Page 107 of Scoring the Player
“He was depressed?” He curls a leg in and turns toward me.
“Maybe. I mean, yes. Though maybe the beginning of it back then? There were so many changes, it’s hard to isolate.”
“Like what?”
I blow out a breath. “Names of people I’d never heard of and would probably never meet, his vocabulary, the way he wore his clothes, and walked. He ran on way less sleep, couldn’t even sit with his back to a door, and he scanned every joint we were in.” I shake my head. “That’s why we got this.” I pat my tattoo. “I needed something to stay the same between us.”
“I get that. Every tat I get makes my skin feel more like mine.”
“Yeah, exactly. I thought maybe our skin could keep some part of us the same since everything inside us had changed.”
“Usorhim?”
“Hm?”
“It sounds like he was the one doing the changing.”
I nod. “It kinda changed me, too, though. My parents too—day after day, year after year, praying for his survival.”
He rubs my forearm. “Is he still in the service?”
“No.”
At least not physically.
“He lives with me when he’s not, uh, traveling.”
Another call this morning, another voicemail.
I’ve crossed over from annoyed into full unease. My parents too.
Where the hell is he?
I wakeon my side with a pillow in front of my chest and check my watch for the time.
If I don’t get in a car soon, I won’t hear the end of it from my GM and coach. I lift the pillow slightly and inhale with my nose buried in Blue’s curls.
I lean back. As soon as I start to move, gently untangling the arm stretched above his head, he flinches awake.
“It’s just me,” I whisper.
Pillow lifted, he blows out a breath and then buries his face against my chest.
I grin and kiss his hair. “I gotta go.”
“Un-unh,” he grunts, returning the pillow over his head. “Finish what you started.”
“Huh?”
“You took your shirt off in the night because you were hot.”
“So?”
He grabs my palm and wraps it around his erection. “Finish what you started.”
I grin and reach for a condom and lube. “You gonna show your face?”
“Sun.”
