Page 66 of Break Your Fall

“Bad,” he says with a serious wide-eyed stare. “I don’t wanna relive it. It’s literally like having a dog. A badly behaved dog,” he clarifies, and I smile, shrug a shoulder.

“Well, at least he’s potty-trained.”

Tommy laughs. “That’s one way of putting it.”

He groans next, about to admit something he doesn’t want to admit. “Okay, fine. I wouldn’t do it again,” he emphasizes to my raised brow anticipation before saying, “But it might have been some of the most entertainment I’ve ever had.”

“Score,” I rub in, the word a victorious whisper.

“Yeah,” he says through a chuckle. “It’smewho’s the dramatic one.”

I warm at his taking of the word. “No, you’re thehorrificone.” He smiles, and on my own cue, I showcase the movie I brought.

“Ooh,” Tommy says as he stares down atScream. “I could be down for this.” I roll my eyes at his blasé delivery. He’sverydown for this. “I don’t have any popcorn, though,” he tells me with a regretful look.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I happen to know you have a box of Oreos ready to be ripped open.”

The smile touches his eyes first. “You’re speaking my language,” he says as the smile reaches his lips.

“Yeah, yourhorrificlanguage,” I say as he passes me. He laughs, then shuffles through the cupboard where I’d spotted the Oreos.

“How’s it going with Aspen?”

Tommy understands my struggles to give the guy a chance. My mother never gave the guys I picked a chance, and often tried to steer me toward the wrong ones. Tommy understands all of my feelings and reasonings, but he also knows thatchancesare a part of who I am. Even with my newfound conditions.

“Still not,” I sigh out as he returns to the edge of the bar with the box of Oreos. “Aspen and Riley are my mom’s new family. Not mine.” I scoff. “I’m losing her to a new family. Not that I ever really had her,” I remind myself, bitter. “And she gets to be with a guy who can love her. Agoodguy. Why does she deserve that?”

“She doesn’t,” Tommy affirms with a conviction that makes me feel validated. “But life isn’t about playing fair. It rarely does,” he says, his voice low.

“Yeah,” I say back, my voice lowering with his as I watch him, our separate and same struggles colliding. “Well, I kinda wanna scream about it, so,” I say next with a wave ofScream, and he laughs, a silent one that shakes his chest and puts the whole focus into his smile, a smile that causes fluttery knots in my stomach that can’t decide if they want to untangle and fly.

His laughter fades as he looks down at the bar, his head revisiting his own unfair play, and I reach for his hand.

“I’d change it for you if I could.”

Tommy’s eyes hold mine and another smile forms at my conviction, a soft pull under a soft stare. “I know.” His fingers slide along mine to rest against my palm, the pad of his index locating a smudge of dried paint that escaped the scrubbing. My breathing slows as he starts a slow rub over the spot.

Just the little things about you,he’d said to me with a curious smile the very first time he found one of them.

“How’d you know that was there?” I ask through a light laugh. He couldn’t have seen it.

“I don’t have to see it to know when it’s there,” he murmurs, and my eyes reconnect with his, that soft pull of a smile back on his face. “What were you working on?”

“A series,” I say, or at least I think I do. My mouth is moving, but my head is lost in Tommy and our hands. “I’ll show you when it’s done.” My words are breathy, and when I look up again, he’s watching me, his fingers still grazing my skin, and I’m wondering if he can tell the effect his touch is having on me.

We’re not past reading into things, and he knows that, too.

Everything feels so different. So … more. And I don’t want him to stop.

But he does.

Tommy’s hand slides out from mine, but his gaze is unwavering, holding my own in a way that makes me never want to stare into another pair of eyes again, and at the same time makes me blush and want to look anywhere else, my nerves set aflame.

He makes me feel so special with just one look. So seen. So loved.

He can break my heart with just one look, too.

“Will you always look at me this way?”

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