Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,165
tongue-tied in a heartbeat as I watch her stride into the room full of mirror, wearing nothing but the football jersey I was supposed to wear when I finally got on the field to play for the Stanford Cardinals with Cole. But as fucking fate—which is really hate in my fucking ledger—would have it, the week I was supposed to go, we got back from Europe and my world came collapsing around me. I never thought I’d see that jersey with my number and my name blazed across the back but here it is, on the best person who could ever wear it.
“I’m here,” I say, but she hears me.
“There you are,” she says, a breathtaking smile on her face. God, she’s so beautiful sometimes it hurts to look at her. It hurts NOT to look at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Where did you get that?”
“Oh this? I’ve had it for a while,” she says, looking down at the jersey.
“What?”
“Cole gave me this when I moved to Massachusetts for college,” she mutters, studying me carefully. “I guess he thought it would help me through.”
Fuck. Just when I thought I could never love this girl any more than I already do, she goes and does something like this.
“Fuck, you look incredible,” I whisper, aware that my voice is hoarse and rough. I can feel my cock swell in my jeans as I look at her.
“For a moment I thought you were mad, but hold up with that, what is this?” she whispers, now looking around the room since the storm she thought was brewing is not coming. Yet. “I was wondering where your torture room would be.”
“A torture room?”
“I’m reading sexy dark mafia books right now, don’t break my high,” she says. I shake my head. Those damn books. There’s a new shipping that arrives at my office every fucking day, full of paperbacks. “So, what is this and why are you standing in the dark?”
“This,” I start, grabbing her hand and flip on the lights with the small remote on my hand. “Is your ballet studio. Or torture room as it were.”
“Oh my God,” Mia gasps, looking down at me. “This is, just Oh my God.”
“When we were laid up in that hospital after the fight of our fucking fight, you told me you’d never dance again,” I start. “I have to fucking admit, Mia, that fucked me up.”
And there it is, the one that’s been plaguing me for years.
“It fucked me up all those years we were apart and it’s because of that, that I had this house built. I only wanted to give you this. Ballet was your dream once, then Nancy got ill, that fucking Paris bullshit company had the audacity to reject you and it hurt you, but baby, I want to help heal every ache you ever sustained. Including the dreams you let go off because at the time it hurt to accept the denial and the shitty reality we were plunged into.”
“Julian, I don’t know what to say,” she says, looking at me. It’s then that I see tears trail down her face.
“I just want an answer, baby,”
And it’s with that hanging in the air between us that I drop down on one knee, holding her tiny, soft hand in mine, looking up into the bluest eyes that anchor me when all else sinks.
“Mia.”
“Oh fuck,” she whispers.
“I’m a hard man. I’m greedy and I know how to be fucking selfish, especially when it comes to you, but fuck if I’ll go through this life without you tied down to me in every way that counts.”
She sniffles, looking down at me. Then suddenly she knees down in front of me and cups my face in her hands, tears glistening in her eyes.
“You, Julian Fitzgerald are the biggest asshole I’ve ever met in my life. You were mean when we met but you… you were the first to really see through the bullshit You saw me, and you still somehow claimed me in that hospital and I… my heart hasn’t been the same ever since.”
Ah fuck.
Why am I about to be a fucking mess?
Aren’t girls supposed to the one who fucking feel like their hearts are being ripped out of their chests then thrown into the opening number of The Lion King?
“The truth is, I’m also greedy. Maybe I never told you that.”
“Baby, be as greedy as you want, just let me have you,” I all but pant, pulling her to me. “Forget that fucking contract and everything