Page 110 of The Sweetest Return

My chest went quiet.

“I’m in bed, naked and embarrassed,” I said. “I’m not sure that counts as care.”

“You embarrassed because you wanted it.”

“I am embarrassed because you remember entirely too much.”

“I remember you.”

That shut me up.

Dre let the quiet sit there without rushing to fill it, and I could hear the faint shift of him breathing, the soft drag of fabric on his end, the distance between our hotel rooms doing absolutely nothing to make the moment less intimate. We were in separate beds, under separate sheets, and somehow I felt closer to him than I had while standing in a ballroom full of applause.

Desire was one thing. Dre making my body cum from memory and voice alone was another. But the quiet after, the careful space he gave me to gather myself without making me feel like I needed to hide, slid under my skin in a different way.

“What did you really call me for?” I asked.

“To hear your voice.”

My chest softened before I could stop it.

“And?”

“And because I want you with me today.”

The words were simple, but they moved through me anyway.

“With you where?”

“The game.”

I stared toward the ceiling. “We’re all going.”

“That ain’t what I asked.”

I knew it wasn’t.

“You mean with you.”

“Yeah.”

“Just us?”

“Just us.”

My fingers tightened around the phone. Yesterday, that invitation might have sent me into ten different questions. Who would see us? What would people assume? How many pictures would be online before kickoff? Those things still existed, but they were no longer the first things my mind reached for.

The first thing was Dre’s voice saying, I remember you.

Then the quiet after he made me cum.

Then the fact that he had asked if I was okay before allowing himself even a second of satisfaction.

Then the number.

The number he had kept because once upon a time, he told me if I ever needed him, I should call. Apparently Andre Jones meant things for a long damn time.

I needed to be very honest with myself. There was no universe where I was telling that man no. Not after he had woken me up from eight years away and reminded my body, my pride, and my heart that he still knew how to find me.