Page 60 of Keep Me Safe

“Wasn’t that your shirt?” Keith asks beside me.

“Yup.”

I have half a mind to go inside and tell her to take it off, but part of me likes seeing her in it.

chapter seventeen

kira

I step through the slider, satisfaction coursing through my veins. I took this shirt two nights ago when Noah was on shift at the station. I woke up from a pretty bad nightmare, and I was so used to him climbing into my bed and holding me, but he wasn’t there, and I couldn’t fall back asleep. So, I wandered into his room, and it was lying there on his bed. It smelled like him, that deliciously warm, earthy scent, so I took it.

I didn’t mean to wear it downstairs, and when he saw me, I was half expecting him to ask for it back, but he didn’t. Whether or not he regrets the other night, he likes seeing me in it. I won’t lie. It hurts the way he’s been avoiding me since my birthday. I know I shouldn’t have pushed him, but he wanted it too, didn’t he?

“Hey, girly!” I hear from behind me.

I turn to see Maddie coming in through the slider. Pulling the wooden spoon out of the pitcher, I set it down and wrap my arms around her.

“I’m so glad you could make it.”

“It better be worth it. I’m missing out on the opportunity to be drunk on a boat in Lake Michigan,” she says with a giggle.

“It’s worth it because you’re with me, right?”

She laughs, nodding at me.

I place the lid on the pitcher, setting it aside before searching the freezer for the popsicles I bought the other day. Digging through the pack, I grab a blue one, my favorite.

“Want one?” I say, gesturing to Maddie.

“Pink, please!”

Jared must have already picked through them because only one pink is left. I grab it and hand it to her.

“So, how’s it going with your sexy firefighter?” she asks way too loudly.

“Maddie!” I whisper yell.

“What? C’mon, give me something.”

“We haven’t really talked since my birthday.”

She looks at me, her eyes narrowing, “That asshole.”

“Leave it alone, Maddie,” I tell her. “What about Lucy? Are you two a true couple yet?”

Her cheeks flush as she looks at me, and all she gives me is a small nod.

“Really?” I gasp.

“Yeah, she’sofficiallymy girlfriend now,” she says, excitement bubbling in her eyes. “I asked her last night.”

“Oh my god, Maddie, I’m so happy for you,” I say as I guide us out of the slider.

There’s already a ton of people here, but the anxiety that usually manifests is nowhere to be found. Noah is standing at the grill with Keith, a beer in his hand. They seem to be in a deep conversation about the best way to grill a burger, and I can’t help but watch as his muscled arm reaches out, flipping them with ease.

His eyes catch mine before they move down to my shirt—well, his shirt—and his jaw ticks. My body heats at his gaze, but I force myself to look away, turning back toward Maddie.

“God, I want someone to look at me the way he’s looking atyou right now,” Maddie says.

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