Page 64 of The Run Home
Boon sighed. He folded his long legs under him and faced me, his hands landing on my feet. His thumbs dug into my arches, and while I wanted to hold on to this anger towards him, his fingers were straight magic. I would not, however, let a moan of pleasure slip through.
“I didn’t want to tell you at the time because I knew it would hurt you. I overhead Jason telling his math nerd friends that he could get you drunk at the dance. They were all placing bets on how many bases he could get with you. I was fuckin’ pissed. I waited ’til he left school and confronted him in the parking lot. The loser took one punch and cried, agreeing he wouldn’t take you. That’s all it took to convince him to leave you alone.”
Now I was the one gaping like a fish. All this time I thought Boon had just been mean-spirited and ruined my date to torment me. Yet in reality, he’d been trying to spare me from an asshole date who only intended to use me and then spread rumors. Tears filled my eyes, and Boon looked like I kicked his puppy.
“I’m so sorry, Shae,” he whispered, his hands tightening on my feet.
“Thank you for telling me the truth,” I whispered back, swiping at my eyes furiously. I was not going to waste time crying over some loser from twenty years ago.
Leaning forward, I held my hand out to Boon and he took it, crawling up my body to kiss me. His lips and tongue obliterated all thoughts of the past. All hurts from men who meant nothing to me now. And when he pulled me down to the floor and stripped my clothes off, I let him bury his head between my legs and carry me across the finish line.
The whole time I panted and moaned, eyes squeezed shut against the ruthless way in which he tackled everything in life including giving me pleasure, I wondered if everything I thought of him was wrong. He’d spent his own money to build the gymnasium so I could coach a first-class volleyball team. He’d already told me it was never hate-fucking for him. He told me he was going to ask me to marry him again once I believed it could be for love.
Had he always cared for me and I’d been oblivious?
All I knew now was when I cried out his name and shuddered in front of the roaring fire, he wrapped me in his arms and didn’t let go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Boon
Shae and Lydiamade an appearance in the teacher’s break room for lunch today, something they hadn’t done since Shae’s morning sickness flared up. Her gaze caught mine the second they walked in, a small smile playing across her lips. She seemed to have gotten used to me driving her to work and back every day, including the goodbye kiss in the car, but I hadn’t approached a public display of affection. This was our workplace, after all.
“We hear there’s catering,” Lydia deadpanned, her deep voice carrying despite the flat nature of it. Everyone turned in their direction, in various stages of eating the trays of sushi the new restaurant in town brought in for the teachers.
“I call dibs on the tuna sushi!” Coach Johnson bellowed, elbowing his way to his precious tuna. Just looking at him, he did appear to have dropped a few pounds, so maybe that crazy diet of his worked.
“I gag now when I smell tuna,” Steve, the English teacher, grumbled under his breath, hurrying to plop some salmon rollson his plate before Johnson got going on how nutritious tuna was for every human on planet Earth.
Lydia handed Shae a plate, then froze, the two staring at each other and communicating silently. Lydia snatched the plate back, not letting Shae sample any of the sushi. Then it hit me. In all the googling I’d done, it said sushi and lunch meat weren’t good for pregnant women. I set down my own plate, unwilling to eat it if Shae couldn’t.
Alyssa, the school nurse who’d flirted with me shamelessly until I’d shut it down unceremoniously when I saw how much it pissed off Shae, swung her gaze back and forth between the two women. She was pretty, exactly the type I would have gone for ten years ago, but she also seemed like the type who was always searching the room for someone better to talk to. Exactly the type who would have dumped me the second I announced my retirement.
“What? Are you pregnant or something?” she mocked, giggling like just the idea of Shae being pregnant was a funny joke.
I saw the way Shae’s mouth tightened and the slight rounding of her shoulders like she wanted to curl in on herself. I was already halfway across the room to rescue her when Lydia turned to Alyssa, her eyes holding a promise of death.
“Oh, you sweet summer child. Did your mama just have the ‘birds and bees’ conversation with you?” Lydia answered with fake sweetness. Then her face fell into a murderous glare. “We didn’t invite you to this conversation. You have three seconds to get out of my face.”
Alyssa’s mouth dropped open, but she scurried away, darting glances behind her to make sure Lydia wasn’t following. I slowed my pace and approached the two women.
“Thanks,” Shae murmured to her friend under her breath. “I’m getting out of here. That tuna smell is…” Shae spun around,let her pinkie graze mine on the way, and then she was out the door.
Lydia and I watched her go. When the door shut behind Shae, Lydia popped a sushi roll into her mouth, chewing like she gave exactly zero shits what anyone thought of her.
“Thank you for protecting her,” I said quietly, meaning every word. I loved that Shae had such a good friend watching out for her when I couldn’t be there.
“I always will,” she answered, after swallowing the huge bite. “Especially from men who might break her heart.” The look she gave me told me that was exactly the threat I thought it was.
I held up my hands in a peace offering. “I don’t plan to do that. I’m doing everything in my power to do the opposite, in fact.”
Lydia’s unblinking gaze was freaky. “I guess we’ll see about that.”
I wasn’t a dumb man. Maybe a little slow sometimes, but eventually I understood the situation and I knew right now, I needed to get in good with Shae’s best friend if our relationship was going to work long term.
“Listen.”
Lydia held up her hand. “I’ll stop you right there.”
