Play The Part (Player Next Door Book 3)

81 | Two Starting Points

Chapter 81: Two Starting Points

The front door was open.

Outside, was the view of incredibly luscious greenery. Tall blades of grass and thick green trees and a pastel blue sky overhead. It was like an explosion of color, all contained in this rectangular door frame.

I walked slowly towards the door.

It seemed so quiet out there. So calm. And yet, the way the leaves were moving and blades of grass swaying... it felt very alive.

She was still out there.

I stood at the doorframe and inhaled the clean air. The sounds of my friends inside, cleaning up, talking to the officer, restoring the house to a sense of normalcy...

It all faded in the background.

I looked out, remembering the first time I'd run across the grass towards the forest on the other side.

The first time Luke brought me here and I blurted out how I'd kissed a Dawson brother in the back seat of their family car.

I smiled.

It was a simpler time.

Suddenly, I felt his presence approach me, as if I had imagined him into proximity. His t-shirt brushed against my shoulder as he came to stand by my side.

I glanced up at him, at his broad shoulders as they stood beside mine. At his ruffled hair and electric blue eyes, the way his features were even more chiseled when looking at his profile. I noticed the cut on his lip.

He stared out at the same view.

And leaned against the door frame, extending his arm around my body to hold me.

He was my home.

Feeling safe, I looked out at that red truck the burglars came in and saw Charlotte's car next to the familiar black jeep wrangler.

"You came for me," I said quietly, trying not to relive the last hour of my life.

His car was parked diagonally across the grass, tires carving uneven lines into the terrain.

I could only imagine how fast he'd arrived, abandoning it like that. There was once a time he would barely let me sit in the passenger seat because he worried I'd ruin the leather.

"You saved me," I said.

Luke looked down at me and shook his head. I stared at the harsh cut on his soft lip as he licked the blood away.

"I told you before," he answered, deep voice resonating through his chest, "You're my heroine."

Why does it sound like a drug?

I shook my head back at him, mirroring his own movements playfully. I also partly did it to get close to him, to shake my forehead and have it brush up against his hair.

"No way," I said, "There was nothing to catch this time."

He chuckled, "Are you kidding me? I walked in and found you waving a golf club at three men."

"It wasn't a well thought out plan," I admitted.

"I didn't say you were strategic," he said, "I said you were heroic."

And some heroes die.

"Well you're both, Luke," I decided, "Strategic and heroic. I'll save that line for your memoir."