More Than Enough (More Than Series, Book 5) (17 page)

Dylan:
Hello. Do you cook?

Riley:
Hello back. Where are you?

Dylan:
Battingxcages witg thenboys.

Riley:
And you’re texting me? Surely that’s breaking bro-code…

Dylan:
Fuxk bro-code. I miss yiu.

Riley:
:D :D :D

Dylan:
wtf is that?

Riley:
You said wtf! My boy is growing up so fast.

I laugh to myself.

Dylan:
Chexk yourxdoorstep. I ledt you somwthinf.

Riley:
And you were doing so well! Go be with your friends! I’ll be here when you get done! :D :D :D

Dylan:
:d?

Riley:
GO!

Dylan:
Wait. Still no drink?

Riley:
Not a drop!

I put the phone away and look back up to see three sets of eyes watching me. “What?”

Logan sighs and bats his eyelashes, then sits his chin on the back of his hand. With a high-pitched voice, he croons. “Soooo… who are you textiiiiing?”

Cam laughs. Jake doesn’t. He just continues to watch me with a slight smile.

“Riley.”

Logan asks, his voice back to normal, “Who’s Riley?”

I keep my eyes on Jake, sending a silent message. “Just a friend.”

Jake gets a
call from Micky telling him they’re close to my house so we wait for Cameron to finish all the food and head back. Amanda’s car’s parked on the street when we pull up and her, Lucy, and Micky are standing around it, holding up signs that say
Welcome Home
and
We Missed You
and
Team Silence
.

“What the hell is Team Silence?” I ask Jake as I park in the garage and get out.

He doesn’t get a chance to respond before the cheering starts and the girls charge me all at once.

“Whoa!” Jake stands in front of me, his hands up. “His shoulder! Jeez, I told you guys about this.”

“Sorry.” Micky laughs, slowing down just in time. “We got a little excited.”

Jake steps to the side allowing each of the girls in for a hug and a few words.

“The gang’s all together again,” Lucy squeals, her arms around her husband. We all ignore the fact that, technically, she’s wrong, because for as far back as I could remember the gang always included Heidi. Considering how we left things—at a hotel room in Vegas with me telling her to get the fuck out and that I never wanted to see her again—it would be insane of her to even attempt it.

“I hope you’re ready to eat,” I tell them, leading them through the garage into the back yard.

The second I turn my back; I hear her voice. “Sorry,” Riley says, and I spin on my heels and face her.

She’s weaving her way through my friends, who part like the Red Sea to make room for her. Her eyes lock on mine and there’s something about the way she’s looking at me that keeps the breath in my lungs and my hands at my sides. Her eyes are filled with tears, but her smile—her smile tells me the opposite. God, I love it when she smiles. She doesn’t speak. Not a word. She simply walks toward me as everything but my heart seems to slow and by the time she reaches me, the only sound I can hear is the the blood pulsing in my eardrums. She places her hands on my chest and rises to her toes. Then she kisses me. Right on my mouth. And now her arms are around my neck and her lips are parting and when her tongue brushes along mine, I pull her into me with my arms around her waist and I kiss her back—our tongues, our lips, our bodies uniting as one and I don’t know how long we stand there, her body bent back from the force of my kiss because time doesn’t exist when it comes to Riley. Neither does the outside world, apparently. After a while, but not long enough, she pulls away, her lips red and raw from my attack. She smiles again, the tips of her fingers going to her lips. “Hi,” she whispers.

“Hi.”

She grins wider and releases me completely. “Bye.”

I hold her tighter. “Stay.”

She removes my arms from around her waist. “Can’t.”

I grab her hand. “Please?”

She pulls out of my hold. “Sorry.”

And just like that, she walks away. But she’s not gone. I can still feel her with me. Every single fiber of my being feels her with me.

I watch her leave. We all do.

“Who was that?” Logan asks when she’s no longer in view.

“That was Riley.”

“Holy shit,” he says, “I thought Riley was a dude.”

“Also,” Amanda joins in. “That was the weirdest verbal exchange I’ve ever witnessed.”

Riley

I
was twelve
when my mom made me go with her to welcome the new neighbors. He and his dad were shooting baskets in their driveway when we showed up.

He stood next to his Dad with a basketball under his arm wearing sweatpants and a Tar Heels basketball jersey. He was wearing a cap, too, one he took off as soon as he saw my mom and I coming toward them. My mother introduced us both and our parents shook hands. Then his dad said, “This is my boy, Dylan.”

Dylan.

Dylan.

Dylan.

His name ran on repeat in my head.

Then he nodded at me and shook my mom’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Ma’am,” he said to her and the first set of butterflies I’d ever felt swarmed in my stomach. I remember his voice being deep, especially for a fifteen-year-old. He was tall and he had muscles—muscles that shouldn’t belong to a boy his age. His dark hair fell across his brow, and he palmed it away from his deep blue eyes. I think I was drawn to his eyes first. Then he looked at me. Right at me. And he smiled. And for the first time in my life I wondered what it would be like to kiss a boy—that particular boy—and that particular mouth.

When I got home, I went straight to my room and threw myself on the bed, my hands on my lips. Then I
imagined
what it would be like to kiss him.

Kissing Dylan Banks, the boy next door, was nothing at all like I imagined.

It was so,
so
much more.

I practically run
to my house and straight to my room, where I close the door and throw myself on the bed like I did when I was twelve. Then I place my hand on my lips and close my eyes, reliving the kiss over and over again. It was different kissing him this time. My mind was clear, and so was my heart—clear and open and ready for him.

My phone vibrates on my nightstand and I quickly reach for it, as well as the glass jar he’d left at my door. I read his text first.

Dylan:
You stole my kiss!

Riley:
Because I’m worthy of it.

I set the phone down and pull out the two notes he’d left in a jar. I unfold the one he had written the number “1” on and take a breath, knowing what his words will do to me. It’ll be the third time I read it, and even though I know I’m going to experience the same things I do whenever Dylan had been involved—Butterflies, emptiness, guilt—there’s one more emotion I can now add to it.
Love
.

I’d come home for the weekend during my sophomore year of college. When I spoke to my dad earlier that day, he mentioned he was going away so I knew I would have the house to myself, which was something I’d been craving since I moved away. I liked being alone, liked the quiet I knew the house would provide. He was standing outside at the end of our joining fence pacing the sidewalk when I pulled into my driveway. I recognized him from high school but I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name. So it was kind of odd that when I got out of my truck, he looked over at me and stopped in his tracks. I wasn’t sure what he was doing so I walked over and asked him. He didn’t respond to my question. Instead, he said, “Banks, man. How’s UNC?”

I must’ve given him a look that terrified him a little because he laughed nervously and said, “I’m Jeremy. You went to my high school. I played on Varsity with you a few times.”

“Sorry,” I told him, and lied. “I didn’t recognize you.”

“All good,” he said, but he still seemed nervous. And distracted. He kept looking over at your house.

“Is there something I can help you with?” I asked him.

His entire body stilled and he slowly looked from your house to me. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I have this problem,” he told me.

“What kind of problem?”

I remember looking at him, and then at your house, and then at mine, because I just wanted to get inside and away from the world and all the stupid talking and even stupider questions.

“Riley, my girlfriend…” He pointed to your house. “She broke up with me. Again.”

“Again?”

He laughed. “She’s always breaking up with me.”

“Maybe she doesn’t actually like you, dude,” I told him.

He raised his chin. “Oh, she does. She loves me. She has no choice but to love me.”

I laughed with him, which now kind of makes sense. At the time, I was pretty sure Heidi and I were done, though we never vocalized it. It was a just a feeling—the kind you get in your gut, you know? And I remember being jealous of him—that he was so confident in your relationship and in himself that he could say that. “So what’s the problem then?”

“I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m going to leave her when we go off to college or some shit. So she’s trying to get a head start. Which is stupid—I’d never leave her. And I sure as hell won’t let her leave me.”

“Has she said anything to you?” I found myself asking.

He shrugged. “She says she doesn’t feel worthy of me. I don’t know.” His gaze dropped. “I feel like it’s my fault. Maybe I haven’t shown her how much I love her or how much she means to me and how sometimes I walk with her hand in mine and I get that sense of pride, you know? Not because I want to show her off or whatever, or the fact that I think it’s amazing that she doesn’t mind being seen in public with a kid like me but because she’s fucking smart, man. And she’s beautiful, and funny and passionate and opinionated and a complete pain in the ass but, fuck, I love her. I love all those things about her and it hurts she can’t see that. That she can’t love herself the way I do. I don’t know. Is it my fault?” he asked, his eyes back on mine, pleading with me to give him something.

I didn’t have anything to say. It’d been a long time since I felt what he was feeling. That kind of pain at the thought of losing someone he loved with everything he had. And it wasn’t a show, Riley. It was just me and him—two guys talking out on the street—him pouring his heart out, and me, not able to give him whatever it was he was looking for. “College is a long time away, bro.”

He just shrugged. “Time means nothing when forever’s in play.”

Then he looked over at your house again and I could see the desperation in his eyes. “Maybe don’t show her.” I told him.

His gaze trailed back to mine. “What?”

“Don’t show her. Tell her. Everything you just told me, say it to her.”

He squared his shoulders and took a long, deep breath. “You think it’s enough?”

“It has to be, right?”

He nodded and sniffed once and for the first time since I’d been speaking to him, I saw the fear in his eyes. He was so afraid of losing you, Riley.

Then he smiled and shook his head. “Under love’s heavy burden do I sink,” he mumbled. And then he was gone. He marched right up to your house and pounded on the door. I turned around and went into the house, not wanting to witness your moment of love and (hopefully) clarity.

I sat in my room in the silence of my thoughts, having no fucking idea what I was doing with my life. But that kid on the street—he knew. He wanted you to be his life. His love.

And at least you get to have that, Riley. At least you get to walk away knowing his heart belonged to you and that he was so afraid of losing you, so desperate to show you your worth, that he bled his heart out to a stranger. He loved you, Ry. He loved you so damn much. And I was so jealous of him, not because he had you at the time, but because he was so passionate about you and love and life and the future you’d share, and I didn’t have any of that.

What I had wasn’t enough.

I wanted more than enough.

I enlisted the next day.

And I found something I was proud of, like he was proud of you.

Jeremy Walters—he changed both our lives.

I cover my mouth with my hand to stop the sobs from escaping. Each read seems to hurt more, but not the kind of hurt that has me reaching for the bottle. It’s the kind that lets me know I’m breathing and that I’m alive, and that eventually, it’ll be okay. I fold the note and place it on the bed next to me, then I reach into the jar and pick up the second letter, already smiling as I unfold it.

Riley,

I’m sorry for making you cry with the last letter. I hate seeing you cry. I hate even more knowing I caused it. But, I thought you should know about that night because I know for sure it’s not something you can write to him about. I wonder if he’ll be pissed that I told you about it. Looks like I’m breaking bro-codes all over the place when it comes to you.

Anyway, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I haven’t really had the chance to say it in person, so I thought I’d write it to you. And with any luck, take away some of that hurt I just caused (I’m sorry—again).

Okay.

Here goes.

I find it completely appalling that you seem to love bacon. It’s weird. You’re weird, Riley. I mean, out of all the food in all the world, you ask for bacon? It just doesn’t make sense. But, because I’m trying to get in your pants, here are some random facts about bacon: