Page 102 of Puck Block

“Break a leg, Heartbreaker.” I wink and start to walk away but stop at the last second. I spin and see her staring at me. “Do I need to check?”

She acts confused, but I know she knows what I’m referring to. “Check what?”

“I’ll peel that flimsy tutu off your body right now and check to see if you’ve had a recent injection, Tay.”

She bristles at my tone. “Do you think I want to pass out on stage in front of everyone? I checked my sugar, and it's fine.”

I exhale.Good girl.

There’s no point in checking her levels because they’ve been all over the place lately.

“Now go! I have things to do.”

I laugh under my breath. “I do too…but unfortunately, she’s busy.”

The music starts to fade as I walk down the empty hall, but before I get too far, I hear, “Pst, Ford!”

I pause, spin, and look at Claire like she has ten heads. “Um, aren’t you supposed to be on stage?” I ask.

She quickly shakes her head, and the shimmer on her cheeks catches the light when she steps forward. Her hand lands on my arm, and she pulls me around the corner. “I go on in ten, so we have to be quick.”

“Quick?”

“We need to talk about Taytum,” she says.

“Ah.” I nod. “You think we should tell Em too.”

Claire eyes my outfit. “Why are you wearing your hockey uniform?” She shakes her head. “Never mind, not important. And no, I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell Emory. He’ll go ballistic if he knows her sugar is high. He’ll probably storm on stage in the middle of the show.”

I snap backward. “Wait, what?” I pull out my phone to go through her levels again.

“I watched her take her sugar before the show started. I saw the number, and yet…” We both turn to her name being called. “She looked worried. I confronted her, and she assured me that she was fine. Is she?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and shut my eyes. “She will be.”But she better have used her insulin.

“I gotta go,” she mutters.

I catch her eye before she rushes off. “Meet me in the dorms after the show. We need to talk.”

She nods quickly.

“Don’t worry,” I assure her.

Claire’s smile hardly reaches her eyes before she’s scurrying off to leap onto the stage.

If there’s anyone that can help prepare me for meeting up with a long-lost parent, it’s Claire. And if there’s anyone who can give me a fucking heart attack, it’s Taytum.

[ 47 ]

TAYTUM

I smilewhen I hear the familiar sound of my window closing. My heart leaps, and my stomach fills with butterflies. Ford’s footsteps are slow and steady as he walks across my floor, and though I am exhausted from the show, I still planned to stay awake until he showed up.

My bed dips, and it takes everything in me not to roll to my back.

His finger hooks around a wavy piece of my hair, and he sweeps it off to the side, giving way to my bare shoulder. I clench my thighs when he places a soft kiss to the hollow part of my collarbone, pulling a shaky sigh from my mouth.

With every trailing kiss against my skin, a round of chills follows closely behind, until I can’t take it anymore. I move to my back and latch onto his shadowy figure hovering over me.

---