Full Measures (12 page)

He laughed through his confusion. “So you’re saying slow? Or no?” He raised his arms and put his hands back against the glass. “Because you’re killing me here.”

“I need you separate,” I tried to explain, focusing way too much on his mouth for my own peace of mind. That mouth had been on my skin, all over my body.

“Separate from?” He kept his hands on the glass like they were glued to the surface.

“Separate from the crap. Separate from all the bad shit that’s happened in the last month.” How could I explain what I didn’t understand myself? “I don’t want a rebound, or a quickie in your dorm room.”

“I don’t live in the dorms.”

“Not the point, Josh.”

His eyes were dark. I knew that look. That look would have me peeling off my clothes in spite of the crowd around us. “Forget what I just asked you, because I don’t want an answer.” His voice dropped, and his head bent toward me. “I want you. Not a minute ticks by that I don’t crave the sight of you, the feel of you. But I get it.”

“You do?”

A wry smile came across his face. “I don’t want to screw this up, either, December.”

“Why do you do that? Call me December? Everyone except Grams calls me Ember, since before high school.” I craved the sound of my name on his lips. He made it sound like pure sex and the sweetest prayer.

He leaned down, brushing just close enough to my ear that I could feel his breath, but he wasn’t touching me. Chills raced down my neck to my spine and set my body on fire. “Because it means I have a part of you no one else does. Like my own little secret side of you.”

He had just about every part of me as it was.

“Josh!” the living Barbies called to him from the nearest bleachers. “We came to watch you play!” They waived a huge blue and gold paw in the air.

He gave them a head nod. “Thanks, girls.”

He was still playing? “You play for the Mountain Lions?”

“We have a game tonight. Want to watch?”

The hopeful tone of his voice nearly broke my resolve. Almost. “I need to get Gus home and check on my mom.”

“Okay.” He reached out and brushed a stray strand of auburn hair back behind my ear. “Another time.”

I couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t come out
touch me now.

“You’re swimming in a pretty big shit fest. Just don’t forget to ask for help when you need it. Don’t carry this all on your own.”

Why couldn’t he be an ass? Why did he have to say the most perfect things? “You’d better get going.”

He searched my eyes for a moment, but I refused to break. I would not rebound on Josh Walker. I would not run from one guy to the other. He cleared his throat. “Practice Monday?”

“We’ll get him here,” I promised.

He stepped away from me, toward the girls who waited like groupies. I flipped to my back, leaning up against the cold glass and knocking the back of my head on it. I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t be tempted to watch him walk away with those girls. Who the hell let Josh Walker walk away?

“December.”

My eyes snapped open to see his fathomless brown ones leaning over me. His mouth was scant inches from mine, and I would have been willing to commit murder to close that distance without guilt. “Josh.” It was a whispered plea.

“We’re taking it slow until you say so, because I can’t bear to hear a ‘no’ from you. But here’s your only warning: I’m going to chase the fuck out of you.” The promise dripping from his voice was enough to set my thighs on fire.

He pulled away, leaving me a heart-thumping mess against the glass. He waved to the girls and walked right past them without another word, but then turned back around. “Oh, and Ember?” I blinked in response. “I’m still your whatever, for whatever you need.”

We dropped Sam off for dinner with her mom and pulled into our driveway. Gus made a big deal about carrying his gear in by himself, so I let him, despite stifling my laughter at the Josh-sized bag. He struggled ahead to the door, and I pulled April back.

“Hey, what was with that guy at the rink?”

“Who? Paul?” She innocently brushed imaginary dirt off her arm.

“Yeah, Mr. Not-Brett. You looked pretty close to the guy.”

“And you were nearly clawing off Josh’s clothes, so what does it matter? Not that I blame you. That guy is so sexy.”

The wistfulness in her tone made me sputter. “It matters because I don’t have a boyfriend! Also, you don’t get to call Josh ‘sexy.’ He’s six years older than you.”

“Whatever. Look, I’m glad you’re home and stuff, but don’t stick your nose into my business like you haven’t been gone these last couple of years.” She huffed into the house.

I felt like some kind of absentee landlord, trying to mop up damage I hadn’t witnessed. She was right. As close as we’d been growing up, leaving for college changed things. We’d both matured separately, and now there was a distance between us.

Inside the foyer, the scent of garlic bread and scallops enveloped us. “No way,” April muttered, haphazardly tossing her purse into the entryway.

“Mom?” I hung up my coat and cautiously approached the kitchen.

She stirred the contents of the steaming pot on the stove. Her hair hung wet down her back, and she wore clean clothes without my prompting. Her eyes may have been red-rimmed and swollen, but she was
here.
“Ember, would you grab the dressing out of the refrigerator for the salad?”

I looked at April and Gus, and we all shrugged with wide eyes at one another. Grams stirred the pasta and gave us a subtle nod.

“Come on, guys, you know the drill. Ember, salad dressing. April, pour the drinks. Gus, grab the silverware.” Mom gave out orders like she hadn’t been bed-bound for the last four weeks. Another heartbeat passed. “Now.” She pointed toward the dining room with an Alfredo-sauce-soaked spatula.

We jumped, scurrying to our assigned roles. No one spoke, afraid of shattering the fragile normalcy. We brought our assignments to the table, and took our usual seats for the first time since . . . yeah. Grams pulled an extra chair from the side of the china cabinet to sit next to Gus.

She left Dad’s seat empty.

“Gus?” Mom prompted and bowed her head.

Gus’s sweet voice filled the air as he said grace, but his voice stuttered after he asked to keep our daddy safe during his deployment. He was just so used to saying it. I jerked my eyes to Mom in panic that it would set her off. She paled, but held still and silent until he finished.

“I think that was perfect, Gus.” Grams kissed his temple.

“Now who’s hungry?” Mom raised her head with a weak smile.

Just like that, the tide of grief receded enough to breathe as we passed the dishes around. The clatter of plates mixed with Gus’s excitement over his day and his ability to share it with Mom. I stole glances at her in between bites; she was smiling down at Gus, listening to what happened with his day. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, but it was there.

April’s head drooped next to me, and she quickly brushed off a tear. I reached the small distance between us and took her hand with a gentle squeeze. Our eyes met, and something intangible passed between us, something that felt dangerously like hope.

She clung to my hand as desperately as I gripped hers. With a trembling lip, I raised my eyes to Grams’s. She gave me a slow smile and a single nod, and there it was again, hope coursing through me, the taste sweet in my mouth. I was scared to acknowledge it, to think it even, in case it jinxed us in this moment, but I couldn’t ignore my optimism.

We were going to get past this. We were going to be okay.

“You’re not at school,” Mom stated as she stared at the calendar. “Has it really been that long?”

“I’m at UCCS now.” I looked back to the living room where Grams sat in the corner stitching, but she simply nodded her head back toward Mom. I was on my own.

“Right,” she muttered. “I remember you saying that. Kind of.” She shook her head like she was trying to clear it. “You moved home.”

“Not exactly. I live with Sam now. We have an apartment up toward campus, but I’m close enough to grab Gus and stuff when you need help.”

“You came home because of me.”

I didn’t reach out for her. We weren’t exactly a touchy-feeling, mother-daughter duo. “I came home because we lost Dad, and nothing was right in Boulder. This is where I’m needed, and I made the best decision I could with what’s been going on.”

“You’ve kept the house going, you and Grams. Thank you.”

I didn’t want her thanks. I wanted her to pull herself together and promise she wasn’t going to retreat into that cave of a bedroom. I wanted her to take care of Gus, and April, and mostly, herself. I wanted not to be the only adult in the family anymore.

Where did this anger come from? Shouldn’t I just be happy she was here for the moment? She was functioning? I didn’t want to feel this way, so I ignored it as best I could.

I gave a closed-mouth smile before my stupid thoughts came out and ruined what progress she’d made. “Mom, are you . . . you know, okay?”

“Everything hurts,” she whispered, sounding like Gus. She tore her eyes from the calendar with a shake of her head. “Do you want to go back to Boulder? I don’t want to keep you here, from your friends and Riley.”

“Riley isn’t exactly missing me.”

“Oh, Ember. What happened?”

“Turns out he doesn’t do long distance well.” I put my hand up to ward her off when she stepped toward me. I didn’t want sympathy from her, not when she needed all the energy she had to keep herself together. “Yeah, so I live with Sam, and the number is on the fridge next to my class schedule. Just call and I’ll be here.”

“Ember, I’m sorry you’ve lost so much.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

“Right. Whatever doesn’t kill you.” She went back to staring at the calendar.

Chapter Nine

I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and snatched my coffee off the roof of my car. Thank God there was a Starbucks between the apartment and school, or I might never have gotten going this morning.

Arranging the apartment had been more physically exhausting than I expected, but it turned out perfectly. It was incredibly freeing to have a place off campus with no rules, regulations, or random room checks. Plus, Sam as a roommate was an added bonus. For every detail that had changed about us in the last eighteen months, there were at least two that hadn’t.

I pulled out my schedule as I walked into the building, checked the room number, and slid inside the class without spilling my coffee all over my white sweater. Score.

A quick scan of the room showed a few open seats in the front row. I set my coffee on the desktop and slid my bag off my shoulder to take out my books and pens. I couldn’t wait to fill the pages of the empty spiral notebook. History got me in the same way some girls dug nail polish or shoes. I’d pegged my major early.

I shook my head at the obnoxious giggles from the back of the room. A leggy brunette perched on a desk in front of a guy, and if he couldn’t see past the facade dripping off her, then he deserved whatever he got out of that one. She threw her head back in laughter.

Shit. That guy was Josh.

His eyes widened as they met mine, and that grin stole my breath. I ripped my gaze away and took my seat, concentrating on the white board. Stupid freaking hormones. Did he really have to look that good at 8:30 in the morning? Who was I kidding? The guy was pretty much sex personified twenty-four hours of the day. I couldn’t blame the girl for sitting on his desk. Hell, she showed restraint. I’d have been in his damn lap.

I didn’t need to look over to know that he had taken the empty seat next to me.
Keep your eyes forward.
I would not look over. I would not get lost in those brown eyes or remember exactly what those hands were capable of on my body. Nope.

“I’d been dreading this class, but seeing you this early in the morning makes it worth getting out of bed, December.”

“You and the ‘December’ . . .” I muttered, not willing to admit how much I liked it. “You can’t just call me ‘Ember’ like everyone else in the world?”

He leaned over, his mouth closer to my ear. “I only do it when no one else can hear, and besides, I’m not just everyone—not to you.”

Did his voice have to be so smooth? I glanced to the back of the classroom, tapping my pen on the empty notebook that would soon be full of delicious historical facts. “I think your paperweight is missing you.”

The brunette was sulking in her back-row seat, and I couldn’t blame her.

“Want to take her place?”

His mocking tone brought my gaze right to his, and I was a goner. I couldn’t stop the smile that erupted on my face when he waggled his eyebrows and patted the top of his desk. I shook my head and forced my focus back to the front of the room. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to get that close to you,” I reminded him with a smile.

“I’ll sit on my damn hands if it means you’ll wiggle up here.”

Speechless. I couldn’t even think of a retort for that one.

The prof saved me by handing out his syllabus and starting the lecture. I paid attention, really. Well, not really. I wrote down copious notes, but felt Josh’s eyes staring, which reminded me too much of his hands on me. I snuck a glance and found those brown eyes locked onto mine. Hot. Freaking on fire.

I crossed and uncrossed my legs, reminding myself that class was not the place to jump a fellow student, and paid more attention to the details. Papers, I could handle writing papers, taking notes, and concentrating on the Civil War. What I couldn’t handle was my self-imposed slow-down on Josh, not when I was ready to jump him in the middle of class.

It was the longest and shortest hour of my life. I was almost as desperate to get the hell out of that room as I was to stay there as close to him as I could get. Our prof dismissed us, and I scurried out the door like my chair was on fire. Monday was a light day, and I didn’t have another class until the afternoon, so I could get a jump-start on the reading if I headed home right now.

I was nearly to my car when Josh caught up to me. “What? No good-bye?” he teased, not even out of breath from his jog.