THE BOY I GREW UP WITH

2. Heather

2

Heather

“Get out.”

I had three different reactions at once.

One, my body instantly turned into a warm, toasty, throbbing red button—the type you see in the movies that the president has to push to start a world war. That was me, but it wasn’t to start a war—just an explosion. That’s how I always felt whenever my on-again, off-again ex showed up. Two, annoyance. I had just gotten rid of one of Brandon’s bedmates. I didn’t need to deal with the one I’d had since we were kids. By the time we were in fifth grade, Channing was crawling into my room and bed multiple times a week. The kissing, then making out, then having s*x started much later, at an appropriate-but-probably-still-too-early age.

And the last reaction: my stomach had some definite upheaval gusto. I clamped my mouth shut as a surge of throw up started traveling upward.

“Mmmmmm!” I hummed in warning, shoving the covers back and dashing for my bathroom.

I got there just in time, but no throw up. I was just dry heaving, which was almost worse because my stomach kept trying to empty itself, but couldn’t.

I felt a footstep on the floorboards behind me before a hand came to my forehead. A gentle touch smoothed my hair from my face and pulled it all back in a low ponytail. He grabbed one of my bands from the cabinet and pulled my hair through, securing it without making it too tight.

He’d done this a time or two. Or twenty.

He sank down next to me, and I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “You’re a pro at that.”

His smirk was there, but gentler. “Been doing that for you for years. I should be by now.”

Channing Monroe.

This is usually the time when the girl cringes from embarrassment as the guy she’s in love with sees her at her worst, sick over a toilet. Not me. And not this guy.

He’d been “mine” in some form or other almost my whole life. To say our trek together had been one with upheavals, peaks, climaxes, and downfalls—that’d just be an understatement.

I thought we’d gotten our s**t together, and I thought we were on the marrying track, but then we broke up again last year. We were currently at the stage where we were together in bed, but not out of it.

I didn’t know how I felt about that, to be honest.

But at this moment, he was the only person I wanted in that bathroom with me, and he could see it in my face.

Once I softened, one of his drool-worthy dimples showed, and he reached for me.

“Come on.” He lifted me up, with the same gentleness as before, and pulled me into his lap, my back to his chest. His arms came around me, but they didn’t lock in front of me. He turned so our feet were around the toilet, so if I needed to lurch forward… Which I did just now.

I leaned over the toilet and waited for my stomach to stop its useless heaving.

He rubbed my back the entire time, and when I was done, I leaned into him.

“What are you doing here?”

His arms tightened a little around me, and his hand rubbed over my leg. I was buck naked in his arms. I should’ve dressed, but I didn’t have the energy.

His breath felt good on my neck as he answered. “I was up with the guys. I missed you.”

Meaning: he’d either been fighting or drinking with the group of guys he considered more family than family.

I lifted one of his hands to inspect the knuckles, rubbing a thumb over them. “They don’t look bruised up.”

His body tensed, all six feet of pure muscle.

Channing had a face for the fashion runways, a body of tattoos that could appear in any magazine, and an attitude that made him a leader among the rowdiest and most criminally inclined. He was whip smart, ruthless, cunning, cocky, and had a charming side that had started some of our fights. He could be too charming at times, putting his name on a lot of girls’ to-do lists. It’d been a problem for us since we were kids, and though it’d gotten better over the last few years, I knew women came onto him regularly.

But being transparent here, that wasn’t the cause of our problems lately.

His voice was quiet. “I wasn’t fighting.”

I turned and tried to smell his breath. There was a slight trace of bourbon, but that might’ve been mine. “You don’t seem drunk either.”

He chuckled, his eyes studying every inch of my face. He did this when he was trying to figure out where I was going with my statements and if that’d take us into a fight. We acted like we were married and in our sixties by now.

His thumb went to my mouth and pressed there, softly. “I really was just hanging out with the guys. Cruz came over, said you closed for him. I gambled, thought maybe you’d be up—or not.” That dimple again. “I was hoping just to slide in next to you.”

I sighed, and his thumb caressed my cheek before his hand returned to my leg. I moved back, resting in his arms again.

“I was sleeping, but Brandon had a girl problem.”

His chuckle soothed me. “I heard. I slipped past, but not before I saw his ass. Your brother needs to work out more.”

“He would take offense to that.”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

He was right.

“He’d agree with me.”

I agreed with that too.

Brandon was older, but he looked up to Channing. A lot of people did.

“You feeling better?” His hand moved to my stomach, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the warmth there.

I felt my stomach settle. “I think so.”

His arms tightened around me, and he stood, lifting me with him.

Channing grew up fighting. He’d been doing it since elementary school when his two friends tried to steal my Halloween candy. He stole theirs instead, and the whole friend status between those guys changed to best friends. Boys. I didn’t get it. They’d followed him ever since that day, and now he was considering retiring from an underground fighting ring that operated in Roussou.

Because of that, he could easily lift me, so I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling as he carried me to bed.

He placed me between the covers, tucking them over me.

He disappeared into the hallway. I heard him go downstairs. The fridge opened, and a moment later, he returned with a glass of water. He set it on the nightstand next to me.

“You want mouthwash?”

I nodded, and he grabbed it, along with a cup and a little bowl I had left on the counter. I sat up, cleaned my mouth out, and sipped my water as he took everything back to the bathroom. A second later, he returned. Both doors were shut, and he pulled the drapes over my window so no sunlight could get through. It cast the room into darkness, and I heard the familiar sounds of him shedding his clothes.

The sheet lifted behind me, and he curled up around me.

God.

Moments like this, my heart burst with love for him.

I loved how he held me, carried me, took care of me. I loved how his hand curved over my thigh and then fell to my stomach, and how a part of me wanted him to slide it between my legs, but I knew he wouldn’t. He knew I didn’t feel good, so this morning wasn’t about the s*x I knew he’d originally come for. It was about comfort, and as I felt him slide his leg between mine and tangle our hands together, I knew he was about to fall asleep.

“I’m glad you came over.” The words slipped out before I knew I was going to say them.

His arms tightened, just a fraction. “Me too.”

I felt him smile against my shoulder, and his thumb rose up to touch my n****e before falling back to my stomach.

“Rest, Heather. We can talk later.”