Page 63 of Our Secret Moments
She swallows. “I had lunch after I finished writing the section on the team’s training schedule. Since then, I’ve just been here.”
“Catherine, you can’t just survive off a salad from the cafeteria when you’re studying all day. You need breaks,” I say gently, squeezing her thigh, needing her to look at me better, needing her to listen to me.
“I thought you were coming, so I was going to wait until we had dinner,” she says. She finally looks down at me now and it feels like a punch straight to my gut. Her bottom lip quivers that it physically hurts to look at her. “You’re late, Connor. You forgot.”
I swallow back the emotion in my throat until I can feel it low in my stomach, feeling like an absolute prick. I stand to my feet and start collecting her papers into neat colour coordinated piles. “Come on. I’m going to get you some food, take you home and you’re going to get some real sleep, okay? No more studying.”
“No more studying,” she repeats, nodding at me, a loopy grin on her face.
I feel like even more of a dick the whole time I walk her to my car in the parking lot outside my dorm and drive her to the nearest Taco Bell. She doesn’t say anything the whole time. I ordered her usual, and she thanked me quietly and then ate in silence as we waited in the parking lot. Even when we walked back up to her dorm, she didn’t say anything to me as she kept her eyes on the ground, her fingers twisting inside the fabric of her sweater.
I don’t hear a word from her until I walk her to her bedroom, shut the door behind me and go to turn on the light.
“No, don’t turn on the light,” she mutters, moving closer to me next to the wall. She peers up at me, those gorgeous eyes blinking up at me, and I swear my heart stops and restarts again. I nod, listening and moving my hand from the switch.
“Come here, Catherine,” I murmur, tugging on her sweater and pulling her into me. “Can you look at me? Please.” She holds my gaze then, finally. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”
She shakes her head immediately. “Nothing,” she whispers, “I just need to go to sleep. I’m tired, Connor.” I nod and she turns around, walking towards her bedside table. I stay glued to my spot, watching as she picks up her clothes from the drawer.
Before I can even turn around, she slowly pulls off her sweater, her back still to me as she drops the fabric to the floor.
Holy fuck. There’s too much skin – long expanses of smooth, dark brown skin and no bra to restrict her. Her braids fall down to her ass and I don’t get a second before she shimmies off her pants, seamlessly pulling on an oversized shirt and covering her panties with shorts.
When she moves to her bed, still staying silent, I clear my throat, needing to give myself an out. “I guess I’ll just…” Iclear my throat,again, because she looks up at me with those innocent doe eyes the second she slips under the covers and I just want to shred the distance between us and take her in my arms. I can’t tell if she’s mad at me or not and I want to give her the space to figure that out. “I’ll go. I’m sorry again, Cat.”
I don’t wait for her response as I turn around, muttering to myself about how stupid I am to have messed up what was supposed to be an easy study date.
I can’t even have a normal conversation with someone, never mind trying to hold my fort in an official NFL interview. If I keep doing stupid shit like this I’m never going to make it. I’m going to flunk out of school, move back in with my parents, turn into one of those people who—
“Stay.”
I turn around and blink back at her in the darkness. Her covers are tucked under her armpits, her hands twisting together on top of her stomach. “What?”
“Don’t go yet. Stay with me until I fall asleep. I’ll sleep better if you’re with me. Please, Connie,” she murmurs.
The helplessness in her voice has my feet moving before my brain can fully process it. I take off my shoes, slide into the bed beside her as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. I curl my arms around her, pulling her close to me. The fresh smell of her immediately calms me. When my erratic heartbeat starts to settle, I notice that she’s relaxed into me completely and I think for a second that she’s fallen asleep until she twists in my arms, resting one hand beneath her head as she studies me.
“Can I ask you something?” she whispers.
“Of course,” I say, swallowing, “Anything.”
“Why did you forget me today?” she asks, her voice quiet and desperate.
“Jesus, Cat, don’t say it like that,” I mutter, stroking my thumb against her collarbone. She drops her gaze to thecomforter between us. “I was watching a movie and I lost track of time.”
“I don’t believe you,” she mumbles.
“Well, you should.”
“Why?”
“Because I was watching it for you,” I admit, my face heating up just at the thought of it. I’ve never done that for another person before, but for some reason Wes’s advice seems to be working and there’s nothing that I want more than for Cat to see me as more than her best friend's brother who has a painful crush on her. “I wanted to impress you, so we could have something more to talk about.”
A disbelieving laugh leaves her mouth, shaking her head as she continues staring at me, her eyes tracing patterns across my face. “We always have something to talk about, Connor.”
“I know, but I wanted something just for us, you know. Something special,” I say into the space between us. I inch closer to her, pushing her body closer to mine until her hands find their way in my hair. I kiss the top of her nose and she scrunches it automatically, giggling as she pushes my face away from her.
“What movie did you watch?” she asks.