Page 33 of Only Between Us

I resent it. Despise it. Should know better.

But goddamn, she’s beautiful.

How long, exactly, does it take to desensitize to the delicate shape of a woman’s nose? To stop counting the pale flecks of blue in her eyes?

Shaking myself mentally, I pull the car onto the road. In the years I’ve lived in Oakwood Bay, both for college and in the time since my injury, I’ve spent little time in Baycrest. The town itself isn’t especiallydifferent from Oakwood, with its colorful storefronts, cobblestoned main road, and vintage streetlamps. But while Oakwood is nestled in greenery and pine trees, with no waterfront to speak of, Baycrest sits on the bay itself.

We wind down a curved road at the end of her street, and the view opens up to the water. At least it’s a quick drive down to the boardwalk. I’ll be at the gym, where I belong, within a half hour.

“Attwood.” I glance over to find Siena’s eyes still shining with laughter. “Are we going to sit here ignoring the fact that every single cupholder in this car, front and back, has a coffee cup in it? Rough night last night?”

“They’re for you. I don’t know how you like to caffeinate.”

With another laugh, she peers at the cupholders between us and the ones in the back seat. “And, what? You bought out an entire Starbucks to figure it out?”

“Of course not. That’s ridiculous.” I pull in behind a row of parked cars on the side of the street and check the cup closest to me.

“Then what—”

“You know there’s no Starbucks around here. They’re from the diner in Oakwood. Do you like vanilla? I think this is a latte.” Her deadpan stare is fixed on me. No-go on the vanilla. I pick up another cup, checking the black marker scrawled across the side. “Coffee with cream and sugar? Or there’s one with oat milk in it, whatever that is. Parker swears by it for his lactose intolerance—can you have dairy?”

She stares. I can see the gears turning in her head before a bratty little smirk pulls at her mouth. “Actually, I prefer tea.”

“Which kind?” I reach into the back for the cardboard tray of teas sitting on the floor behind her seat.

The smirk flickers but she recovers quick. “Just kidding. I’m an iced-coffee-even-in-the-winter kind of girl.”

That smirk dies right out when I pull a tray of iced coffees from behind my own seat. “Which kind?”

She stares at me double fisting trays of caffeine. “You seriously went out and bought one of everything because you weren’t sure how I like my caffeine?”

When she puts it like that… well, it sounds mildly obsessive, which is not at all what I had in mind when I did this. I was shooting for…

Fuck, I don’t know.

Siena stares down at the humiliating array of beverages before finally helping herself to the original vanilla latte. “Well, you’ve done it—I have no idea what to say to this.” She pauses with her mouth on the lip of her cup. “They’re not poisoned, are they?”

“No.” I cough when my voice comes out grainy. “Not poisoned.”

I watch her take a sip of her drink as she stares out of the window, and it stills the nonsensical nerves thrumming in my veins. Then she glances at me.

“Thank you.” She shoots me a tentative smile. Same way she did yesterday, when I gave in to the inexplicable urge to untangle her necklace.

Something hot bursts in my stomach. Same as it did then.

“Yeah” is what I muster up. I hold her gaze and it feels significant. The way it felt to sit next to her in that coaches’ booth, before our selfie went viral. And then she kissed me and…

Serious question for one Brooks Attwood: What the fuck is wrong with you?

I shouldn’t care about her coffee preference. Shouldn’t have brought her coffee at all, let alone a carful of it. I stash the idiotic trays of teas and iced coffees where they came from and get us back on the road.

“Consider this a thank-you for that nice little kiss from yesterday.” I suck in my cheeks, holding back a laugh as she freezes mid-sip. “You know, I’ve been thinking about it all night.”

“I don’t need to know about your nighttime activities. That’s between you and your hand.”

“Well, me and my hand finally figured out how that kiss came to be.”

She shoots me a glare. “You mean how I told you to go right, and you can’t listen to simple instructions?”

---