He pulls away enough to meet my gaze with a dark look. “Good. Because that’s exactly what I want, too. This might have started out as a fake relationship, but that’s not how it’s going to end. Whatever this is between us, I want it to be real. I want us to be real.”
Is Brayden saying what I think he is?
“You...want to actually go out with me?” My head is spinning so hard that latching onto one coherent thought feels impossible. I don’t know if it’s because of his kisses or what he’s telling me. Maybe a potent combination of both. “You want us to date?”
“That’s exactly what I want.” There’s a pause before he adds in a softer voice, “I like you, Sydney. I have for a while. I’ve never been one for relationships, but I want to give this a shot. I want you to belong to me.”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this from him. Brayden can have his pick of females on this campus, and yet, I’m the one he wants to spend time with?
The Brayden I’ve known for the past three years has always been so full of confidence. It’s strange to catch a glimpse of the uncertainty lurking within his dark eyes. “What do you say, Sydney? Are you going to give this a chance?”
His hesitant question has the breath catching at the back of my throat. How can I possibly say no when he’s staring at me with such a hopeful expression?
My lips lift into a smile before I jerk my head into a nod.
A relieved grin flashes across his face before his mouth crashes onto mine. And then I’m lost. Swept away on a rising tide of sensation.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sydney
“I’ll tell you what, girl. I can’t remember the last time you were this happy,” Demi says, bumping her shoulder into mine in an attempt to reclaim my attention.
My gaze slides from the Wildcats stadium field where my brother is tossing around a football with Brayden to the girl who has been my best friend since freshman year of college.
Pent-up air rushes from my lungs in a burst as I turn her comment over in my head. I’m almost afraid to admit the truth out loud, because she’s right. I am happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long time.
I never expected to feel this way about Brayden.
I mean, come on...Brayden Kendricks?
That just seems plain crazy.
But there’s no denying the truth.
I’d been so sure that I had Brayden pegged as a handsome, football playing jock who enjoyed all the perks of being an athlete on this campus. Now that we’ve scratched beneath the surface, I’ve discovered that there is so much more to him. He’s smart, caring, and protective of his younger sister, Elle. He talks to his mother on the phone every couple of days. Family means everything to him. It’s just another thing we have in common.
I’ve come to enjoy the quiet times that we work together. Sketching him for my art project has been an absolute dream. I could stare at the thick length of his cock for hours. Actually, I have stared for hours.
And the way he touches my body...
A shiver of awareness slides through me before pooling like warmed honey in my core. I shift uncomfortably on the bench and attempt to tamp down my arousal.
Know what I find even more attractive than all of that?
The way he is with my brother. It makes my heart swell with thick emotion. Brayden doesn’t talk down to Lucus or treat him like he’s slow on the uptake.
There have been a few guys that I’ve brought home and introduced to my family. Right from the moment they meet Lucus, it’s obvious that some aren’t comfortable around an individual who also happens to have a disability. They’re unsure how to treat or talk to him so they end up ignoring him and that pisses me off. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that you treat everyone the same way you want to be treated. Or the way you’d want people to treat your loved one.
Is that really such a difficult concept to grasp?
Apparently so.
There’s no reason to talk to him like he’s in pre-school and can’t understand basic concepts. He understands them just fine, thank you very much. If those people can’t act like normal human beings around Lucus, then I cut them loose and move on. I refuse to waste my time with someone who isn’t capable of common courtesy.
Last week, Brayden tagged along with us to get ice cream. True to his word, he secured tickets to a Saturday afternoon home game. I let him share the good news with my brother while we were enjoying our frozen treats. I thought Lucus was going to burst out of his skin with excitement. The sheer happiness Brayden was able to give Lucus actually brought a sting of tears to my eyes. I had to blink them away before either of them noticed.
When Demi nudges my arm for a second time, I say without hesitation, “I am happy.”
Her gaze slices to where the team is warming up before the game. The three of us arrived at the stadium two hours early. We have the best seats in the house. They’re two rows up from the field on the fifty-yard line. We’re so close to the bright green turf that it feels like I could reach out and touch it. Most fans are only now filtering in. There were a ton of students outfitted in black and red tailgating in the parking lot earlier.
As soon as we found our seats, I texted Brayden and he jogged out of the tunnel to retrieve my brother before taking Lucus back to the locker room. They were gone for about thirty minutes before returning to the field with the team for warm-ups.
My attention settles on Lucus. He has a black Wildcats ballcap pulled over his head and is now wearing a red and white Kendricks jersey with Brayden’s number stamped across the back.
Instead of running through his own set of drills, Brayden is tossing a ball around with my brother. There’s a wide smile on Lucus’ face. I can’t remember the last time I saw him this ecstatic. It’s like he’s walking on clouds.
Demi’s father also took a moment to speak with him. I could see Coach pointing to the field. Even from where I’m seated, it’s impossible not to notice the way Lucus is vibrating with excitement. Every once in a while, my gaze will catch Brayden’s. He’ll give me a wink or flash me a smile. That’s all it takes for everything inside me to melt into a puddle of goo.
What I now realize is that this Brayden—the one I’ve gotten to know over the past several weeks—is someone I could definitely fall for.
If I haven’t already.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sydney
“I’ll take a large caramel macchiato, please.”
The girl behind the counter taps a few buttons on the cash register. “That’ll be five dollars even.”
I dig through my purse, attempting to locate the money. I’m notorious for dumping bills and loose change into my bag. This is usually when that bit of laziness will bite me in the ass. Now I have to sift through all the contents to find it.
“Here,” a deep voice says from behind me, “I’ve got it covered.”
My head whips up only to lock gazes with Brayden. Before I can tell him that I’m more than capable of paying for my own drink, he’s handing the barista a couple of bills.
“Keep the change,” he tells her with a smile before his attention returns to me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“No problem.” A sly expression settles on his face. “You can pay me back later.”
I snort before raising my brows. “For some reason, I don’t think you want to be paid back in cash.”
“Nope.” He wraps his arms around me and tugs me close before pressing his lips against mine. “We haven’t even been together that long, and look how well you already know me.”
The girl behind the counter sighs, drawing our attention. Her face goes up in flames before she spins away to prepare my drink.
“I missed you last night,” he whispers. “I really hate sleeping alone.”
A bubble of giddiness rises up inside me.
“Me, too.” Which is strange. In the past, when I’ve been in a relationship, I’ve always needed my space. We’ll spend a few nights together and the
n I need an evening to myself. Or I want to go out with the girls.
That hasn’t turned out to be the case with Brayden. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. Everything with him is different. Even though we haven’t been together long, I like him more than anyone else I’ve been with. It’s kind of scary how perfectly we fit together. There are times when I’m tempted to pump the brakes and slow things down, but then I look at him and all of those thoughts disappear in the blink of an eye. Whatever this is between us, it’s happening fast, and I don’t think there’s a way to curtail it. Most of the time I don’t think I want to.
When the girl behind the counter calls out my drink, Brayden grabs it. Her face fills with bright color when their fingers brush. I almost shake my head and roll my eyes. This is exactly how the female population at Western reacts to him. One dark look speared in their direction and they lose all sense of rational thought. It should probably drive me crazy. But how can it when Brayden continually goes out of his way to prove that I’m the only one he’s thinking about?
He grabs the door and holds it open. The moment we hit the sidewalk, a burst of cool autumn air wafts over me. The leaves have already fallen from the trees and the temperatures are beginning to dip into cooler digits. The only saving grace is that the sun is bright and shining, cutting through the chilliness of the breeze.
As we take a few steps away from the coffee shop, Brayden grabs hold of my hand, loosely interlocking our fingers. “I love the fall. It’s my favorite time of year.”
I glance at him in surprise. “Me, too.” Even though it’s small, it’s yet another thing we have in common.
“So, I was kind of thinking that after the game on Saturday, I could take you to our family cabin. It’s not far from here. Only about an hour. We could spend Saturday afternoon, all of Sunday, and then head back in time for class Monday morning.” There’s a pause. “What do you think? Any interest in tromping around the woods? Or we can just sit inside and chill out.”
I mentally sift through my school and soccer schedule for the upcoming week and think about what can be shifted around. The idea of getting away for even a few days sounds amazing. “Yeah, that could work.”
A smile lifts the corners of his lips. “Cool. It’ll be fun.” He tugs me close, sliding his arm around my waist before adding softly, “It’s been a while since I’ve been there.”
I glance up, trying to decipher the emotion that weaves its way through his deep voice. Most people wouldn’t pick up on the difference, but I’ve been spending so much time with Brayden that it’s more noticeable. What I’ve discovered is that we’re similar in how we deal with our emotions. We both tend to lock away the painful ones where we can’t inspect them too closely. It takes us a while to share our inner thoughts and feelings with other people. It makes me feel special that he’s gradually opening up, revealing the guy buried beneath all the hype.
And I like the guy he’s proving to be. That’s not something I expected to happen.
“How come?”
Brayden jerks his shoulders as his expression clouds. Gone is the lighthearted, easygoing guy from moments ago. A heavy silence descends as we continue walking. It feels strangely at odds with the bright sunshine that slants down on our heads. I’m almost tempted to change the subject or fill in the sudden stillness with idle chatter.
“When I was a kid, we used to spend a ton of time at the cabin. Sometimes the entire summer. Since my father’s death, I’ve only been there once or twice. It hurt too much to be there without him, so I stopped going.”
His earnest response has my heart cracking wide open. Even though we’re in the middle of campus and there are people rushing past on the way to class, I grind to a halt. His footsteps falter as he turns and stares at me in question. My hand rises to drift over his shadowed jaw as I hold his gaze. Only now that I’m staring at him do I see the pain and grief swirling through his dark eyes.
“If you’re not up to it, we don’t have to go,” I say softly.
The thick tension filling his muscles loosens as he sinks into my touch. “I know, but I want to take you there and share how special the place is with you. I want to have you all to myself.” He glances around the crowded path overrun with students. “We can’t do that here.”
Brayden lives in a house with four other guys, and I share an apartment with Demi. It’s almost impossible for us to grab more than a handful of hours alone together. Plus, we’re both in the middle of our seasons. Our schedules are packed tight. It’s not often that we can carve out a large chunk of time to spend with one another.
As much as I would love to get away from campus, even for a few days, it’s obvious that the cabin holds a lot of bittersweet memories for him. I know exactly what that’s like. It’s not easy to deal with.
“Are you sure? We could always drive somewhere else for the day.”
It takes a few seconds for Brayden to blink away the heavy emotion in his eyes as he jerks his head into a nod. Before I can dig any deeper, he presses his lips to mine and murmurs, “Yeah. I want to share the cabin with you. Who knows, maybe it’ll help. We had a lot of good times there, and I want to make new memories with you.”
The edges of my lips curl upward, liking the idea. “I want that, too.”
He squeezes my fingers. “Good, now let’s get moving before we’re late.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sydney
Demi stretches out on my bed as I grab a few shirts from my drawer and toss them in the duffle bag I’m packing. Brayden and I are leaving tomorrow after the game. Even though we’ll be gone for less than forty-eight hours, I’m excited to get away from school.
“I can’t believe you two are taking off for the weekend.”
Yeah, that makes two of us.
“I almost have whiplash from how fast this relationship is moving,” she muses before adding, “It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that you were ready to punch his lights out if he looked at you sideways.”
I snort.
She’s not mistaken about that. Anytime I was forced into close proximity with Brayden, I would bare my teeth like a rabid dog, ready to bite his head off at the slightest offense. A flicker of guilt slides through me at my treatment of him. Had I understood what was going on at the time, I would have shrugged it off and moved on. Instead, I took his behavior personally and let it fester inside.
I guess that old saying is true—you never know what’s going on in someone else’s life. Just because they project a happy façade to the world, doesn’t mean they aren’t splintering apart on the inside, barely able to hold it together. My heart constricts, thinking about how much pain Brayden must have been in freshman year. Instead of dealing with his grief in a productive manner, he chose alcohol and girls to drown himself in. As close as we’ve grown in the past few weeks, we haven’t spent a lot of time talking about the people we’ve lost. Right now, it’s simply enough to know that we’ve had similar experiences and understand what that kind of heartache feels like. It’s a bond that no one wants to have.
I glance at my best friend.
Demi would be shocked to learn that my relationship with Brayden has progressed at even more of a rapid pace than she realizes. I still haven’t disclosed that we were pretending to go out in the beginning. Now that we’re actually a couple, there doesn’t seem to be much point in revealing the truth.
“You’re right,” I agree, “that’s exactly the way I felt. What I’ve discovered is that Brayden isn’t the guy I’d assumed he was. And now that I’ve taken the time to get to know him, I realize how wrong I was.”
She nods. “He’s a really good guy. I’ve always had a soft spot for him. And you know what?” Before I can respond, she continues, “I like that you two are drama free. I no longer have to worry about walking into the middle of World War III when I walk through the door.”
Demi’s joking.
Kind of.
So many of my relationships were like riding a roller
coaster with the ups and downs. This one couldn’t be more different. Brayden and I are so in sync with one another. That’s not something I’ve experienced with other guys. Even though it hasn’t been long, I can appreciate that what we have is special. That knowledge makes me want to hang on tightly to it with both hands and never let go.
None of my past relationships were on this level. Even the one with Ethan. The highs and lows were exhausting. And it never truly allowed us to drill beneath the surface and get to know one another on a deeper, more meaningful level. It’s only now that I’m with Brayden—and have experienced something more even keeled—that I can understand and appreciate the difference.
“Now all I have to worry about is walking in on the two of you getting it on,” she adds, cutting into my thoughts.
Ugh.
Demi has yet to let me live that down.
“Technically,” I point out, “that’s your fault for not knocking on the door. And at least I was in my own bedroom when it happened. If I recall correctly, I walked in on you and Rowan making out on the couch.” Unlike me, she’d been topless.
Color slams into her cheeks. “Yeah...that was definitely not one of my finer moments.”
Maybe not, but it had been hilarious.
For me, anyway.
Demi, not so much.
When the corners of my lips tremble, hers do the same. Pretty soon, we’re both laughing. It takes a few moments before our humor subsides.
“You know what’s funny? I’d always suspected that Brayden had feelings for you.”
Ironically, I hadn’t been able to see if for myself. I had thrown up enough walls to make my heart an impenetrable fortress where he was concerned. And yet, somehow, he managed to smash through all of them.
“You two make a really great couple,” she continues. “I hope it lasts.”
Campus Heartthrob (The Campus Series Book 2) Page 20
