Cameron Cole has a plan.
After yet another relationship ends because of certain shortcomings-literally-Cameron decides it's time to swear off dating and focus her energy into her junior year at the University of Charlotte. There's an internship up...
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It has been two days since the Colts Christmas party and I am still horizontal.
Still wrapped in a blanket like a damn human calzone, still puffy-faced and crusty-eyed. And my heart—dead, dead, dead. Do Not Resuscitate. Please wear your sexiest outfit to my funeral.
Create a national holiday for me.
Scarlett is curled up on the other end of the sofa, scrolling through something on her phone while my feet lay in her lap. I have barely moved—except to roll over and cry or to reheat the same sad pasta for the third time.
I know I look pathetic. I feel pathetic.
And the worst fucking part is I could be home with my family. With Mom and Dad and Ellie and Brynn and even Uncle Kenny's deranged hundred-year-old dog because of course he's bringing that to Christmas.
But I'm still here, still in Charlotte, still severely harming my eyesight with all this damn crying.
Wes convinced me to stay weeks ago, when we were chatting about Christmas plans. I mentioned that I'll probably return home for a few days like I always do—but he just looked at me with that gorgeous lazy grin of his and whispered "stay with me."
And because I'm such a fucking idiot, I agreed.
I don't know why I said yes—guess I'm just built different. Like incorrectly.
He said it will feel like Christmas, even without family. That we'll make our own traditions. That the guys' house will be full—full of light, full of food, full of teammates and chaos and warmth.
Full of us.
He said it will only feel like home if I'm there.
And I—fuck, I believed him.
We made plans.
Christmas Eve was suppose to be a team dinner at the house—a yearly sort of thing Clay starts in freshman year for all the players without family. There would be Clay's secret brisket recipe he gets off his Mama, Rome would be in charge of the music, and I was going to bake my nana's cinnamon sugar cookies.
Wes planned to help too—which only meant standing behind me at the kitchen counter with his hands under my shirt whispering in my ear about what he really wanted to eat.
We were supposed to wear ugly sweaters and he was supposed to peel it off me the second we were behind closed doors.
And then Christmas Day was supposed to be quiet. Just the five of us in their house. Wes bought these stupid matching pajamas from some online print store with next-day delivery. We'd do present exchange on the floor in their living room, all crowded around the tree. Laughter. Kisses. The kind of slow, lazy morning that stretches across the entire day.
He'd pull me into his lap, hands warm on my thighs and shoulder as I unwrapped something stupid and sweet. Whispering such dirty things into my ear while everyone else in the room pretended not to hear.
