His lips trail down my neck, sending shivers all over.
"I love looking at you," he breathes, brushing the hair off my shoulders. "Will you let me look at you?"
My heart hammers, a wild thing seeking his. "Yes."
So he does. And I feel it. For a long...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
——————————— C A M I L A
I wish I could step out of my body, give it back where it came from, like a pair of pants that don't fit right. I'd like to float around, just a speck of dust lit up by sunlit windows, and I would exist peacefully.
As I meander through the GoldwenU upper-level library stacks on a rainy, windy Monday, my finger trails along book spines, picking up dust.
My old life clings like cobwebs, sticky and persistent. I find threads of it in my hair a door shuts too loudly. I walk into webs every time a phone rings.
I stretch up when I find an econometrics book, fingertips grazing the top of the spine. With a tug, it falls into my hands. I slump to the floor, back against the shelf, legs kicked out in front of me.
"Hey, Sport."
The gentle, low voice cuts through the fog in my head. I blink up, shadows swirling into two familiar forms. Fox in an open jacket with a white shirt beneath. And Noah, behind him, in jeans and a cream cable-knit sweater.
I feel like a wounded bird, wings broken, breathing slowing down, dying on the pavement.
"We've been looking for you," Fox says.
"I've been here," I say, and it sounds like an apology.
Fox comes over and sits down beside me. "Maddie said you'd either be here. You had us worried."
"Sorry," I whisper. "It's been a long week."
Noah eases down right across from me, his longer legs on either side of mine, protecting them.
I swallow hard, wondering why they're so intensely watching me. "What's the emergency?"
Fox looks at Noah, then back at me. "No emergency. We just missed you."
Those two words unravel something in me, something tight and knotted.
Noah's eyes are a storm of amber and gold. Worry, confusion, hope—a thousand and one things swirling together. He leans back into his shelf, leg shifting flush with mine. It sends a wave of calm under my skin. And with Fox on my other side—his presence comforting in a way I hadn't expected—I could fall asleep right here.
But instead, it's words that leak out. "I miss my dog, Charlie. Our rental doesn't allow pets. Maddie, she's allergic to fur, anyway." I feel a lump forming in my throat, thick and suffocating. "But Charlie doesn't shed. I promise he doesn't."
Noah's leg presses into mine. He's tell me he's here.
"My mother called. That's when I heard him." The words are a whisper, more to myself. "I miss him. Mom never wanted me, but there's no one else anymore."
Fox leans into me. He tells me he's here, too.
"She found out she was pregnant too late. When I was born, she gave me to my dad. And he loved me, he was my best friend, he did his best. But then he died." My voice cracks. "I was dropped on her door when I was eight."
