Page 71 of Unsteady

“Where are you?” he asks, and I remember just how often he’s been in my dorm room between and after classes. Enough that he would recognize my decorated walls or checkered blue bedding.

“Home.” I move a little and find a comfy spot on my bed, sinking into the old twin mattress. “Congrats on the win, hotshot.”

His mouth opens to speak, but a deep voice rolling from the background cuts him off.

“Don’t congratulate him. He tweaked his ankle in the first shift and rested most of the game.”

My eyebrow crinkles, the words Bennett has said rolling around in my head as I try to make sense of them. The sheepish look on Rhys’ face doesn’t help the inkling of disbelief.

But then he smiles, his eyes glazing.

“I love that,” he says.

“What?”

“When you get that little wrinkle in your eyebrows. Like you’re thinking really hard about something.”

“About you.” I roll my eyes, dropping my phone to point at the ceiling, hiding the blush and kicking my feet.

I’ve never been this way with anyone. Watching my dad mourn my very much alive mother—drowning tears with alcohol, drugs, and women since I was twelve—left a bad taste in my mouth for relationships. Hell, people in general.

But with Rhys, it’s different.

Real.

“You didn’t play?” I ask.

Bennett walks close enough I can just see him out of frame.

“Want me to bring you anything back?” he asks, slapping a baseball cap on his head as he leaves the frame again.

“I’m good,” Rhys replies. The door slams and he visibly relaxes when it’s just us.

Like he always does.

“So.” He sighs, a mischievous glint to his eyes. “My surprise.”

I giggle—not a sound I make often but there’s a thrill to this.

I’m not nervous, I’m excited—and a little worried that I’ll regret this later, when he’s moved on to a real girlfriend and his big career.

Still, I take this moment to be selfish.

“I don’t remember anything about that.” I tease, slipping the stretched neck hole of my oversized t-shirt off my shoulder with a strategic shrug.

His eyes track the movement, shoulders slumping as he relaxes further into the bed.

I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Something warm and unwelcome wriggles in my chest. So, instead of responding, I strip my shirt from my body in one fell swoop. This isn’t romantic. We aren’t a couple—this is sexual only.

“Oh, fuck,” he curses, eyes wide as he takes in the baby blue lingerie set Aurora gifted me for my birthday last year.

“You like it?”

He nods like a bobble head.

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