Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81426 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81426 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“Hello, Art Boy,” Cam countered, at ease as always. As I closed the door, I told myself it was fine and there was nothing to feel strange about. “And it’s absolutely okay for you to call me that. I’ve definitely been called worse. You like bacon, eggs, and hash browns?”
“If it’s food, I like it.”
“Speaking like a man after my own heart,” Cam replied as I watched them together. He was so damn good at making people feel at ease, at comforting people and making them feel like they had a friend. He’d spent his whole life doing it with Sawyer, and he did it with me, and now he was doing it with Theo too. “You gonna get in here and help me or what, Beautiful?”
Cam eyed me, and my skin suddenly felt a bit too tight. Theo’s eyes darted from Cam to me to Cam and back to me again. There was no question there was something between us, which shouldn’t matter. It didn’t really. It was just…new. But then, I’d asked the guy to fuck around with me and be my fake boyfriend, so it wasn’t like I could complain.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Just let me go grab a shirt real quick.”
“Can you get one for me too?” Cam asked. “Frying bacon and being shirtless don’t go well together.”
“I can help too!” Theo said. “Though I mostly just do microwave stuff, so you might have to teach me. I mean, if you don’t mind, of course.”
“Mind? We would have been disappointed if you didn’t help,” Cam told him, and damned if Theo didn’t glow.
In that moment, none of the other shit mattered.
“I’ll go grab shirts, and then we’re on.” And it was then I realized I was looking forward to it.
CHAPTER TEN
Camden
I needed the safety you provided. If it weren’t for you, I never would have made it into the bar that night. I don’t even know what I was thinking by going there. ~ Letter from Henry
It had thrown me a little when Jude was obviously uncomfortable with my attention. I’d been flirty without even thinking about it. After the night we’d shared, things felt different. I didn’t know what exactly different meant or what I wanted, but then I’d called him beautiful, and he froze up. I didn’t know if it was because of Theo or what he told me about being complimented.
But as the three of us cooked breakfast together, talking Theo through it when he got shells in the eggs and nearly burned the bacon, Jude relaxed. We had fun. Theo too, which was something the kid needed.
He rambled and laughed a lot, and his eyes were constantly on me or Jude, or me and Jude together, even though I made sure not to touch Jude. The kid wasn’t dumb. He knew something was going on between us, and damned if I didn’t think he needed to see that it was okay for us, because maybe if it was okay for us, it was okay for him.
So we ate breakfast together, which we discovered was Theo’s second one of the day. The first being cereal.
After breakfast we worked on Jude’s puzzle for a bit, then went to watch Theo ride his skateboard at Willow Brook Park. From there, we decided on a movie—making sure Theo called his mom to ask permission, which she readily gave, without speaking to Jude or me. She didn’t know us at all, but that didn’t seem to matter. What did I know about raising teenagers, though? Maybe that was normal at his age.
When the movie ended, I took the two of them home, pulling up in front of the condos. I really wanted to kiss Jude goodbye, or at least make some kind of inappropriate joke about me wearing his clothes all day, but I didn’t because of Theo and the fact that I was pretty sure Jude was still getting used to this whole screwing-around-with-a-dude-who-happens-to-be-my-fake-boyfriend thing.
“Thanks!” Theo said. “For today, I mean. It was awesome, like really, really awesome.”
“Well, you were with me, and I’m a really, really awesome guy, so of course it would be a great day. Jude’s all right,” I teased. Theo laughed, and Jude again gave me the finger.
Jude looked at me for a moment, and I cocked a brow at him. Somethin’ you want from me, Beautiful?
“So I’ll see you later,” he said, getting out of the truck.
“Yep.” Then Theo got out, and I pulled away.
Once I got back to my place, I took a shower, changed into my own clothes, and tossed Jude’s into the washer.
There was still a buzz beneath my skin after the night we’d shared, which was new for me. I didn’t typically think about my hookups much afterward, but then they weren’t usually fake boyfriends who were basically my closest friend.