Page 24 of Just Say When

“No,” she said, sounding genuinely horrified.

“Yes,” I said, and strode off the mats with her.

The crowd parted for us, people calling out compliments on her riding skills as we went. I headed for the table with Zack, but she tugged at my collar. I looked down at her, the question in my eyes.

“Air,” she said. “I need air.”

I nodded. “James?—”

“I’ll get Zack.” She dropped a bottle of water into Essie’s lap. “We can head back to the hotel.”

“No,” Essie protested. “I just need a minute. It’s so hot in here, but I don’t want to leave yet. It’s still early.”

James looked at me and then back to Essie. “Okay, but if you change your mind, it’s fine. I don’t mind getting some rest.”

I kicked the door open with my boot and carried Essie out into the crisp night air. She sucked in an audible deep breath.

“Whew. You can put me down now.”

I set her on her feet, watching her carefully in the fluorescent lamplight as she uncapped the water and took a long swallow.

“Go back inside. I’ll follow in a couple minutes.” When I gave her a look she smirked a little. “Yeah, I knew you weren’t going to go for that.”

“Sit down.” I gestured to the graying wood-planked bench against the wall, but she shook her head.

“I’m fine. Really. It actually feels good to stand. Wow, it’s been a really good day, huh? Pirate won his first competition. How amazing is that?” Her words tumbled over each other.

I cocked my head, studying her. “Are you drunk?”

“No.” She laughed and then flashed me an impish grin. “Well, maybe a little bit. Can you be a little bit drunk? Or is it like being pregnant? Once you’re in, you’re all in. I’m not pregnant, either, by the way. I haven’t had sex in…oh…nine months? That’s too long. Don’t you think it’s too long?”

I stared at her.

Oh, no.

I had never seen Essie drunk, to my recollection, but I had seen her sober plenty of times and this wasn’t it.

Sober Essie hated me. But drunk Essie was looking at me with an offer in her eyes that I might not be strong enough to refuse.

She swayed toward me a step, and then another. Not in a drunk, unsteady on her feet kind of way. In a hipsswinging, seductive kind of way. When there wasn’t space to fit a Bible between us, she tilted her face up and licked her bottom lip. I bit back a groan.

Whatever the fuck was happening right now, she was going to hate me more than ever in the morning. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. Unless she put her lips on mine right now, because in that case?—

“You used to be my best friend,” she whispered. “Why did you stop?”

She could have slid a knife right into my gut and it would have surprised me less. Hurt less, too, probably. The ache of it filled my lungs instead of oxygen. I couldn’t breathe around it.

“I told you everything. My hopes, my fears, all of it. I even talked to you about Jack, the good and the bad, even though you were his friend, too, because I knew you would never breathe a word of it to him. I knew you wouldn’t betray me. You were mine in a way that you were never his, weren’t you? I don’t know how else to explain it, but that’s how it felt.”

That’s how it was.

But I didn’t say a damn word.

“I told you everything,” she said again. “Well, almost everything. I used to think about what it would be like if we were more than friends. I never told you that. But it’s true. I used to wonder about what it would be like to kiss you.” She looked up at me, her blue eyes as luminous as the stars overhead. “Did you ever wonder that?”

She moved like she meant to put her wondering to rest once and for all, but I moved faster. I caught her jaw with my hand, her chin snug in the curve between my thumb and index finger, and held her back.

“No,” I roughed out. “I never wondered what it would be like to kiss you. I didn’t have to wonder.” I slid my hand from her jaw down the smooth column of her throat where I could feel her pulse thrum. She stared at me with wide eyes, her mouth falling slightly open. “Because I knew how it would be. The way it always is with us. Too much, and not enough.”

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