refusing.

“Where did you have in mind?”

“You choose. Somewhere private,” I added.

“Your café? We could get something sent up to the apartment.” It was obvious he’d caught the meaning of my nervous gaze.

My ears burned a little at the suggestion. The apartment made me think of Aleric and all the ways he’d touched me. The way he’d kissed me. The way I felt at home in his arms like I never had before. God, I missed him.

It had been a week since I’d seen him. A week without being on set. A week of text messages and a few phone calls. Christoph’s assistant had sent mine an email letting me know I wasn’t needed this week, which was fine. I knew I wasn’t going to be around for everything.

But it had been my excuse to see him every day, and I didn’t know how to bridge the gap and ask for more. Even if I knew that’s what he wanted.

“Yeah,” Erik said, interrupting my flow of thoughts, “we’re definitely meeting at the apartment.”

I said nothing, following him to the showers since this was the first time I’d gotten actually sweaty, and sat on the bench to scrub my pits and the back of my neck. I didn’t sweat below my injury, and my upper body seemed to want to overcompensate for it.

It was nice to have actually done something physical after being sick that wasn’t PT or lifting weights. I’d gotten my heart pumping, and more than that, I’d had fun. I let myself relax, which was something I was starting to realize I never, ever did.

That was a problem I needed to fix because if I was going to crack and allow Aleric into my life properly—for good—I didn’t want him stuck with some stick-in-the-mud asshole who didn’t know how to have a good time. I didn’t want to see disaster everywhere.

I wanted to be someone who was his safe space. But not only that, someone who allowed him to let go of all the bullshit at the end of the day.

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