“Lamb needs to stop talking before Wolf silences her with his teeth.”
My grin was so huge, I swear I couldn’t see out of my own eyes as I laughed and turned away from him. “Stop!”
“Not used to hearing that particular word. What ever does it mean?”
“It means no.” I pushed at his hand as it rested on my hip and lifted my shirt to touch bare skin.
“Hmm, what’s no mean?”
“It means…” The movie suddenly blasted across the screen.
Wes leaned down and spoke against my ear, “Saved by the Mouse.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I should have walked away. Instead, I blocked the way, made myself so impossible to walk away from that it was too late. Late, early, not that it mattered, time wasn’t on my side, and she wouldn’t be either, not when I told her.
Weston
She fell asleep in my arms during the first fifteen minutes. I closed my eyes, not because I was tired, but because it felt normal. I could almost imagine it was normal. I’d taken my girlfriend home for the holidays, we got bored, watched a movie, and she fell asleep.
But it wasn’t.
I checked my watch.
I needed to take more meds, so as much as it killed me to move that gorgeous girl away from me — it was time for bed. I picked up a piece of hair and examined it, twisting it between my fingers. It wasn’t an obsession with hair, it was more of an obsession with everything that made her unique. Her red hair, her smile, her laugh, the way she pushed people away — the way she let me in.
Damn. I was screwed, so damn screwed.
She would find out soon. I’d have to tell her. I had one game left and then Coach was going to bench me. He said I wasn’t the same player I used to be. I couldn’t argue that. Not with me puking at practice every day. I knew I was letting the team down, but it was better to step down from the entire team then to allow them to get their asses kicked or worse, allow any of them to get hurt because I couldn’t hold my shit together anymore.
I just hadn’t realized Coach would call my dad, or that my dad would tell him I was sick.
“Sick?” Coach had asked, “Well, will he get better?”
My dad hadn’t said anything because he didn’t know, just like I didn’t know, just like the doctors didn’t know.
He’d argued with me about it again. Wanting me to at least see if the tumor was shrinking. I didn’t want to know. Who the hell would? I had a freaking tumor twisting its way dangerously close to my heart, and they wanted to know if it was growing?
Hell. No.
I’d rather live in ignorance than see the scan of that monster inside my chest. If the drugs weren’t shrinking it, chances were, I’d die in surgery or come out of it and be made comfortable.
Dad didn’t know, but I was going to ask the doctors about that.
Why would I want to live through surgery? Only to die a few months later in pain?
Maybe that made me a coward. Hell, I felt like one most days. Especially as the days got closer to my surgery. I had three more weeks until D-day. Three more weeks to either tell Kiersten the truth or break her damn heart.
What the hell had I been thinking to give her as much time as I had left? Her eyes had lit up. I knew she was thinking that was a great promise. It was all I freaking had to give her.
Time was the most precious thing in the world to me, and I’d just given her all of it. Because I was falling for her. Because I cared for her. Because I wanted to give her something to remember me by, even if it would eventually fade like its namesake. Time… what an absolute horror-inducing word.
Chapter Thirty
I wish I could forget the dreams… I wish I could be with him every night. And here I thought the nightmares were gone.
Kiersten