Page 178 of Hold Me Until Morning

With Cody, it was so easy to pretend like everything was just fine.

I had to remember to be careful. I had no idea how this was going to pan out. How it was going to end. If I’d remain standing.

Guilt tried to climb up through the questions, that sticky sensation that refused to let me go even though I kept trying with all of me to cut those bindings free. Praying that Brooke would forgive me. That she would understand.

That she wouldn’t look at me with the same betrayal as she’d looked at me with that night.

Cody tugged me tighter, likely feeling the way my nerves ticked my muscles into tension as I warred with the tumult of my thoughts.

“All of you were nothing but trouble, always out wreaking havoc on this town.” Cody’s mother pointed between Cody and Ryder, then Dakota and Kayla. “Each in your own way. I had my hands full with all of you.”

There was no anger behind it.

Warmth spread in my chest. Cody’s mother, Patricia, or Pat like everyone called her, had welcomed me in a way I should have expected with the way Cody had talked about her.

His praise and adoration for her unending.

Still, I felt unsettled by it, by how close they all were. A tight-knit web of safety and protection, and I knew I was dragging disorder into the middle of it.

Pulling her son into something that he shouldn’t have to face.

But he remained solid at my side. Impenetrable. Refusing to leave.

“Who me?” Cody grinned. “Never caused a lick of trouble in my life.”

“And someone is straight delusional,” Dakota said, tilting me a wayward smile, like we were thick as thieves.

The oldest of friends.

“I have what’s called self-esteem, Dakota.”

“You mean a big, fat ego?” she tossed back.

“Cocky Cowboy.” I nudged him, playing too, and he pulled me even closer and went to tickling my side.

“Oh yeah? Say it now?”

I was cackling, flailing all over the place, this feeling spreading through me unlike I’d ever felt before.

Joy.

Joy.

Joy.

His smile went soft as he slowed, just the same as everyone else’s at the table as they watched us.

I tried to smooth out the disorder, to tame the redness on my face and the feeling that was bursting from my soul.

I wasn’t sure I could.

Not when Cody placed a big hand on the top of my thigh and grunted, “Might be cocky, but I’m your cowboy.”

God.

What was he doing to me?

I chewed at the inside of my lip as I caught his mother peeking over at us, and the same thing was blazing from her, too.

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