Alcohol sloshing over the rims of countless solo cups, sloppy drunk kissing and mindless groping coupled with the lung burning acrid smoke coming from vapes, blunts and cigarettes in a combined cloud of pasty whiteness, I could just barely make out my own scrambled thoughts in my head due to the muffled bass that had dropped off since leaving the packed inside of the frat house and out into the mildly packed backyard.

A backyard that held Eli Shepherd, sitting across from me with an agitated look on his gorgeous features, but I wasn't the reason he was so annoyed.

Soft brown hair pushed back on his head and dressed in light denim jeans and his white sneakers with a tight fitting graphic t-shirt which emphasized his muscles that I doubted I could even wrap my entire hands around (I don't know how I kept from fainting at my first sight of them), Eli was in his element around all of his basketball players and former frat members.

According to green faced asshole, he used to be apart of this frat, surprise, surprise.

Ignoring my thoughts of the previous action, I focused in on the newcomers, Maddie and her friend, Mia. The one she'd warned me that Eli was still involved with while talking to me at the same time...

Gorgeous ebony curls framed her face, dark mocha skin decorating her body and complimenting the pale pink skirt that hung to her frame delicately, and just of course. Of course she had to be that gorgeous, because that was my luck. There was no way I could compete with that.

I half expected this to turn into a 'what do you think you're doing with my man?!' type of situation, but then Eli did something to completely diffuse every anxious notion I had thought up.

"Hey, me and V were actually having a conversation. Do you guys mind?"

Maddie's face fell, but Mia threw Eli a surprised smirk. What the hell was that about?

"Of course, we'll come back later," Mia said, throwing a wink at me that completely threw me off guard, my eyes widening in surprise at her bluntness. Was she really that unfazed that I was talking to Eli? Or maybe she was playing mind games with me, like she knew that I was no threat to her, so she had no problem that I was talking to him?

Sometimes, I hated being a girl.

A guy belched across the yard, and then threw off his shirt and did a belly bump with another shirtless guy beside him and then completely withdrew my previous thought. I desperately loved being a woman.

"Sorry about that. Look, I know that I had- have a certain reputation about girls, but reputations almost always reflect people in a bad light that isn't really fair to who that person is. I don't know why you stopped talking to me out of the blue, and I'll admit I probably spent way too much time wondering why, but if you're worried that I'm with someone else or something like that, I can promise you that's not the case. I even...shit," he stopped himself halfway, pulling his own chair closer to mine, close enough that our knees were touching and I almost pulled back.

Almost.

I flinched at the contact, but mostly because the warmth that seeped from his jeans into my own was delectable and addictive, and I wanted him to touch me more, all over, anywhere he could put his hands...

Running a hand haphazardly through his hair, Eli shook his head and gave a little self deprecating chuckle, like he knew what he was going to say next might be embarrassing.

"What?" I asked him, desperate to know what he was going to say, desperate for him to finish his thought.

I spied Maddie and Mia staring at us from the other side of the yard, but I didn't look their way once. My attention was solely on Eli as our eyes locked and that intense emotion sucked me out of the party and threw me right there to the pool of his green eyes that matched the verdant grass under our feet.

Two hands grasped my own in his and I couldn't breathe. Tingles erupted on my skin where he touched me, his thumbs drawing delicate circles across the top of my hand and my palms, and that thing skipping and hopping and jumping up and down for joy in my chest was most definitely my heart, and I'm pretty sure it did a damn cartwheel as he leaned in close, that hickory pine scent from the fire clinging to his clothes as his cologne hit me, melting and then evaporating any resolve I once held inside me.

"I even kind of broke off a friends with benefits situation with someone I've known for a while, just because I knew that I couldn't give her what she deserved, especially not when there was someone else on my mind."

Someone else on his mind...

My eyes probably grew to the size of golf balls in my head, and then promptly fell out and rolled onto the ground and landed beside his expensive white sneakers.

"Oh," I whispered hoarsely, not sure what exactly I was supposed to say to that.

"Oh? Is that all you can say?"

"I mean, I guess I'm just surprised. I thought you were with someone else and trying to flirt with me and be with me at the same time. I even saw a picture of..."

Wait. Maddie had shown me that picture, and had even said that Mia told her that they were still together. One of them were lying, I just needed to figure out which one, and fast. I didn't want to be friends with Maddie if she was just going to be a snake in the grass like that.

"Who? If you saw a picture, it was old. I broke things off the day I came over for dinner at your family's house."

"But...we'd only seen each other twice at that point? You knew you were...interested in me that way so quickly?"

His lips pulled up into a half smirk, and damn if those damn butterflies in my gut weren't eating me from the inside out.

"It wasn't just that. I...I heard you singing in the gym, that first night you came to work there. I had no idea who you were until I heard you again in your room, but that first time you were singing, it was my dad's favorite song. You don't know how much that song means to me, and I had to find out who was singing, but then you disappeared. It was after that when I thought you were still two different people that I knew I was in over my head."

My throat burned, and tears threatened to fall down my cheeks and ruin the makeup I'd so artfully applied. Screw the makeup, the tears would ruin my carefully calm and collected aura of being in control, something that I had issues with conveying.

Nonetheless, the first salty tear dropped, then another.

His hand was there, brushing them away one after the other, concern etched into his features as I held onto his wrist and kept it against my face, eyes latched onto his as he asked me what was wrong.

"V, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you-"

"You didn't upset me," I started. I paused, taking a deep breath to gather myself before I could speak again.

"You said it was your dad's favorite song, not your step dad?"

"No, my real dad's. They played 'Iris' at his funeral."

I sucked in a sharp breath. No wonder he'd resonated so deeply with it.

"It used to be my mom's favorite, too. Before she died, she passed onto me a lot of her favorites. Favorite color is blue, because it was hers. Favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip because it was hers. Iris is my favorite song, because it was hers..."

It was Eli's turn to get choked up at my words, because after my confession, he cleared his throat a few times and took a few shallow breaths to collect himself, all the while his hand was still on me, only instead of being latched to my cheek it had migrated to rest above my ear in my hair, his fingers wrapping around the strands like how he'd done in the gym only five days previously.

The fact that I'd gone so long without speaking to him based off of the word of a girl I'd known the exact same length of time as him was telling, and proof that I needed better judgement skills.

"Eli," I said softly, trying to get his attention back to me, but when that didn't work and his eyes still didn't meet mine, I leaned forward, closer and closer to him until his breath tickled the hairs on my arm that was closest to him.

My own hands came up and rested on his forearms, my left hand trailing up the length of the hand that was still stuck in my hair, almost like he was scared to let me go.

"Look at me," I urged him gently, and on that command he met my eyes and the redness in them hadn't been there earlier, nor the vulnerability that nearly stole the breath from my lungs.

"I didn't know it was your mom's favorite, too," he said gruffly, like the emotion had nearly stolen his voice from him.

"You didn't tell me you were spying on me while I was singing..."

The corner of his lips tipped up, and I knew I was on the right track.

"I mean, as far as I know, you've just been a huge creep this whole time. It was a good thing I ghosted you, really."

"Is that so?"

"Mhm. Now I won't end up in your basement screaming for help."

His eyes darkened, but it was for a completely different reason than the grief filled topic we'd been on only seconds previously.

"If you were in my basement screaming, it wouldn't be for help."

I couldn't help it, I had to do it.

"Really? And what would I be screaming if you had me locked in your basement?"

His eyes glowed almost from within as mirth danced across his face and his mouth stretched in a cheek splitting grin.

"My name. Repeatedly. And probably 'harder', but you'd only have to scream that once."

My burning blush would've been evident had I had lighter skin and it was actually light outside, instead of dimly lit by the glow of the nearby bonfire and a messy strand of string lights in the corner.

"Oh really? Because I think I'd just be calling the cops. Especially if you still lived at home...in your mom's basement," I said, faux cringing as I noticed that his smile grew wider.

I wasn't going to lie and say that his insinuation of sex with the two of us wouldn't be...loud hadn't rattled me, because it definitely had, most likely because of how many countless times I'd pictured the scenario in my head. Totally not healthy, but when looking at Eli, it was almost hard not to imagine those situations with the two of us.

"But if you were in my basement? You'd be screaming my name."

My pointer finger tipped his chin up to stare me directly in my eyes as I smirked for good measure, and damn if it didn't look like Eli was about to rip my clothes off right then and there, in front of everyone.

"Too bad my house just has an attic."

He gulped audibly.

"I can work with an attic."

My eyes widened at the fact that he was still trying to play along, so I tried another tactic, letting my hands fall lower on his arms to hook between his elbows, while he was still holding onto me with one hand, the other placed on my upper thigh.

"It has...cobwebs."

His grin grew cockier, if that were even possible.

"I have a big stick. I think it can clear them up pretty good."

I almost choked on my own saliva.

"It hasn't been used in a long time."

Were we really using an attic as a metaphor for my sex life?! And why couldn't I stop playing along?

"Don't worry. I have a great user's manual."

Well, who could argue with that one? I was about to come up with yet another quippy one liner when the two girl's who'd previously given us some privacy decided to descend upon us once again, only with a few of Eli's fellow players in tow.

"We're finishing this conversation later," he added in a low rumble of disapproval that we were being interrupted, the sound sending chills skittering along my skin and down my back, just as my phone lit up once more from my father.

"Hey guys!"

I smiled politely at Maddie, Mia, Wilt, Miles and Patrick while pointing to my phone to let Eli know that I was going to finally take my dad's phone call.

Standing up from our seats at the same time, Eli held me in place at the elbow, mouth low to my ear as his other arm banded around my front, almost like he was showing possessiveness over me in front of everyone...

"Come save me when you're done."

Like he was the one who needed saving?

I peeked up at him, craning my neck to meet him in the eyes and nodded once, and I briefly wondered if he was about to lean down to kiss my cheek quickly before I left, but he didn't and I couldn't tell if I was disappointed or relieved.

I was relieved. Definitely relieved...

Until I pressed the answer button on the phone call, and the rest of the world crashed around me when my father answered the phone, bringing me right back to that awful, dark place of constant guilt trips, conditional love and always trying to live up to unattainable expectations.

I gulped in a breath of air as he spoke as soon as my finger hit the button.

***

A/N:

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