Page 50 of Presley's Christmas Catch
We settle onto the plane while it gets ready to leave, and I pull out my copy of the new TOK book. “Ready to start?” I ask.
“I’ve been waiting all day, Book Tsar.” She reaches inside her bag.
I hold up a hand, stopping her. “Come over here and read to me. You’re first.” I took a seat on the love seat that’s situated on one side of the plane since it accommodates my large stature a lot better. I point to the seat next to me. “So I can make sure you’re reading it right and not skipping things you don’t like.”
Presley doesn’t answer for a long moment, just studies me, eyes boring into mine. “Lyraisn’tthe Obsidian Queen,” she finally says and steps across the aisle to plop down next to me. I take up a lot of room on any piece of furniture I sit on, but especially this one. It can’t be true love-seat size since the space I’ve left for her puts her right next to me, her leg touching mine as she sits down.
I hand her the book, again pushing aside the warmth that creeps over my leg from where she’s touching me. I’ll think about that tomorrow. I stretch my arm across the top of the love seat. She turns to glance at it but then stares at the book.
“Not sure I’m ready for this,” she says quietly as she stares down at it.
Oh, I know the feeling.
“Even when we finish this book, TOK doesn’t have to end. We can read it together a dozen more times.” I let my arm slip off the love seat and around her shoulders, pulling her in for a side hug.
“A dozen,” she says, her soft voice scoffing. “Slow poke.” She leans into my side and opens the book. I relax beside her.
In the early hours of the next morning, after I’ve walked Presley up to her apartment and hugged her goodnight, I text Lincoln as I make my way back down to the SUV.
Brock:I think I messed up.
CHAPTER 21
PRESLEY
Wednesday crawls by despite how busy I am catching up on the work I missed the day before. I should be more tired, considering I was so keyed up after Brock dropped me off that I didn’t fall asleep until after three this morning. So much was running through my brain, specifically the fact that for at least half of the plane ride,I cuddled with Brock while we read TOK.
Just like my daydream.
He expects this to continue—me and him, sitting together and reading. He already plans on coming over tomorrow. No big reveals have happened in the book yet, but we’re both eager to find out which of us is right about the Obsidian Queen. We’d read together tonight, but we also both agree we need to catch up on sleep.
I definitely need to, or I’m going to do something stupid like tell him my feelings for him again. Everything about yesterday felt so at odds with him saying that he didn’t feel the same way about me that I did for him and him worrying about me getting the wrong idea from our friendship.
Is this what he means? That I would read into the hand-holding and the cuddling and the carrying me to safety stuff?
For goodness sake, what girl wouldn’t?
I drive straight to my mom’s after work. I have things to talk to her about. Getting her opinion on what kept Aunt Shannon from telling me about the book for one. Asking her what she thinks about the way Brock acted yesterday for another, although I suspect I know what she’s going to say. She was so sure he liked me before. She’s going to be positive now.
I don’t know if that helps me.
I need to find more friends than just my mom.
Mrs. Westcott is marching up the street from her house when I pull up. I quickly duck down, although that probably makes me look guiltier than just facing her. I rise a little to peer out the window, relieved when she passes by my parents’ house and goes on down the street. She’s wearing flared leggings, walking shoes, a long sleeved shirt, and a vest along with a beanie. And her arms are moving in a classic power-walker way. She’s exercising. Not out to interrogate. Still I wait for her to round the block before I venture out of my car. I could not hold it together if she stopped to talk with me. Not when I have her ring in my possession.
I have to figure out how to get it back to her without me ending up arrested in the process.
I take a deep breath, pushing thoughts of the ring out of my mind so Mom doesn’t read them on my face, and head for the front door. “Hey!” I call after I’ve tapped in the code and push the door open.
My dad sits in one of the big recliners. He holds up a book. “I went to your house and got book five yesterday. Hope you don’t mind.”
I make my way into the living room. “You’re the slowest reader I’ve ever met.”
“I may be retired, but I’m not lying around the house all day reading.”
I pick up a pillow from the couch and throw it at him.
“I thought once you left the house, my pillows would besafe,” Mom says, coming into the room. She walks right over to Dad, picks up the pillow, and puts it back.
