Fall With Me (Playing For Keeps Book 4)

“There. Right there.”

Cara aims the remote at the TV, pausing the playback of the party. She pins her arms over her chest, slowly pacing back and forth in front of the couch in Carter and Olivia’s living room, where Carter, Adam, Emmett, Garrett, and I are squished in shoulder to shoulder. She stops, opens her mouth, then snaps it shut. Shaking her head, she resumes her pacing. My skin crawls in the silence, awaiting our punishment. Her feet stop in front of me, and I tense.

“Why is it that when something happens it is always the five of you?”

She gestures at the TV, and I cringe at the paused scene.

Me, screaming, diving headfirst down the slide. Adam, trying to claw his way out the side to freedom. Garrett, halfway out, with Emmett’s arm wrapped around his head, yanking him backward so he can save himself. And Carter, on his knees in the center of the quickly deflating bouncy house, a look of pure horror on his face, a plate of chocolate cake in one hand, a fork in the other, his mouth in the middle of saying oops.

Yep, that’s us. I bet you’re wondering how we got here.

“This is your fault,” Adam grumbles beside me.

“My fault?” I shove his shoulder. “You were the last one to climb on.”

Adam turns and shoves Garrett. “You were taking too long with your turn.”

“I just got on!” Garrett shouts. “I was only on for, like, five minutes! Ten, tops!”

“Stop it!” Emmett yells. “It was Carter’s fault! He’s the one that brought the fork in!”

“Oh, well, excuse me for wanting to have fun and eat my cake!”

“You can’t have your cake and eat it too!” Emmett screams at him.

“What does that even mean?” Carter shouts back, arms flailing. “I never understood that saying! And guess what? I had my cake, and I ate it too!”

“It means you can’t jump in the bouncy house and eat your goddamn cake with your goddamn sharp pointy-ass fork!”

The five of us leap to our feet, screaming and shoving, until a roar cuts us off.

“Enough!”

I blink at Olivia. There’s no way that just came out of someone so tiny. Her eyes narrow on me, daring me to say it out loud. I mash my lips together.

“I should’ve known. I should’ve known, that at a party for children, the biggest children would be the ones to cause an issue. I just didn’t think that issue would be popping a bouncy house. I mean, for fuck’s sake, it said right on there, the individual weight limit was two hundred pounds.”

“But, Ollie!” Carter protests. “We did the math!”

“The total weight limit was twelve hundred,” Emmett explains.

“We came in at eleven hundred and ninety-seven!” I show her the calculator on my phone, still displaying our combined weights.

Garrett nods excitedly. “Three pounds to spare!”

Adam shrugs. “If anything, it’s the manufacturer’s fault for—” He snaps his mouth shut, wide-eyed at Olivia’s expression. “I heard it. As soon as it left my mouth, I heard how ridiculous it was.” He hangs his head. “I’m so disappointed in myself.”

Behind us, the rest of the girls snicker, quickly hiding behind coughs.

“Yes, well,” Olivia starts, and do I detect a hint of Carter’s typical theatrics? “I simply don’t know if I’ll recover. I just wanted it to be perfect, and—” She breaks off, sobbing into her hands, and the girls rush around her. “It’s just, with Jennie’s dance studio opening in a couple weeks, now I’m worried about a repeat incident like this, and—” Another sob, and the girls rub her back, shooting us glares. “God, you know, I could really use a three-night stay at the Sonora Château with the girls.”

“Yes!” Carter claps his hands. “Excellent idea! We can totally make that happen, right, boys?”

The four of us nod our agreement, a chorus of totally and absolutely and you ladies deserve it ringing out.

“Thank you. That would be really nice.” Olivia sniffles, wipes the theatrics from her eyes, and grins. “All right, I’m ready for a drink.”

“I feel like I just got played,” I grumble to the guys as we head to the kitchen to prepare drinks and snacks for the girls.

“Olivia just played us like a fiddle,” Emmett mutters.

“Nooo.” Carter looks at her across the room, tilting his head. “You think?”

“Dude, did you see that rebound?” I point to my eyes. “It took me longer to recover when you were dancing with Ireland.”

“Well, shit.” He pops his fists on his hips, grinning. “My acting skills must really be rubbing off on her.”

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out.

Tidbit

Can you make me a latte please? Somebody needs to stay up all night and teach you a lesson for being a bad boy.

I shove my phone away, yank the pantry open, and pull out all the fixings for a latte. Carter doesn’t have all the fancy syrup flavors like me, only vanilla, so we’ll have to make do.

“So Lennon’s really moving out, huh?” Garrett asks, brewing a tea beside me for Jennie. “Gotta say, given that it’s already been two months, I definitely thought you’d be past this we’re just fucking stage by now.”

Emmett snorts. “He needs more time than that.”

“Give him a minute to get there,” Adam says. “He’s new at this.”

“Huh?” I look between them. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Lennon,” Carter whispers. “’Cause you have a crush.”

“What? No, I—” I shake my head. “Back up. Moving out?”

Garrett lifts a brow, then tilts his head toward the living room, where the girls are snuggled up on the couch, Lennon in the middle, showing them something on her phone. “She’s going to see a couple apartments next week. She’s showing the girls now.”

“What?” Before I can stop myself, my feet are carrying me across the room. I lean over the back of the couch, sweeping Lennon’s curls over her shoulder so I can squeeze myself in. “What we lookin’ at?”

She turns to me, and I’m thrown by the closeness. I see her like this nearly every night, but there’s something about touching her in front of other people, being close enough to her mouth that I can nearly taste her on my tongue, letting everyone else see the way her eyes dance when she looks up at me, the same way mine do when I’m looking at her. There’s something about it that feels real and raw and vulnerable. Scary. I lick my lips, hands shaking as I try to quell the urge to lean in that last inch, steal a kiss I’ve been thinking about since I last tasted her this morning while she was pressed up against my living room window.

“Len’s showing us the apartments she’s going to see next week,” Jennie says.

“We’re gonna go with her,” Olivia adds, and Cara just smiles at me, cocking her head like she’s studying me.

“Yeah? Lemme see.”

Lennon sighs, showing me her screen, flipping quickly through a set of pictures.

“Hold up.” I bat her hand away, flipping back two, and tsk. “Ah. Just as I thought. Formica countertops. Next.”

She rolls her eyes but indulges me with prospect number two.

“Crack in the wall below the window.”

She purses her lips, moving on to number three.

“Pretty sure those floors used to be white.”

Number four, her favorite, apparently. And it’s . . . perfect for her. Bright and spacious, with a far-off view of the mountains. A small den, a little balcony, a new kitchen, and in a safe little pocket.

But what’s wrong with living with me?

“Len, are you kidding me? That’s practically in another city. And you know what?” I squint at the screen. “Yeah, that’s definitely the same place. I know someone who used to live there. They said the water pressure was horrible. Really fucked with their day-to-day.”

“The water pressure was horrible,” Rosie murmurs slowly, but I can’t tear my gaze way from Lennon’s narrowed one.

“What is going on with you?” Olivia asks.

Jennie tilts her head. “Yeah, these are all great, but you’re finding an issue with all of them.”

“Yes, Jaxon,” Cara hums. “It’s almost as if you . . . don’t want Lennon to move out.”

“Pssshhh. That’s . . .” I swallow. Has my throat always been this itchy? “Not true.”

“He always does this. Comes up with a reason why it’s not a good choice. Last week, he didn’t even give me a reason, just snapped my laptop shut as he walked by and said, ‘Nope’.”

“Why don’t you want Lennon to move out?” Cara asks.

My pulse races, and my heart pounds an uneven beat. Adrenaline buzzes through my veins, down into my legs, begging them to move, to run. “It was . . . it was . . . It was in a bad area.”

“Why don’t you want her to move out?” Cara asks again, but it’s softer this time, curious, and I feel the weight of everyone’s gaze. It’s just as heavy as disappointment, the kind you feel in yourself, but not quite as heavy as grief. It’s when you combine the two that everything gets really fucked up.

Blood thunders in my ears, an angry, violent sound that drowns everything out except the memory of a redheaded boy as he gasps for air, the cries of his twelve-year-old friend who was too late to save him.

Something in Lennon’s gaze shifts, softening. An understanding, maybe. Empathy. “Jaxon,” she whispers, and it sounds the same way it did back in January, when she was begging for her life in my arms, when she thought it was already slipping by her. She covers my hand with hers, a gentle touch I’ve never deserved, and I rip it away, forcing myself backward.

But it’s the hurt in her eyes that seals the deal, brings words I never wanted to say pouring from my mouth, even if I trip over every one of them.

“If you move out . . . You can’t, because . . . Because I-I-I . . . I can’t save you if you’re not here with me.”

Jesus Christ, the words hurt. They rip through my lungs like a rusty knife, burn like acid, and I clutch at my chest, desperate to get rid of the pain, the memories.

Lennon’s forehead crumples, and she stands from the couch, slowly moving toward me. “I’m right here, Jaxon. I’m okay.”

I shake my head, fingers pressed against the memories playing out like a headache in my temples. “But you weren’t. Your EpiPen was too far, and you were-you were . . .”

A hand lands on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “Hey,” Garrett says softly, firmly. “We’re here with you. What’s going on?”

And that’s all it takes. That surrounded feeling I’ve been chasing for too long. That feeling of family. Someone caring enough to ask.

“We were playing in the forest out back. It was only . . . it was only a two-minute walk. Bryce forgot his EpiPen, and . . . he was . . . I didn’t even see the bee, it happened so fast.”

“Oh, Jaxon.” Lennon stops before me, but she’s all blurry. I can’t see her properly, and I hate it; I’ve never seen anything as pretty as her. Warm hands cup my cheeks, and when her thumbs brush below my eyes, I realize I’m crying.

“It was right there. Right fucking there, on the kitchen counter, right beside the back door. I ran as fast as I could but I . . .” My voice cracks, or maybe it’s my chest, split right down the middle, every single heartache spilling out, the way my gran always said it would. “I wasn’t fast enough.”

Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? Being part of a family built from the ground up, where people choose you day in and day out?

Because one moment I’m standing here, and the next I’m being held up by nine people who don’t have to support me but are choosing to anyway.

And it’s a staggering, powerful feeling I’m terrified to lose.