Page 48 of Decked, Wrecked and Pucked
It's Addie.
She’s barefoot and drowning in one of my T-shirts because she asked for the biggest thing we had, and Jesus, it’s giving full post-fucking energy.
She used to walk around in nothing but my shirts.
Her eyes widen, lips parting like she’s caught somewhere between running and staying right where she is.
We just stare at each other for a few long seconds, the silence stretching between us as the whiskey slowly burns my throat. But it’s nothing compared to the heat crawling under my skin just from being alone with her.
It hasn’t been just the two of us like this in years. Not since the day I begged her not to walk away from me. I can still feel the agony of that moment. I can still hear the way my voice cracked when I told her I’d spend the rest of my life loving her. I didn’t care how pathetic I looked or that I was falling apart in front of her. I just wanted her to stay.
Not my finest moment—not by a long shot. But I was so gone for her, so fucking in love, I would’ve walked through hell if she’d promised she’d be mine.
Do I still love her? Pretty sure I do, but I wish I didn’t. I wish the feeling would just disappear, shrivel up, and die.
But it doesn’t. It never has.
What’s worse is how my body and brain—both traitors—agree on one thing: I still want her.
I want to close the distance between us, pull her into my chest, and kiss her like the last few years never happened. Because in my mind, she never really left—not my head, not my heart, not the place where my soul still fucking aches for her.
She was mine once, but there’s a voice buried deep inside me that’s loud as hell tonight, screaming that maybe she was never meant to be just mine. Maybe she was always meant to be ours.
“I’m sorry… I just wanted to grab some water,” she whispers as she edges into the kitchen.
I can tell she’s cautious about being alone with me, and I don’t blame her. I haven’t exactly been the warmest.
“Can’t you sleep?” I ask, watching her as she crosses the room. She moves past me to reach the cabinet, close enough that her scent surrounds me.
She smells like strawberries, always strawberries.
She shakes her head. “No… you?”
“No… that hasn’t really changed.” Her eyes catch mine, and something glimmers there, before she forces it down. “What?”
“I just assumed you’d have found another way to deal with it.”
Shewas how I survived the sleepless nights. She knows that. She remembers it.
“It’s not always bad,” I say.
“Is it worse because I’m here?”
Yes.
But I shake my head and reach for the bottle, pouring just enough to take the edge off.
“It’s probably just being stuck here, and I have no idea when the hell we’re getting out. We might as well bend over and hand Coach the goddamn paddle ourselves because if we roll in even a day later than we told him, that man’s gonna murder us, drag ourasses back from the grave, and kill us all over again just to prove a fucking point.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” she says, filling her cup with water.
“I hope not.” I push off the counter, forcing a smile that doesn’t reach anything inside me. “I’ll take this to bed and give you some space.”
I manage two steps before her voice breaks through the tension hanging between us.
“Wait… Roman, please. Can we just?—”
I stop and exhale before I finally turn to face her. “What?”
