Page 64 of Crazy for You
“Then why were you at her house last night?”
He stiffened before he let go of me. “Did you follow me?” He grabbed the back of his neck, guilt written all over his handsome face.
“I might be a lot of things, Colton, but I’m not a stalker.” Or maybe there was some truth to that. I was always looking out my window since he’d returned from private school. “I heard some girls talking today.”
As if he knew who the girls were, the skin around his eyes relaxed. “I needed to apologize to Amanda. I’ve been an ass to her, and I realized after talking with my parents yesterday that I had to stop making everyone’s life around me miserable. I led Amanda on, and that isn’t me.”
Admirable.“Are you leading me on?” I had to ask even though a large part of me knew he wasn’t, or I wanted to believe he wasn’t, toying with my emotions.
He grasped my arms. “Never. I like you. I can’t get you out of my head. Please understand that I need time.” His voice was gentle, his plea desperate.
My chest pitched and rolled. I didn’t know how to respond.
He rubbed his nose against mine. “Please understand.”
My pulse was racing like a horse at the Kentucky Derby. Maybe hope existed for him and me. Hope that he would return. Hope that I would see him again. I frowned as we stood in the quiet parking lot overlooking the football field below.
“Awkward” came to mind. I should have walked away, but I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye.
“You’re cute when you pout,” he finally said. “And you’re making it extremely hard for me to leave.”
I did an imaginary fist pump. “Did you think I would make it easy?”
He nibbled on my lip. “I guess not. Kiss me?”
“On one condition,” I said through a giggle.
He wrapped his big, muscled arm around my waist. “Anything.”
“Text or call me every day.” That was the only way I wouldn’t go out of my mind.
He stole my breath when he mashed his mouth to mine. His answer was steeped in so much emotion, I was certain I would falter.
I should goran through my brain.It will be fifty times harder to say goodbye. But I didn’t care. He needed to know how I felt. So I gave him everything I had, practically climbing his body. If anyone were watching us, they had front-row seats to a steamy show.
I didn’t know how long we locked lips, but when he broke away, I whimpered, and when he marched over to his truck, the little air remaining in my lungs dissipated.
Then something dawned on me. “Your control. It’s about to snap?”
He barely nodded as he opened the door to his truck. “I’ll give you a ride.”
As much as I wanted to get in that truck with him, I couldn’t. We were only putting off the inevitable. And once I got in, it would take the jaws of life to pull me out.
So I collected my skateboard. “It’s best if we say goodbye now.”
He briefly closed his eyes, struggling with the gravity of what was happening. I was too.
On shaky legs, I walked up to him. A rush of emotions blazed through me as he drank me in. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was falling hard and fast. Maybe I’d already fallen for him. I didn’t know what love felt like. All I knew was I couldn’t get him out of my head. Every waking minute since he’d returned, I thought about him, and he was taking my heart with him as he left.
He didn’t say a word and didn’t have to. The look in his eyes said it all. He didn’t want to leave. I sure as hell didn’t want him to, either.
“Stay.” I had to try one last time.
His grin was crestfallen. “I would, baby, if my old man agreed to get help for his drinking, or even stopped blaming me for Josh’s death. I have to find a way to get past my guilt and the pain crushing me. I can’t do that if my old man continually reminds me how it was my fault Josh drowned.”
I seriously disliked his father. “What about school?” We had laws about how many days a student could miss without any ramifications.
“I dropped out today. I turned eighteen last week.”
