Page 106 of Lake
“Show me fierce.”
I clawed at the air like a tiger.
She fell over in a fit of giggles and I lost her face for a second.
“Now, make that sweater sexy.” She bit at the air after she gave me her demand.
I whipped the sweater down my arm and gave her my shoulder, which was still covered by my tee. I knew I was nowhere near pulling the sexy thing off. But she was laughing and I was smiling like an idiot and that was all that mattered.
“Alright, alright. Please stop,” she said, still laughing hysterically.
“What, this not doing it for you?”
I hooked my thumb in the waistband of my pants and pulled them down until she got a peek at the band of my boxer-briefs as I gave her an overly dramatic pout of my lips. Just to nail the look, I fluttered my lashes a few times.
“Oh, God. That is awful. I love it! But please stop now.”
I kept the sweater on as I flopped onto the bed and snatched up my phone.
“Thank you,” I said softly as I looked over the features of her face. I mapped them out and cataloged them for when I didn’t have her face to look at. I never wanted to forget her and I wanted to remember every little thing about her.
“I wish I was there,” she said shocking the shit out of me.
For the most part, we avoided the whole distance thing. We knew it was there hanging over our heads but we didn’t ever acknowledge it. A few times she’d said she missed me and I might have said it a few more than that. We hadn’t talked about what might come when her lease was up or the fact that I really wanted to be with her.
This.
This was big.
At least to me.
It was hard not to take it as a sign and run with it. Hop on my bike, drive down to Tampa, and bring her home with me.
Yeah, I was that lovesick, I guess you could say.
“I’m sorry,” she said looking away as her hand swatted blindly at the air like she could somehow wipe those words away.
I couldn’t tell, but I sensed that she was trying to hold herself together.
“It’s that time of the month and all. You know us gals, we get all emotional as we ride the hormone train.”
“Bridge,” I said with a plea in my tone. I knew she was trying to play it off since I’d been so shocked that I couldn’t manage to say anything back for a good long minute. “Look at me.” And she did, slowly dragging her eyes back up to the screen. “I wish you were here too.”
And now I was having a case of male PMS because my eyes were suddenly a little clouded over with tears.
“Not a day goes by where I don’t think about you,” I added.
Sure, I may not have been around her physically that much. We only got a few days to be together. And she kind of crashed into my life with such a punch— literally— that I wasn’t really sure how I felt about her at first. But that didn’t mean that I hadn’t gotten to know her through our talks. Even though she was far away, we were in touch, calling each other almost every other day. Sometimes more depending on what was going on.
Before either of us could say anything else, a blur of a body ran right by my window catching my attention immediately.
Then B-ry’s booming voice yelled out Laurel’s name like there was something wrong.
“Bridge, I gotta go. I’ll call you back,” I said with urgency and hesitation.
“Okay,” she replied back and I could tell she understood.
I rushed out of my room to see B-ry grabbing Laurel and pull her into his body. Cable and Mouse were standing further back, just beyond my door.
