Page 51 of Pucking Obsessed

Her pleasure is like a drug to me.

I’m addicted to the way that she comes.

My Robyn.

My world.

The person who I’d burn the world down for.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tide Cottage, Freedom

Eden

“These scones lookgood enough to die for.” Cody opens my box of scones and then takes a deep sniff. His eyelashes flutter. “Hey, they smell good enough tokillfor.”

My cheeks flush with pride.

Cody is a couple of years older than me. He’s so athletic and sun blushed, however, by his time spent surfing that he looks the same age as me.

He’s handsome with neat brunette hair, freckles across the bridge of his nose, and russet eyes. He’s dressed in pastel blue board shorts and a black t-shirt withTORTURERemblazoned on the front in white.

His husband, Michael, gave him the t-shirt, after Cody practiced his physiotherapy on him. It’s a running joke now in the Bay Rebels.

I don’t really understand it but I do know that Cody and Michael have the type of close relationship that I admire.

I’m happy for Cody and I hope that one day, Robyn will look at me, in the same way that Cody looks at Michael.

They’re each other’s everything.

The kitchen is cozy with exposed beams and wide-planked wooden floors. The walls and open shelves are painted sky blue.

Cody’s surfboards are stacked against the far wall. A tangy brine smell wars with the sweet scent of freshly baked bread.

David Bowie’s glam rock “The Man Who Sold the World” is playing on repeat.

I respect Cody’s obsession with English rock. I should introduce him to the Arctic Monkeys.

That’s what friends do, right?

Before we started college, Shay spent our summer coaching me. He wrote out lists of conversation starters and topics that I could use to make friends.

I didn’t have any in school.

We spent our evenings in our room together through the hot summer, role playing different scenarios at lectures, bars, or in the locker rooms.

Yet it was only pretend.

Because when I reached college, I realized that it was bullshit.

What good was any of that work, if no oneseesyou?

If you’re so introverted that it makes you feel like your soul is on fire to be surrounded by noisy crowds of laughing students who somehow justget it…like my twin does?

Who make you feel like you don’t exist?

Yet Cody is the only person who doesn’t have that effect on me. He offers an easy affection and kindness that sparks something deep inside me.

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