I knew something was wrong the second I saw Ezra at our meeting spot on the quad. His face was tight, his mouth pressed in a thin line as he sat on the bench.
And he had Pierre with him, service backpack and all.
He smiled at me as I approached, and my concern for him was momentarily replaced with the flutters in my stomach.
Our lips connected immediately after I took a seat next to him, but when we parted I glanced down at his leg. He was wearing loose-fitting black track pants, and I had to resist the urge to pull up the fabric to look for myself to see how bad it was.
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “Just an accident. We were running around at the Pi Kap house in the sand last night and I tripped.”
I got the feeling he wasn’t telling me something, and I raised an eyebrow. “Running around?”
“We were playing a game,” he stated vaguely with a shrug.
Pursing my lips, I said, “I hate to sound like a nagging wife, but you should be more careful.”
Ezra grinned and leaned forward until our noses were touching. “You can sound like a nagging wife anytime. In fact, I insist on it from now on.”
I stole a quick kiss, taking advantage of how close our faces were. “How about we go back to your place and I’ll make you feel better before I have to go to class?”
His face lit up. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
“When you said you’d make me feel better, I thought you were talking about something else,” Ezra grumped. “Like yesterday.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I quipped, sitting next to him on the couch with a fresh bag of ice. “What I meant was, I’d drive you home and nurse you back to health.”
Laughing at his disappointed expression, I placed the cold pack over his knee, then began massaging his thigh.
Closing his eyes, he groaned and let his head fall back.
“I’m serious about being careful, though,” I persisted. “I know you want to have fun, but it’s okay to let people know you have limits.”
“Well, they know now.” The corners of his lips turned down. “You should’ve seen the looks I got today. Max asked about Pierre in sociology.”
“What did you say?”
Peeking at me through heavy eyelids, he shrugged. “I embellished a bit. Went with the ‘old sports injury’ excuse.”
Frowning, I asked, “You don’t think he would’ve been cool with the truth?”
“I think it’s me who isn’t cool with it.”
My heart hurt for him. “Ezra.”
He sighed. “It’s okay. It was bound to happen eventually. I’ve been trying to pretend like I’m all better, when the truth is I’m not. My leg has improved, but it’s always going to be a problem. I’ll never be normal.”
“Stop,” I begged in a whisper. He was being so hard on himself. “Normal is one of the most ridiculous words ever. What does it even mean?”
“It means not needing a special pillow to sleep with. It means not needing a dog to carry my books for me. It means being able to stand up while I’m taking a shower.”
“Hey, don’t knock the shower seat,” I mock-scolded. “I think that might be one of my favorite things about this place. And I love it that you need something to snuggle with at night. I’ll always be happy to fill in.”
A slow smile crept up on his lips. “You wanna fill in tonight?”
“You bet.” I leaned in for a quick kiss.
“Good. I wanted to take you out, but we might have to stay in with my leg acting up.” He toyed with my fingers. “But I’ll make you dinner.”
“Will there be chocolate?” I asked seriously.
“Absolutely.”
“Then you’ve got yourself a date.”
“I like these pants on you,” Ezra murmured, trailing his pinky finger up my thigh. “They’re sexy.”
“They’re just yoga pants.”
“Have you ever done yoga?” he asked without looking up from his sketchbook.
“No.” I snickered. “Maybe I’ll let you teach me sometime.”
He let out an amused huff. “You with your ass in the air? Now, that I can get on board with.”
“Ooh, we could even do naked yoga,” I suggested.
Ezra’s hand spasmed over the page, and I giggled.
We were sitting in a lawn chair on his back patio, me facing him, straddling his legs as he drew one of my eyes. He’d wanted to have some close-up time to get it just right, and I couldn’t turn down some close-up time on his lap.
The sketchbook was between us, and I was assisting him by grasping several colored pencils in my hand—all different shades of green, blue, gray, and brown.
I was glad we didn’t go out. In my opinion, this was the perfect date. Just Ezra and me. And Pierre, too.
The happy dog ran over, panting around the tennis ball in his mouth. I took it from him and threw it across the yard for the twentieth time.
“Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls,” I said to Ezra in my best Kate Winslet impression, which came out sounding more like the Count from Sesame Street.
His eyes flew to mine. “Huh?”
“Your French girls.” I ditched the accent and went for sultry this time.
Confusion caused his eyebrows to bunch together. “I don’t have any French girls. And who the hell is Jack?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen Titanic?”
“Nope.”
I rocked back on his lap in shock, being careful not to put too much weight on his knee. “Ezra, it’s a classic. Jack is an artist and he draws naked women.”
That got his attention. “You want me to draw you naked? Like, right now?”
Laughing at his eagerness, I shook my head. “Not right now. I just ate.”
As promised, Ezra had prepared a delicious dinner for us. The hearty beef stew he’d made in the slow cooker was unbelievably good. While he’d dished it out, he explained how he used organic grass-fed beef, and the carrots and celery were locally grown. Pretty fancy stuff.
I’d even gone back for seconds and my stomach was so stuffed, I didn’t even have room for the brownies he’d made for dessert.
Some nude modeling sounded fun, but I would prefer to do it when I didn’t feel like I’d swallowed an entire Crock-Pot.
“But I mean, I’d be up for it sometime,” I said. At first I’d been joking, but now that option had some appeal.
Grabbing a shade of blue, Ezra smirked. “We can try it, but there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be able to finish without mauling you halfway through.”
“That’s fine with me.” This idea was sounding better and better.
“You’re very distracting, you know that?” Ezra shifted, and I could feel his hardening cock against my inner thigh. “I’m almost done.”
I bit back a smile. “I’ll be good and let you finish.”
He went back to work, and I tossed the ball for Pierre again. The sound of the traffic from the busy street in the distance was peaceful, but my thoughts drifted to earlier when I’d shown up.
I’d taken a shortcut across the field, since it was just a straight shot to his place, but now I knew why the large area was unusable. The other side by the road was a minefield of broken beer bottles.
When I’d gotten inside Ezra’s fenced-in backyard, I told him that much, and he seemed concerned as I picked a shard of glass out of the sole of my tennis shoe. I was lucky I hadn’t been wearing flip-flops.
“Are you okay?” he’d asked, glaring out at the field like he wanted to kick its ass. “Someone should clean that up.”
“I’m fine,” I’d responded.
But it’d been a half-lie.
I’d shown up flustered, but not because of broken glass and not because Ezra looked so damn sexy in his cut-off-sleeve T-shirt.
Five minutes before I’d left my dorm, I’d called the private investigator to let him know I had the rest of the money. He’d already done some preliminary digging, but now the investigation was set in motion and I was starting to freak out. My finger had hovered over the send-payment button on my laptop before I shut my eyes and clicked it.
No going back now.
In a matter of days, I would have the answers I was looking for, ready or not.
I realized Ezra’s hand had stopped on the paper, and he was searching my face, concern etched on his. Even though I was trying to hide my anxiousness, he could read me like an open book.
“You okay?”
I nodded.
“Anything you wanna talk about?” he asked.
Taking the ball from Pierre’s mouth again, I shook my head as I wiped some slobber on my pants.
Ezra gave me a skeptical look, but didn’t push any further. He placed a kiss on my knuckles and went back to work.
It felt wrong to hide the investigation from Ezra, but the truth was, I was afraid to say it out loud. To tell someone that I was searching for a needle in a haystack. That I’d gambled a thousand dollars for the chance to say thank you to people who didn’t want to keep me.
Even Gavin didn’t know. We’d talked on the phone a few times since college started, but he was busy with class and football. And I was preoccupied with class, work, and falling in love. He’d been right about the future being awesome, because being here with Ezra was a dream come true.
“There. All finished,” Ezra announced. “Good thing, too, because we’re losing daylight.”
He flipped the book around to show me, and I gasped. I never stopped being amazed by his talent. Not just because he was great, but also because of the way he saw me. He always ended up making me appear more sophisticated, more vibrant.
I scanned the paper, admiring the way he’d blended all those different colors together to make an exact copy of my iris.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It should be.” He grinned. “It’s your eye.”
“Do I get to keep this one, too?”
“Actually, I was going to use it for my art assignment,” he told me, blushing. He explained the slideshow his professor had presented to the class—and holy grossness—but said he couldn’t think of using anything other than me. “Is that okay?”
“Of course it’s okay,” I replied, flattered. Lightly gripping his chin, I turned his burning face my way. “Don’t hide your blushes from me. I know it’s been something people made fun of in the past, but I love it. It’ll be a sad day when you stop turning pink in front of me.”
“That’ll never happen,” he reassured me, and I let out a content sigh as he pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose.