Page 86 of Honey Pot

“It's a job, a professional baseball team.” Silas brushed it off.

“Yeah, but so are the Hornets. We might play college ball, but we still take it seriously. We live together, we eat together, we’re a family. Those guys go home from practice and ignore each other on the weekends?” Arlo explained. “I just don’t think Dallas is where I belong.”

“So you’re coming home?” I blurted out between bites ofhamburger.

“We’ll see.” He sighed. “I have to ride out pre-season with them, I owe them that for giving me the chance.”

“You don’t owe them anything,” I grumbled.

“Enough,” Silas warned, hand out to silence my grumbling before he turned his gaze back to Arlo. “Take what you can get while you can.”

I hadn’t asked about Julien again since the porch, scared to hear her answer, so instead we danced around each other for the week.

“How did your interview with Dad go this morning?” I asked her and her eyes shot up from behind the laptop. “That bad?”

“No.” She shook her head but I didn’t quite believe her. “It went really well. I got some good footage.”

I watched her for a second more, taking in her closed-up demeanor before grabbing a water bottle from the fridge.

“We’re going down to Hilly’s for dinner, did you want to come?”

“Yeah, I could use a break.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. Surprisingly, she did not fight or suspect me. I could see the gears turning behind her soft eyes. I was doing that thing she hated so much: ghosting the problems we had in favor of enjoying the time we had together. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be around her as much as possible.

Trying to cram seven years of distance into four months of unexpected togetherness. It was painful to think about her leaving, so I just opted for ignorance. Had it hurt when she asked me why I don’t fight her on things? Sure, but Clementine had spent enough of those seven years fighting with my ghost, I could see it every time she looked at me.

I’d been lucky, blessed even. Absolutely ignorant. I spent seven years hiding in the good memories of her, fucking, and laughing. I just wanted to give her that now that we were together. No matter how little time I might get to do it.

“Alright, go get changed. I’ll meet you out front.”

Arlo was home, Clementine was smiling, Thanksgiving was in a week, and life seemed okay for once. There was no itch to fill the spaces with drugs or need to get drunk; I had everything I wanted.

Within five minutes, she was sitting in the passenger seat, wearing dark, tight jeans and a white cropped tank top that showed off the smallest strip of skinalong her hips and stomach. It was taking everything in me not to pull over on the side of the road.

It didn’t help when her head lolled to the side, and she stared up at me with those beautiful chocolate eyes. I wanted to live in the look she gave me, soft and careful, with a delicate curl to her pouty lips.

Seven years of wishing for this and it still didn’t feel real.

“What?” Clementine asked me.

“Nothing, you’re just beautiful,” I answered and turned into the parking lot of Hilly’s. She didn’t respond but the blush on her cheeks told me enough as we climbed from the car and made our way inside.

Everyone upstairs hovered around one of the booth tables, chatting with Arlo as Ella laughed with Zoey, and Van threw darts with Dean.

“Hey,” Silas called out to me with a handful of glasses. “Help.” He handed me a couple. "You’re still here?” He narrowed his eyes on Clementine.

“I sure am.” She smiled and held her hand out to help.

“You should join us for Thanksgiving next weekend,” he said to her.

I could see her declining before she even opened her mouth to speak. "Oh, come on, Plum. One last dinner, and then you can leave us.”

Hurt flickered across her face, but she shrugged. “Sure… why not.”

“Cody,” Silas said before walking away. “We need to sit down and plan out the exhibition game; I’ve got a hundred people up my ass, and you said you’d help so…”

I tapped two fingers to my chest. “I’ll get on it tomorrow.”

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