8. CODY

CODY

I ran up and down the hill four times before collapsing on the stairs of the Nest. Sweat dripped between my shoulder blades and my lungs burned so severely I thought for a second that I might stop breathing.

Clementine.

The next breath I took was shaky and shallow.

I sat up on my elbows and stared down the driveway. For the last seven years, she had been too far away to reach, and she had been less than five feet away from me this morning.

I ran away.

I fucking ran away.

“Shit.”

I climbed the steps into the Nest and stripped out of my clothing along the way to the shower. There were very few people in the house that hadn’t seen my ass and, frankly, I didn’t care much.

“Cody,” Silas called from behind me. “Why are you butt naked?”

I don’t turn around, “because I’m going to shower, Grandpa.”

Silas cleared his throat.

“What?” I grumbled, facing him without hesitation, and crossed my arms over my chest. “Of course,” I huffed under my breath, finding Silas and Clementine standing there with her bag over her shoulder, smiling. I covered myself with my hands as her brown eyes trailed down the expanse of my naked body and back up to my face as her head tilted to the side.

Anger, heartbreak, loneliness.

The need to numb it .

No.

“We have a guest,” Silas choked out between clenched teeth and nodded to the trail of clothing I had left down the hallway from the front door.

“Yes, Shore. I noticed.” I shifted on my feet, gathered all my courage, and bowed. “Enjoy the show.” The words were clipped as I dropped with both hands in the air, completely exposed.

The satisfaction I felt as Clementine’s cheeks turned bright red was enough to make my chest hot and tight. I winked at her because if I was going to protect the complicated emotions that were crashing inside of me at that moment, I would do it in the most Cael Cody fashion I could.

I could hear him apologizing to her as I closed the bathroom door and let my head fall against the heavy wood. I ran the water hot and climbed in, attempting to wash away all the urges to go out and find something to make me feel numb. My fingertips scratched at the tile, and my heart raced beneath my chest.

After all this time, why the hell was she there? She was just as pretty as the night I left her, with dark hair and round chocolate eyes, staring back at me, expecting me to have all the answers. I rolled my thumb across that stupid threaded friendship bracelet and wondered if she still wore hers.

“Get it together.” I rubbed my hands over my face roughly and tried to snap myself from the daydream that was Clementine Matthews.

Years spent in a fantasy chasing her, laughing with her, fucking her.

I needed a release.

I climbed out of the shower and dried my hair with the towel before loosely wrapping it around myself and wandering back out into the empty house.

Scanning my surroundings, I looked to the right and then to the left briefly before stepping out directly into another body.

“Jesus Christ.” I fumbled to stay upright and my damp arms wrapped around Clementine as our bodies collided. Her skin was soft and the smell of lavender exploded up into my nose without warning. I recoiled from her, my skin too hot and too needy to be that close to her.

I just wished I had been immune to the hurt in her eyes at my reaction.

“Sorry,” she clipped. “I was just looking for…” She pointed to the bathroom behind me .

“Clementine,” I huffed as she moved around me to enter the room. I had eight hundred different questions I wanted to ask her.

Why did you never write me?

Why did you stop answering the phone?

Who did you become?

How did you get even more beautiful?

“What, Cael?”

My name on her lips sent a shiver rolling down between my bare shoulder blades.

Her lips. Can I kiss you?

“Why are you here?” I asked her instead, like the tried and true idiot I am.

“I’m writing a piece on the Hornets for my job.” She was professional, curt, and polite as she pulled her wrist from my hand. I hadn’t even noticed that I had grabbed her, but the thread of her pale pink friendship bracelet brushed against my skin as she did.

She caught my eye as I noticed it and tucked her hand into her pants pocket.

You’re still mine.

A new fire lit beneath me, one that I’d only felt around her.

One that only she could ever fuel.

“Is that all, Clem?” I lowered my voice and leaned in closer, testing the waters.

Clementine’s brown eyes flickered between my lips and eyes as she tried to devise a suitable excuse. When she pushed up on her toes to meet my challenge I nearly moaned, her lips so close to mine that I could feel her breath on my skin.

“Maybe I came back to ruin your life,” she whispered, and a sick smile spread across my lips, curling at the corners. The shock in her eyes was delicious.

“Too late.” I dared to brush my nose against hers and watched as her jaw tensed in response. “I managed to do that just fine on my own. Why are you really here?” I asked her again.

A tiny huff left Clementine as she lowered back down away from me. Her head tilted to the side as her brows pinched together, watching me, always watching.

“You don’t get to call me Clem anymore,” she warned. “You don’t even get to call me Clementine. It’s Mary now. ”

“I’m not calling you Mary,” I said, without hesitation.

“You’ll call me what I tell you to call me. You don’t run my life anymore, Cael Cody.” The hostility that blanketed us was thick and weighed down on my shoulders like an anvil and I couldn’t understand why. “I can ruin your entire career if I want.” She was bluffing, but it made my heart race. She was so confident, unafraid, and loud.

“Threaten me, Clem,” I said tightly in an attempt to ignore the arousal. “It doesn’t matter.” I stepped closer and our chests brushed together. I looked down between us and ran my fingers across her chest, stopping to feel her heart beating beneath so rapidly.

It was clawing its way back to me.

“You’re mine, and I’m yours.”

For a moment, I saw her, that girl I loved. She was there with a Texas spirit, a big heart, and even bigger dreams, hiding beneath whatever hardened version she portrayed. She was fooling herself if she thought calling herself Mary would protect her from us. Hurt and heartbreak flickered across her face for a split second before the fire returned.

“I haven’t been yours for seven years, Cael.”

“Oh see—” I pulled away finally, gasping for air as I teetered on the edge of a breakdown. “That I don’t believe, not even for a second. How many have there been, Clem?”

She bristled at my question. “That’s none of your business.”

“The number doesn’t matter.” I tilted my head to the side and smiled at her, wide and bright—enough to make her shift on her feet, and I knew that I was under her skin. “It doesn’t bother me either. How many have made you forget?”

There it was, her defense crumbling when she realized what I was getting at.

“And I’m talking really forget, Clem,” I searched her eyes for the answer, counting the freckles of gold that danced in her irises. “When they were buried inside of you, making you feel good, how many of them made you forget how I made you feel? The touch of my skin on yours?” My reach was long enough to brush a finger against her jaw, even at the distance.

I was playing a dangerous game with our emotions, when all I really wanted to do was lift her around me, carry her to my room, and never see the light of day again. But she didn’t feel that way, it was loud and clear. Something had cracked in her in my absence and I couldn’t help but feel the guilt that seeped in.

I swallowed tightly, waiting for her response, and tried to ignore the anxiety that feasted on my insecurities. I expected her to lash out, maybe cry. I was cruel and rude, but I needed to know how deep her resentment for me ran. Evidently, her anger was still loud, but had the memories of us slipped too far from our reach?

“You are so different.” She stared at me, her fingers twitching at her side like she wanted to touch. “What happened to you?”

The response drove the knife in my chest home. The blade burned and twisted at my sensitive skin like it was truly buried there. I bit down hard on my tongue to keep my eyes from watering. The way she stared at me broke down too much, too fast.

I could feel the angry, bitter monster climbing out from where I had shoved it the day I got clean, and before I could stop the vile shit it threatened to spill, I choked out, “You.”

She flinched at the response.

“Ms. Matthews?” Silas turned the corner, and I took another full step back.

He looked between the two of us.

His gray eyes landed on me. “Everything alright?” He asked. I couldn’t be sure if accusation or concern settled behind his gaze.

“I’m just getting to know Mary,” I said with a clenched jaw. I saw the praise flicker in her eyes. “I’m going to get dressed; I have a meeting with Ella.”

A stupid lie. Silas narrowed his eyes at me. I didn’t have a meeting, but it was better than being in this suffocating situation.

“Alright, we’re having dinner here, tonight, to welcome her into the Nest.”

The muscles in my neck and back tightened as I turned to him. “She’s staying here?”

“It’s easier for her to conduct the interviews if she’s not driving to and from the city,” he explained, but the reason alone wasn’t enough to justify letting her stay here. There were hotels in town. “Your Dad insisted.” Silas tapped his fingers to his chest, searching for an answer to the tension that suffocated us, but I didn’t respond. I wasn’t okay .

I didn’t dare stifle the groan that vibrated up out of me.

Silas chuckled tightly. “If you have issues with it, take it up with him.”

“I’ll add it to the list.” I ran my tongue against the inside of my lip and nodded, trying to understand why Dad would send her here, knowing what he knew.

Taking one last look at Clementine, I turned and went to find Dean instead of going to my room. Luckily, he hadn’t left his.