My Sweetest Escape (My Favorite Mistake #2)(78)
Author: Chelsea M. Cameron

Men. They had a one-track mind.

“Eyes up here, buddy,” I said, putting my hand under his chin and raising it so I could meet those glorious green eyes.

“Right. Support group.” He tried to get himself focused again.

“When did you start going?” I moved my hand to the top of his head and started moving it in circles, and he closed his eyes.

“Right after Nate’s funeral. I was high for it, because I thought that was the only way I could get through it. That was the only way I got through life back then. I don’t know how much he told you about our dad, but he’s nothing to brag about. He bailed on Nate’s mom and mine as soon as he could and skipped town to find his next woman. I have these dreams sometimes that I have all these other half siblings out there that I don’t know about and someday I’ll run into one of them.

“I was sitting there, at the funeral, and all I could think was how it was my fault and how ashamed Nate must have been to have me as a brother. And it clicked that I didn’t have to let him down anymore. I could try and live my life in a better way. So I went home and got rid of all the drugs and the booze and went to my first group meeting the next day. It was hard, at first. I had a lot of people in my life that had fed my habit, but I got rid of them all, and then I met Hunter and he was my first sober friend in a long time. He made it look so easy.”

He opened his eyes and sighed.

“It took a lot of work, but I did it because it’s what Nate would have wanted.”

“He called you Buzz, when he talked about you. I always thought it was because you had a buzz cut or you were, like, Buzz Lightyear or something.”

Dusty laughed a little.

“No, it’s because when I was little, I was obsessed with making noises and I used to make a buzzing noise that drove my mother crazy. She and Nate’s mom used to get us together sometimes so we could bond, and I was always doing that, so Mom and Nate and everyone else called me Buzz. I miss him so much it physically hurts.” Dusty rolled onto his back, pulling me so I was resting against his shoulder. I wrapped our legs together, and he danced his fingers up and down my back.

“I know. I miss him, too. When we first met, I thought he was trying to pick me up. I’d gone to this stupid frat party with my friends, and they were all wasted and going home with other guys, so I didn’t have a ride, and he just came up to me and said he’d take me anywhere I wanted to go.”

Dusty kissed the top of my head.

“He used to do that. Go to parties and rescue girls. He told me about it, and I accused him of trying to pick them up, or take advantage, because that’s what I would have done. I told you, I was kind of a dick back then.”

“Well, he did rescue me, and in a way, him offering me a ride at that party led me to you. So he kind of picked me up for you, in a twisted way.” I looked up at him.

“He always did have good taste.”

We both smiled and shared a soft kiss that might have led to more, again, but I stopped it.

“It feels wrong, still, to be this happy with you.”

“I know, Red, but it’s going to take time. I have these moments in the middle of the night when I have this horrible fear that everything with you was a dream and I wake up and then you’re right there beside me. I never thought something as good as you could happen to someone like me. I don’t deserve this, but I’m going to take it,” he said with a kiss on my nose, “and savor it—” he moved down to the corner of my lips “—and savor it, and savor it…” The kisses went lower and lower until I was the one doing the, um, savoring.

Chapter 24

“Brett asked about you,” I said to Hannah on Friday as we had lunch after our class. Pam was ramping up the intensity in preparation for our first test, and everyone was on edge. If any class had driven me to drink, it was that one.

Hannah choked a little on her frozen caramel Starbucks thing, and I banged her on the back.

“You okay there?”

“What do you mean, he asked about me?”

Wednesday night had been my first production night, and I’d finally had to fess up to everyone at Yellowfield and tell them what I was doing. The reaction had been stunned at first, but then ecstatic when someone—named Dusty—had given them my blog address. Renee was mad at me for the second time that week for not telling her. Apparently, she’d thought I was doing something nefarious and had been trying to figure it out for a while.

It had been fun to hang out with the other people who made the paper happen, and Brett had casually asked, while we were struggling to get the layout right for our section, if I knew if Hannah was seeing anyone. Well, it was more like he asked if Hannah and I hung out with a lot of guys, and I sort of got the gist reading between the lines.

“And?” Hannah said, grabbing my hand and gripping it so hard it cut off my circulation.

“Ouch, let go, crazy girl. I told him that you weren’t seeing anyone, but that we hung out with a lot of guys.”

“Great, now I sound like a slut.”

I shook my head.

“No, it makes it sound like you have a lot of interest. I played it that you were hanging out with, but not dating, these guys. Which is true. You hang out with Hunter and Mase and Paul and Dusty all the time.”

“Yeah, except every single one of them is taken.”

I grinned.

“Brett doesn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, just…” she sputtered.

“Easy there. He’s really cute, by the way.” Brett was even more adorable than Hannah had let on. I mean, he had a bow tie on and glasses and everything. Plus, he’d made a Star Wars joke, a Breakfast Club reference, and he loved Muse. So he was good in my book. He’d also been so nice to me and had gone out of his way to help me figure out what the hell I was doing when it came to the paper.

“I think he’s coming to battle of the bands, just to watch. Dusty’s coming with me, but if you wanted to happen to show up, that would probably be a good idea.” I wasn’t going to tell Hannah that Brett had asked if she was going. That would just make her nervous and not want to go.

“I guess I can go. I’ll have to check my schedule.” She pretended to open an imaginary date book and flip through some pages while muttering to herself.

“Uh-huh, if I move that to Sunday and that to next Tuesday, but then I’d have to—”

I smacked my hand down on the table.

“Hannah.”