The OUT OF LINE Series

by Jen McLaughlin

  “Here,” he murmured, wiping my face down as he did last time.

  I closed my eyes, tears threatening to escape me at his tender touch. “Why are you being so nice to me? And why are you shaking?”

  “Because I care, even if it hurts.” He tossed the washcloth aside and rose to his feet. “Do you want to shower?”

  “Yes.” I opened my eyes. He was leaning against the sink clutching his stomach. As soon as he saw I watched him, he straightened and headed for the faucet. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he said dismissively. “Just worry about yourself.”

  I frowned. “Are you sick too?”

  “No.” The shower turned on, and he stuck his hand under the stream of water. Seemingly satisfied with the temperature, he went back to the sink and pulled out a light blue toothbrush. He opened the case and set it down on the sink. “Here. Use this.”

  I stood up and he grabbed my elbow. As if he was ready to catch me if I fell. But that was his job, wasn’t it? I couldn’t read anything more into it than that. “I don’t have any clothes to change into.”

  He hesitated. “I don’t want to leave you here alone to go get some.”

  “I’ll be fine alone.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  I sighed, but inwardly I smiled. He seemed so worried about me, and it was hard not to be affected by his concern. No matter how stupid that made me. “I’ll wear these again.” I looked down at the dirty, wrinkled clothes. The ones that probably smelled worse than I did. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “No, you won’t.” He let go of me. “I’ll go get a T-shirt and a pair of boxers for you to wear. They’ll be big, but it’s better than what you’ve got on.”

  Wear his clothes? Somehow that didn’t seem like a grand idea. His scent was already ingrained in my memory. Did I really need to wear it too? “But—”

  “No buts.” He headed for the door. “Just get in the shower. I’ll push the clothes in through the door once you’re in.”

  The door shut in my face, making me flinch. I took off my clothes and stepped into the water. Closing my eyes, I took a long breath. This is exactly what I’d needed—a fresh shower. A clean start. Hopefully the puking portion of my illness would be over now, and I could actually sleep.

  I turned to search for the shampoo, but stopped mid-reach. Next to his manly shampoo he had apologized for last time I’d been here rested a fruity, girly shampoo and conditioner. When had he put that in there? Back when we were “dating”? Or was it for another girl? Even as I thought it, my heart screamed no. I didn’t think he was seeing anyone else. He’d never given me a reason to believe he was. For all intents and purposes, the only woman he ever talked to was me. Just me.

  But only because he has to, my inner voice so rudely reminded me.

  I poured the shampoo into my palm, then scrubbed my scalp a bit harder than strictly necessary. Maybe that would make my smarter, annoying inner voice shut up. But instead, it simply reminded me of the last time I’d been in this shower. I hadn’t been alone, and Finn had washed my hair far gentler than I was doing to myself. He’d been tender and loving and kind.

  And then the next day, I’d found out who he was.

  By the time I was out of the shower, I felt better physically, but much worse emotionally. After I dried off, I padded over barefoot to the toilet, where he’d apparently left a folded up T-shirt and a pair of boxers for me. I recognized the T-shirt. It was the red one I’d been wearing the day I found out who Finn really was.

  I had washed it and set it on his porch step weeks ago.

  Of course, that was after I’d slept with it on for a week. I hadn’t wanted to give it back. It had smelled like him, even after a washing. He hadn’t said anything to me about me bringing it back, but he hadn’t had a chance to say anything at all until today. I hadn’t even seen him in three weeks. Part of me had wondered if he’d quit and gone home.

  That same annoying part of me was thrilled at being proved wrong.

  I pulled the shirt over my head, inhaling deeply. Had he known giving me this shirt would affect me so deeply? Or had he just blindly reached in and grabbed the first thing he saw? Probably the latter. I picked up the toothbrush, did a quick cleaning, then steeled myself to face him again.

  I opened the door and peeked out. He sat on the couch, texting someone. His girlfriend? My dad? The freaking Pope? Who knew. “Hey.”

  He clicked his screen off and stood up. He still didn’t wear a shirt. Probably just to taunt me with the muscles I would never touch again. “You look like you feel better.”

  “I do.” I crossed the room and climbed into the bed, tucking myself in. “Thank you.”

  He stood up and came to my side. Gently, he pressed his hand to my cheek. “You feel cooler too,” he murmured, his blue eyes examining me.

  Looking for signs of…what?

  “Good.”

  “Yeah. Good,” he said.

  We fell awkwardly silent, neither one of us so much as moving. Daring to be the first to break the hold we had over one another. His phone buzzed, making me jump. He dropped his gaze and checked the message. I swallowed back the jealousy threatening to take hold. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Hm?” He typed a quick reply. “No one.”

  “Is it her shampoo in there?”

  That got his attention. He looked up at me, his brow furrowed. “Whose?”

  “You tell me.” I touched my damp hair. “There’s girl shampoo in there. Are you seeing someone?”

  “What? No.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe I’d asked him that. “I got that for you, back when we were…well, you know.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.” He flushed and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s where the toothbrush came from too. After that first night, I went shopping while you were at school. I thought that maybe you were going to be spending a lot of time here, so I wanted you to have what you needed. But then…well, you found out who I was, and that was that.”

  “That was that,” I repeated, thoroughly and utterly confused. Nothing about this man added up. He acted as if he really cared about me and wanted to be with me, but he worked for my father. And he was a liar. And manipulative. And bossy. And annoying.

  And irresistible.

  There were a million things I wanted to say, and at least a million reasons why I shouldn’t say them. So I said nothing at all. When I remained silent, he shifted uneasily on the bed. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. You can have the bed.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  He arched a brow. “How am I being ridiculous?”

  “You can sleep in the bed too.” I flushed, searching for the right words to make it look like I offered because of practicality. I couldn’t let him know how much I ached to sleep in his arms again. Or how horribly I’d been sleeping ever since we had broken up. Or how I missed him so much it hurt. “It’s not like we’ve never, well, you know. Worse things have been done in this bed than sleeping together.”

  “Worse?”

  “Crap.” Mental facepalm. “Not that it was bad or anything—what we did. I mean, you know it wasn’t.”

  His lips twitched. “Do I?”

  I covered my face. “I’m done trying to talk.”

  He laughed and pulled my hands down. “Relax, you’re fine.”

  “No. I’m not fine.” I looked at him and his laughter faded away. “I’m not fine at all.”

  He swallowed hard. “Carrie…”

  “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything.” I rolled over on my side. “Just turn out the light. I’m tired.”

  After what felt like an hour, he finally turned off the light. I released the breath I’d been holding, willing my racing heart to calm down. As he lowered himself on the bed, keeping above the covers, he also let out a deep whoosh of air.

  He remained blessedly silent. I didn’t know if he went right to sleep, because as soon as I felt him next to me
, I zonked out. When I woke up in the morning, he was gone. My clothes were washed and folded nicely at the bottom of the bed.

  A note rested on top of it. I opened it with trepidation. What would he say? What could he say?

  I’m sorry.

  --Finn

  That’s it. Just three little words. And yet, they were more than enough.

  Two days later, I leaned against the outside of Carrie’s dorm, my eyes on the building she was currently in. I knew exactly who it belonged to, and I also knew how much I hated that she was inside of it. With the man she should have fallen for all along.

  Fucking Lover Boy himself, in the flesh.

  Ever since the night she’d spent at my apartment, I’d resumed following Carrie around sight unseen. Just like she wanted. Yesterday, she’d kept darting glances all around, watching for me. Almost as if she wanted to catch me out of place. I’d made sure to stay out of sight, and she had eventually stopped looking.

  I didn’t blame her in the least. If our roles were reversed, I would’ve felt the same way. I wouldn’t want to ever see her again, but that didn’t make it any easier on me. Losing her had only made it all the more evident that I loved her. And all the more evident that I was an idiot too. The two kind of went hand in hand, didn’t they?

  Love didn’t come without a little bit of stupidity. Okay. A hell of a lot of it.

  The door opened, and Cory came out, his arm thrown around Carrie’s shoulders. I tensed. She didn’t shrug free like she normally did. If anything, she snuggled in closer. I clamped my jaw tight and proceeded to try and come up with at least twenty different ways I could shove Cory’s arm up his own ass. I’d only reached option three when Cory kissed Carrie’s cheek, then went back inside.

  Cheek? Fucking pansy…

  I’d never like that guy as much as I did right now.

  Carrie hugged her books tight to her chest and searched the empty courtyard. I should slink back into the shadows. Hide. But I didn’t want to. Maybe I was in the mood for a fight. Maybe I just wanted to hear her voice as she told me to go away. Either way, I was completely pathetic.

  I straightened, waiting to see if she would see me. Equally worried she might not. Her gaze skimmed over me, then slammed back. I stood my ground, waiting to see what she did. How she would react to my blatant disobedience to her request.

  Mumbling to herself, she crossed the yard. “Hey. Thank you for taking care of me the other day.”

  She said it so fast that I had a hard time keeping up with the torrent of words coming out of her mouth. I cocked a brow. “You’re welcome. Sorry I’m still here. I wasn’t expecting you to come out of his room so soon.” I shrugged and focused on the door behind her. “I figured you might be…ah, busy for a little while. Ya know.”

  Her cheeks turned pink. “We weren’t…I didn’t…” She pressed her lips together. “We were studying, not doing that.”

  Relief rushed through me, heady and unstoppable. Relief I didn’t have a right to feel. “I figured as much when he kissed you on the cheek. Anyone who has earned the right to kiss you wouldn’t go for your cheek.”

  She opened her mouth, then slammed it shut. “Good night, Finn. You can go now.”

  I cocked my head. “I’ll leave once you’re inside.”

  “I’m not going inside.” She fluttered her hand. “Well, I am, but I’m coming back out. I’m going to a party.”

  I stood up straight at that. “What kind of party? And do you really think that’s best after the way you felt a couple nights ago?”

  “A frat party, and I’m fine.”

  She moved past me, going inside. I should go back into the shadows, but I didn’t like the idea of her going to a party tonight. After the type of night she had the other day, she needed rest and tea. Not dancing and beer.

  I paced for what had to have been twenty minutes, my impatience growing with each step I took. She had no place partying tonight. None at all. The door opened behind me and I spun. “You’re not going to that party. If you think I’ll sit there watching—”

  I stopped talking, and my jaw dropped. Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  I’d seen her in a bikini. I’d seen her surfing. I’d even seen her naked, but I had never seen her like this. She wore a tiny, poor excuse for a dress, a pair of fuck me heels that were meant to be over my shoulders, not on the ground—and wore more makeup than I’d ever seen on her before. Her red lips begged to be kissed, and the rest of her…well, it matched the shoes.

  “No.” My jaw ticked. “Go upstairs and put on some real clothes.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, not happening.”

  “You’re right. It’s not.” When she tried to pass me, I stepped in her way. “I said get dressed.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Do it.”

  “Or what?” She put her hands on her hips. Actually put her hands on her hips and stared me down. “What can someone like you do to hurt me?”

  I’d said almost those same exact words to her not long ago. Turns out, someone like her could hurt me too easily by refusing to be with me. By not loving me back. “I’ll kiss you, like you did to teach me a lesson, if you don’t change right now.”

  “Please.” She huffed. “I’m not the one who can’t handle a simple kiss.”

  Challenge. Accepted.

  I hauled her close, making sure to press my body fully against hers. Closing my hands around her ass, I rubbed against her as I fused my mouth to hers, not wasting even a second in ravishing her. Her hands pushed at my shoulders, but then she stopped pushing and started pulling me closer. When her tongue dueled with mine, I barely managed to hold back my shout of satisfaction.

  She might keep saying she didn’t want to be around me, but her body obviously did. Thank fucking God. She whimpered into my mouth and lifted her leg, wrapping her calf around mine. I would like nothing more than to keep this going. To take her home with me and show her exactly how much she hated me while I made love to her repeatedly. But I knew as soon as the kiss ended, so would we.

  Again.

  I pulled back and rested my forehead on hers, wishing that things could be different. “I miss you,” I whispered. “So damn much. Please give me another chance.”

  Her fingers tightened on me, and for a second I thought she might pull me closer. For a second, my heart leapt. She pushed me away. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  My heart leapt right into a gnarled mess at her words, but I forced myself to let her go. “Fine, but either you change out of that poor excuse for a dress, or I stay by your side all night instead of letting you do your thing undisturbed. Your choice.”

  “Why do you give a damn what I do? Just tell Dad I’m in bed. He won’t know.”

  I shook my head. “I care because I care about you, Captain Obvious.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “No.” I advanced on her. “I care about you, and you telling me to stop isn’t going to work. Get changed, or hang out with me.”

  “I’m this close,” she held her fingers close together and shoved them in my face, “to calling my Dad and telling him I know exactly who you are.”

  I cocked a brow. “Go ahead.”

  Bluff. Called.

  She stomped her foot. “What would your dad do without his pension?”

  “If he was here, he’d be stopping you from leaving in that too.” I dragged a hand through my hair. “This isn’t you, Carrie. If you have to dress like this to get a guy’s attention, he’s not the right guy for you.”

  She held her hands out to her sides. “What would you know about what kind of guy I need?”

  My jaw ticked. “I know it’s not whoever you’re wearing this outfit for.”

  “Oh?” She paced in front of me. “Let me guess. You’re the type of guy I need?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “You deserve much better than me.”

  That made her stop pacing, and she looked at me in surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “You
heard me.” I caught her jaw and tilted her face up to mine. “I’d like to say I deserve you, but the truth is I don’t and never will. You deserve a prince, and you’re not going to catch him wearing that.”

  “Finn…” She swayed toward me, her eyes soft. “I wish—”

  “Is there a problem here?” Cory asked, his voice tight. He glared at my hand, which was still on Carrie’s jaw. The little fucker was probably mad I dared to touch her. “Carrie? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Carrie quickly replied. “We were just finishing up here.”

  I dropped my hold on Carrie. “There’s not a problem, Cody. Carrie was about to go change.”

  “Change?” Cory looked her up and down, and I swore the idiot’s tongue hit the dirt. “She looks great to me.”

  “Of course she does,” I muttered.

  Carrie shot me an angry look. “Thank you, Cory.”

  “This is touching and all,” I said as I crossed my arms and rocked back on my heels. “but what’s your choice?”

  “I choose to ignore you and leave with Cory,” she said, tipping her perfect little nose up in the air. “Now, if you’ll excuse us?”

  Cory threw an arm over Carrie’s shoulder and shot me a triumphant grin. “See ya later.”

  I fell into step beside them. “No need for goodbyes. I’m coming along.”

  “No, you’re not.” Carrie stopped walking and shot me down with her sapphire eyes. “Finn. Please. Just go away. You’re going to ruin everything.”

  She gave me the look she probably gave her father. The look that made her get away with everything in the world, and then some. The one that begged me to back off, before her cover was blown. If I kept insisting on accompanying her, questions would be asked. She would no longer be just another girl who went to college. She’d be the senator’s daughter—complete with bodyguard.

  “You heard her.” Cory pulled Carrie closer to his side, eyeing me cautiously. “Go away. You don’t even go to this school, do you?”

  As if she needed protection from me. I was trying to help her, not hurt her.

  Wasn’t I?