Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88218 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88218 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“You’re not what?” Denver asks.
“Never mind.”
“I really hope you weren’t talking about this again.” His hand skims my stomach over my tank top, and I flinch. Not because he’s touching me, but because of how he’s touching me.
It’s soft but confident, and while I thought it would make me feel self-conscious, it has the opposite effect. It makes me feel like the sexiest man alive. It’s a glimpse of how he sees me, and I really like that image.
And apparently my dick feels the same way. My sleep pants tent so fast I have to hope he doesn’t notice. I want him to keep going, but he pulls his hand back when he realizes I haven’t responded.
“Sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay.” More than okay, but I don’t say that.
“For a moment I forgot we’re not that close anymore. I shouldn’t be touching you.”
I shouldn’t be liking it.
He stares at me, and our eyes lock. There’s this electric charge between us that started last night when we touched, and it’s been in my head all day. It’s warm and all-encompassing. It’s years of regret and longing mixed with forgiveness and a new beginning.
“So that song of Reggie’s …” I swallow and try to get my breathing under control because I’m overly aware of how quickly my chest is rising and falling.
“Producers chose it. When it airs, they’ll tell the world we picked the songs for our contestants, but it’s a lie.”
“Why …” I want to ask why the song upset him and if it touched him the same way it did me.
It was as if Reggie was singing my life. No matter how angry I was, I couldn’t help keeping tabs on everyone from Eleven. Especially Denver. Seeing him in the limelight made me jealous, but not because he was succeeding and I wasn’t. It was that he was doing it without me. He had this whole other life, and I was jealous of anyone who got to share it with him.
Since being back here, things are different between us, but that deep, raw connection we had while touring is still there. It’s slowly evolving and turning into something else. It makes me question every single moment of our past and the way I used to look at him.
Lying next to him, my dick hard from a brief brush of his hand against my stomach, that friendship I thought was brotherly … maybe … it wasn’t?
Maybe the urge to kick his contestants out had nothing to do with protecting his career. In that moment all I could think was they need to get away from him. If my feelings toward him have always been friendly and brotherly, why did the emotion swirling in my gut feel a hell of a lot like the words of that Jealous song?
Denver chuckles. “You kinda trailed off there.”
I really did. I don’t even know what I was going to say. “Sorry. I’m tired.” Yes. Tired. That’s why I’m having an existential crisis over my ex-best friend.
I’ve never reacted that way to Denver before, and the only thing I can think that’s changed is our time apart.
“That song kind of slapped me in the face,” Denver says. “It’s exactly how I felt that first year after Eleven split. I constantly thought about what you were doing. If you were as miserable as I was.” He sure as fuck didn’t look miserable. Then again, none of them realized how close I was to running home until I did it.
“I thought I was happy,” I say. “But … I missed you.” The admission feels heavier than it should, but that’s probably because it’s weighted with inexplicable urges. Like the urge to reach for him. To hold him.
“I missed you too,” he murmurs.
The air between us is thick, and I almost cave in to the temptation to touch him, but then he breaks away and rolls over the other way. “We should get some sleep.”
Disappointment sears through me because I’m on the cusp of some big revelation here, I can feel it.
I just don’t know what it is.
Chapter Thirteen
Denver
Waking up next to Mason and sneaking out of his room is surreal.
It’s like a dream come true, apart from the no-sex thing. In my fantasies, I would’ve liked to have gotten off instead of falling asleep with a raging hard-on I couldn’t do anything about.
After last night, I’m one step closer to gaining Mason’s full forgiveness and getting things back to how they were, but I have to keep reminding myself that’s the only goal.
I get my best friend back. Nothing else could ever happen.
Even if I let my hand linger on his stomach that little bit too long and he didn’t swat it away. He tensed, and that was enough to tell me I crossed a line. I just wish I could kick this hold Mason Nash has over me.