Unable to stop myself, I grinned like someone had just handed me a plate of freshly baked sugar cookies. “No.”
“So there you go.”
I laughed. “But how do you feel about me?”
“You should be as confident as I am about it.”
My mouth opened, but I closed it. I wanted to be as confident, but I wasn’t. Considering everything that had happened, my mind was still reeling.
The hue of his eyes was a bright silver. “Close your eyes.”
Swallowing the need to ask why, I obeyed. Several seconds passed and then he tugged me onto my back. His hands came down on either side of my head.
“Keep them closed,” he urged.
I had no idea how this would make me more confident, and it took everything in me not to open my eyes when I felt the warmth of his body hovering over mine. I held my breath.
Jase kissed the tip of my nose.
My eyelids flew open, and I giggled as he pulled back. The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled down at me. “Now here comes the scary part,” he said, taking a deep breath. “We need to tell your brother.”
And that would be terrifying. For Jase. But I smiled. “Maybe I’ll just update my Facebook to ‘in a relationship’ and tag you?”
Jase snickered and then dropped another kiss on my forehead. “That should go over well.”
Sadness filled Avery’s gaze as she handed me a glass of sweet tea. After one sip, I knew Cam had made it. The overabundant amount of sugar was a dead giveaway. I took another drink as I peeked over at Jase. He sat beside me on Avery’s couch, with a respectable three or so inches between us.
When we’d left the farm, I’d texted Cam and asked him where he was. Surprise. Surprise. He was over at Avery’s. My stomach had been in knots as I hobbled up the stairs to her apartment, but the reason for us coming here had taken the backseat the moment Cam saw me with the crutches.
Cam stood in the corner of the living room, beside a moon chair. His arms were crossed on his chest, expression clouded. “Why didn’t you call and let me know that you were hurt?”
I opened my mouth, but he wasn’t done.
“I would’ve come and gotten you, Teresa. You didn’t need to call Jase.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
“And I would’ve taken you up to Dr. Morgan,” he continued, and I held back a sigh. “You know that, right? Have you even called Mom and Dad?”
“She called them,” Jase answered, throwing his arm over the back of the couch. Mom had cried. It had been a terrible, hard call. “And I texted her yesterday because she wasn’t in class. She didn’t call me.”
“So you lied and told me you were sick when you weren’t?” Cam demanded.
“I think you know the answer to that,” I said.
The look on his face would’ve sent most people running and he turned it on Jase. “And you didn’t call me? Man, that’s fucked up.”
“It’s not fucked up,” I jumped in, holding the glass of tea tight. “He’s not required to tell you. I am. And I am telling you. I just didn’t want you to worry needlessly. You’ve got a lot on your plate right now. I wanted to be sure of what was wrong with my knee before I said anything.”
“Still,” Cam said, staring at Jase. “You should’ve told me.”
Jase held my brother’s gaze with his own steady one. “I could have, but she wanted to go to the doc first before she got anyone upset. I respected that decision.”
“I can understand that,” Avery said diplomatically, plopping into the moon chair. “Jase was being a good friend.”
“I was being a great friend,” replied Jase, and I almost choked on my tea when I felt his fingers tangle in my hair. From our positions, Avery and Cam couldn’t see what he was doing.
Cam only looked placated when Avery wrapped her arm around his knee. “How did it happen anyway?”
I sat the tea on the coffee table. “It was just an accident. I was standing up. Got hit in the hip with a bag and I tried to step out of the way and I came down on my knee wrong.”
Saying it like that sounded innocent enough. Even I could believe it when it was thrown out like that.
Cam smoothed his hand over his baseball cap, tugging the bill down. “Shit, Teresa . . .”
As I sat back, Jase’s fingers slipped under my hair and spread out. My eyes widened as he started to move his hand up and down.
“The doctor really thinks you won’t be able to dance anymore?” asked Avery. She rested her head against Cam’s leg, her eyes wide with sympathy.
Taking a breath that got stuck in my throat, I nodded and then told them what Dr. Morgan had explained. By the time I was done with the sad story, Avery was close to tears and Cam was kneeling beside her, his chin lowered and gaze fixed to the carpet. “So that’s . . . that’s it,” I said, wincing when I heard my voice catch. “I can’t dance anymore.”
Speaking the words cut with a swipe of a hot knife.
“I really am sorry,” she said.