False Start - Jessica Ruddick Page 0,47
their toothbrushes. “What’s that smell?”
“Sorry, is it bothering you? I had just hit the drive-through when I got your call.”
I tried to remember his practice schedule. It wasn’t consistent like it had been in previous years because of the new coach. He’d probably come straight from practice.
I looked in the back seat and saw a big bag of abandoned food. “You must be starving. I didn’t even think about you just getting out of practice. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”
“You don’t have to apologize. You can always call me, whenever and for whatever reason. I would have been pissed if you hadn’t called me.” He pulled into his parking spot and cut the engine. “Wait for me to get out of the car.”
“What?”
Not answering, he got out of the car and came around to my side. I opened the door, and he took hold of my arm. “Concussions can make you dizzy and unsteady on your feet. I don’t want you crashing to the ground and getting a lump on the other side of your head to match the first one.”
I grimaced. “I look horrible, don’t I?” Looking in the mirror hadn’t exactly been a priority. Maybe if it had, I would have paid more attention to the fact that I was still wearing nothing but a bathrobe. I had it pulled tightly closed around my neck, but still. One stiff breeze, and I would be pulling a Marilyn Monroe.
“Your injuries look painful,” Carson admitted.
I laughed then regretted it because it made my head feel like BBs were ricocheting around inside my skull. “Clever way to dodge the question.” And he calls himself stupid.
We’d made it to his front door. He faced me and ran his fingers along the outside of my injuries so softly, I had to question if I was imagining him touching me so tenderly. If getting beaten up was what it took for him to touch me like that, I would have done it back in high school.
“You’re always beautiful.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to quip that he was required to say that because of the best friend’s little sister code, but I stopped myself because I didn’t want to know if that was true. I’d had a bad enough night, so I let myself take his words at face value. “Thank you.”
“Now let’s get you in bed.”
Yes, please. Although I highly doubted he meant it the way my compromised brain interpreted the phrase. Wishful thinking. The last time I’d slept over at Carson’s, I’d ended up playing with his nipples. I hoped I could keep myself in check this time. Though I could blame my behavior on the concussion.
“Okay.” I had been tired to begin with, and now that the adrenaline had worn off, I was exhausted. I let him lead me to the stairs. Although I gripped the railing, he still held on to my other arm and put his hand on my lower back. A tiny, minuscule part of me wanted to milk the whole concussion thing and ask him to carry me up the stairs. Not because I wasn’t capable of walking up them myself but because… well, just because.
Ugh. A concussion was no excuse for my thoughts. I was supposed to be figuring out how to move on from Carson, not falling deeper into my never gonna happen fantasies.
“Before I forget to tell you,” he said, “I invited your parents to come for the family-appreciation football game.”
“What about your parents?”
His expression hardened, and I cursed my thoughtlessness. Stupid concussion strikes again. Carson’s parents weren’t bad people—they were just uninterested parents. “They can’t make it.”
That made me sad for him, but I knew he wouldn’t appreciate me feeling sorry for him. In general, he didn’t like talking about his family because, as he’d once said, “there’s nothing to say.”
“That was really thoughtful of you to invite mine.”
He shrugged. “I practically lived at their house for the second half of my childhood. They had a fair hand in raising me.”
Hanging out with him the previous night had made me realize that I’d missed him more than I’d let myself admit. He’d been the first person I’d called after I’d dialed 911. The reaction had been knee-jerk. I’d been stupid to think I could cut him out of my life. Even if he weren’t so intertwined with my family, I wouldn’t want to.
It was time to woman up and put my childish crush to rest… but maybe after I let