Page 59 of Play For Me

SIXTEEN

SOLOMON

I usually have this voice in my head. The one that tells me when I’m screwing up—and the voicealwaysthinks I’m screwing up—or when people might be looking at me weird or when a situation is getting out of control and I should go.

I hate that voice. It’s the bane of my existence.

If I had known that kissing Cecelia Ransome would make the voice finally shut up, I would have done it ages ago.

There’s just no room in my head for anything else when I feel this good.

I’ve imagined kissing her a hundred times since I first noticed her on campus two years ago. I’ve imagined a lot more than just kissing. But even my imagination—which is typically very detailed—couldn’t have known how amazing this would be. She’s so warm in my arms and her mouth is sweet and so fucking perfect and I seriously want to do this forever?—

“Oh!” a high, sharp voice says behind us. I decide to ignore it because nothing could be important enough to distract me from this. But then I realize Cecelia has gone rigid in my arms and suddenly that voice in my head is back in full force, louder even than usual, like it’s pissed off that I tried to silence it for so long and now it’s going to have its revenge.

What the fuck are you doing? You’re kissing the person you’re supposed to be training. She’s practically your client. The department has rules about this. You’re in public. Anyone could see. You’re going to get kicked out of your program.

And underneath all that noise is a deeper fear, one I’ve been trying to push down since the day I found out I’d be working with her.If you try to get close with Cecelia Ransom she’s going to know you. And if she knows you, really truly knows you, there’s no way you’ll be able to keep her.

I pull back like something burned me, breathing hard. It belatedly occurs to me that the owner of the high voice that interrupted us is still talking. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you guys all hidden away over here and—I’m so sorry. I’ll just leave now. I didn’t see anything.”

I feel dazed and pretty out of it, like I just woke up from the world’s longest nap, but I’m pretty sure that voice belongs to Vega. I don’t know anyone else capable of talking so fast. Cecelia is still tense but she mostly sounds exasperated as she addresses her cousin.

“It’s fine, Vega. Can you just give me a second?”

“Of course,” Vega quickly agrees. “Actually, I’ll just go. Is that better? I can talk to you later. You don’t have to, you know, um, stop what you’re doing or?—”

“Vega,” Cecelia says sharply, and I’m struck by the strangest urge to laugh.

This isn’t funny, I know that. It’s dark in our little corner of the patio but if Vega saw us, that means someone else could have, too. Most of Cecelia’s team is at this party. There are any number of people who could make my life a lot more difficult.

But at some point, while her cousin prattled on a few feet away, Cecelia slipped her hand into mine. And I’m having a hard time caring about anything except how warm her palm feelsagainst my skin. Or how calm and comforted I feel by just that little bit of contact with her.

Vega finally leaves and Cecelia lets out a long breath. “Sorry,” she mutters, and I really don’t like that she’s looking away from me. Avoiding eye contact is usually my thing, but I find I really don’t want her to avoid mine right now.

I put a finger under her chin to tilt her head up so she’s looking at me and I swear, my heart stops beating. It will never not shock me, how beautiful she is. When we got here tonight, she smiled at me in the entryway and I literally couldn’t breathe for several seconds.

“You don’t need to apologize,” I tell her.

“My cousin is obnoxious.Allof my cousins are obnoxious. I have no idea why I spend so much time with them.”

That makes me laugh, and she seems to relax a little at the sound.

“I’m not sorry I kissed you,” she blurts out. “I know I should be—I know we’re not supposed to do this and there’s your clinicals and all of that.” She looks up at me, her expression fierce, the way it looks when she’s going after the ball in the offensive zone. “But I’m still not sorry.”

“I’m not sorry, either,” I tell her, meaning it.

We stand there for a long moment, just looking at each other in the dark. Eventually, she sighs. “But we probably shouldn’t do it again, right?”

“Probably.”

She didn’t say anything different than what the stupid voice in my head has been bleating at me for the last few minutes. They’re both right—my program doesn’t allow me to have a romantic relationship with someone I’m training. If I want to stay in my program, we definitely can’t do that again.

But when Cecelia smiles up at me and squeezes my hand before releasing it, I know that I am absolutely, one hundredpercent fucked. Because in that moment, I don’t care about my clinicals or all the years of work I put into my education. I don’t care about the accelerated degree program or getting a good job. If Cecelia Ransome wanted to kiss me again, I’d agree, no question.

So I guess I just have to hope that her willpower is stronger than mine.

“You’re being weird,”Emery tells me on Sunday afternoon.