Even without her turning me on like the hormonal teenage boy I was, I knew that I liked her. Really liked her. And I wanted to tell her just how much, but I couldn’t find the words. The idea of her rejecting me stopped me cold from admitting anything to her. I was pretty sure she just liked messing around with me, and that was the extent of it. And if that were true, I didn’t want to know it.
So instead of asking her how she felt or admitting my feelings, I’d kissed her again. And then I’d pretended like that was enough.
No Funny Business
Cammie
Dalton Thomas and I stood in an elevator headed toward my room on the tenth floor. And he was holding my hand.
HE
WAS
HOLDING
MY
HAND!
I pinched myself once to make sure this wasn’t some sort of cruel dream that I’d be forced to wake up from.
It wasn’t.
This was really happening.
His hand was a little rough, the hands of a man who didn’t work in an office, and I found myself enjoying the way it felt in mine a little too much. I forced myself to keep my fingers still, resisting the urge to rub my thumb along the length of his the way a couple in love would.
When the elevator dinged, I stepped off first and pulled him in the direction of my room. I assumed that Kristy would still be at the reunion as I slipped the key inside the card reader and it turned green, but I peeked in and checked for her just in case.
“Who are you looking for?” Dalton’s brows pulled together.
“Kristy. We’re sharing a room.”
“Got it. I think she’s still downstairs,” he added with a smirk, and I wanted to get on my tiptoes and plant a kiss on his slightly scruffy cheek. Even in my high heels, Dalton’s six-foot-two-inch frame still towered over mine.
“I was just making sure,” I said as I pulled my hand from his and looked around the small hotel room, wondering where the heck we could sit. Making my way toward one of the beds, I kicked off my high heels before plopping down and scooting all the way back so that I was pressed against the plush headboard. I bent my knees and pulled my feet under me, tugging at my dress to be sure it covered my lady bits as I moved.
“Sorry, there really isn’t anywhere else to sit,” I said, wondering if he would sit on the bed across from me or next to me.
The mattress dipped next to me as Dalton sat down and propped a bunch of pillows behind his back. I moved a little, angling myself more toward him so we could face each other somewhat while we talked. Part of me still couldn’t believe that he was sitting this close to me after all this time. Tiny streaks of nerves surged through me as my brain raced a mile a minute, my emotions all over the place, feeling so many different things.
“So—” he started to say, but didn’t finish his thought.
“So?” I asked, giving him the go-ahead to start.
He looked up at the ceiling, his jaw tense before his green eyes met mine. “God, Cammie, I want to know everything you’ve been doing for the last ten years. I want to talk about what that went wrong when we were kids. I wanted to be much cooler about all of this, but I can’t. I don’t even know where to start.”
My heart started to pound out beats that rivaled a drummer in a rock band. I wanted to talk about everything from senior year too. I longed to clear up all of that, but in this moment, all I needed to know was where he’d been since we graduated. Senior year was important, but not as important as filling in this ten-year gap that existed between us. Ten years was a long time to be apart, and I wanted to know how he had changed since then, or what had changed him.
“I want to know where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing since high school. We could start there?” I tried to smile, but it was tough when I was trying desperately not to crawl into his lap. The connection that had always existed between us was still very much alive, and it was a hard thing to resist when you didn’t actually want to.
Dalton’s shoulders relaxed a little at the safe topic. “I went to school in New York. I moved right after high school and majored in criminal justice. What about you?”
“I can’t believe you moved across the country for school. I stayed here and went to State. Double majored in Radio/TV/Film and Communications.”
“And you work for the Tom and John Show now?” He smiled, and I felt my eyes widen.
“How do you know that?”
“I listen.”
“You do?”
“Every once in a while since I moved back. But every morning since I realized you worked there.”
I sucked in a breath. He’d been listening to me on the air, which meant he had heard me talking me about him. “Did you hear?”
“All the reunion talk?”
I nodded and felt my cheeks warm.
He grinned. “Yeah. Who were you talking about? I wanted it to be me. Just lie and tell me it was me,” he said, putting his hand over his heart.
I smiled through my embarrassment. “It was you. I just didn’t want to say your name. I had no idea where you were or if you were married or not.”
“I’m not married.”
So we’re actually going there. Thank God. “Girlfriend?”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened?” My heart lurched a little as I wondered how long they’d been together, or if she was still a part of his life.
“It was what my friends like to call my ‘Ross moment,’” he said.