Fall with Me (Playing for Keeps #4)

by Becka Mack

“What are you doing?” “Hugging you. That’s what the girls said to do.” “What?” “I texted the girls. They said you probably needed a hug, so I’m hugging you.”

He turned the heating up two degrees to 72 without me asking, because I was walking around wrapped in a blanket. I made an offhand remark about the single shelf in the shower not being big enough for all my products, and even though he said maybe that’s a sign to use fewer products, when I came home from lunch with the girls, there were brand-new floor-to-ceiling shelves in one corner of the shower. A step stool magically appeared in the pantry a day after he walked into the kitchen to see me scaling the counters so I could reach the mugs on the top shelf,

I pick up the small green book, and something thick and foreign settles in my throat, something I can’t swallow down as I read the words scrawled over the cover. Lennon’s Guide to Making Coffee

“Show friends, not real friends.

“Uh,’cause we landed at two this morning, and then I got up early to go get you your flow—” He mashes his lips together. I lift my brows. “My what?” “Nothing.”

Netflix already on and waiting for me. Tiny, snack-size boxes of cereal on the coffee table. One bowl of Smarties, one of mini Sour Keys. A heating pad, and Jaxon Riley, NHL bad boy, walking toward me, a steaming mug in his hand.

“Lennon?” “Yeah?” “Shut up.” “Okay.”

Nobody takes my crush home but me.

“Looking at you, knowing you exist in my world, that you could be mine one day and gone the next, is the most overwhelming thing I’ve ever felt.”

“The best thing I’ve ever gifted to myself is, by far, the way I feel with you in my arms.”

Stop worrying about being enough for other people. Be enough for yourself.”

“Oh my God,” Carter breathes out, shaky and barely audible over the thud of my pulse. “It’s happening,” he whispers. “Britney’s Bitches… assemble.”

The one who puts your favorite flowers on the kitchen counter every week just to see you smile, who does your hair routine when you’ve had a shitty day and aren’t up for it? You want me to tell you how I wanna be the one sitting next to you on the couch while you show off all the pictures you took that day, listen to you talk about your favorite ones, smile at the way you you trip over your words because you’re so excited, so damn in love with your dream? That I wanna be the one who drives you out to the middle of nowhere at midnight just to fucking stare at you while you stare at the stars, because somehow, in this whole huge world, I got lucky enough to find you, not once, but twice? You want me to ask you to stay, Lennon? To tell you I’m in love with you?”

“Here it is, honey. I love you. I am so goddamn, mind-blowingly in love with you, and the thought of losing you is killing me. I don’t want you to go. This place only feels like a home when you’re here.” I whisper my final plea. “Please, honey. Please stay.”