Page 77 of Chasing Hope

He’s already halfway up to help me but I hold up my hand and bark, “Sit. Stay. I’m fine.”

My pride isn’t, though. Or my ass.

“Do I get a treat for being a good boy?”

My eyes widen as I turn my head in time to see the shit-eating grin on his face.

“Depends. Do you like being treated like a dog?” I ask.

Matteo doesn’t break eye contact as he drawls, “If I was going to be someone’s bitch, I’d happily be yours.”

A surprised sound leaks out of me, making him light up withtriumph again. Scrambling forward onto my hand and knees, I begin shoving the items back into his sports bag, only to freeze.

My finger is a mere inch from touching it.

“Dove?” he asks cautiously, seeing the sudden change in my demeanor.

I don’t think I’m breathing.

I blink, forcing myself to lean forward and carefully pick it up. Then, sitting back on my heels, I turn to Matteo, lifting the beaded green and blue bracelet in the air.

The very bracelet I gave him when I was eight.

“You kept it?” I hear myself ask.

The wall that had been lowered, the one I’m just realizing that had been lowered for weeks as Matteo helped me through the hardest time of my life, slams up like a prison cell.

I don’t know if he’s locking me out or locking himself inside.

Either way, something in my heart stutters.

Don’t push me away, I want to beg.

“Matteo?” I whisper.

At the use of his first name, he cracks. “It’s my lucky charm,” he croaks out. He picks at an invisible piece of lint on his pants before clearing his throat. “Brings me good luck before a game.”

I somehow manage to take a breath.

“I can’t believe you kept it all this time. That’s…I gave it to you nearly twenty years ago.”

It’s frayed a little over time, the beads slightly less colorful than they were, but the elastic… Blood rushes through my ears. “Did you have the elastic replaced?”

For the first time since I’ve known Matteo, his golden-brown cheeks flush.

Looking away, anywhere but at me and the bracelet in my hands, he clears his throat again. “The elastic wore down and broke in college.”

“So you had it replaced?”

He just shrugs as if his next words don’t steal my heart. “You gave it to me. I wasn’t going to let it go.”

Chapter 26

Evie—Age Eight

Biting my bottom lip, I try to stop the sound from escaping. I try everything to be quiet but the sobs taking over my body are so big I keep gasping for air.

He will be so cross with me if he hears me crying.