Ross didn’t hate that she’d said she loved him.
He didn’t want to leave.
He didn’t want any other guy to see her naked.
Her head felt like it was going to float right off her shoulders.
By the time she came back to her room with everything, Ross’s deep snores drifted through the door she’d left open a crack. She wanted to stay and watch him sleep, even if that made her a creeper 5000. She wanted to curl herself around him and keep him safe, to inhale his breath and watch his face serene and at peace.
She’d done that once before. When he was sleeping over. He was eighteen. She was fourteen. Watching him in his unguarded moments, at complete peace, his features so soft and vulnerable in sleep- that memory would always be engrained in her.
She wanted to make everything right in his world. He’d been through hell the past two months. She wanted to give him any piece of heaven she could steal for him. She wanted to soak up every single second of having him in her bed, so big that he made the twin look like it was a toddler bed. He took up all of it and then some. He was huge. He was perfect. He was there. Not because of Chance. He was there because of her.
Instead of staying, Alix set everything in her hands on the nightstand, brushed a gentle kiss over Ross’s warm forehead, dug some clothes out of her dresser, tugged them on, and scurried back to the kitchen.
When Chance came back, and probably her parent’s too, since the odds that he’d phoned them were pretty damn high, she was going to be ready.
Until then, she’d bake the stupid cake. When everyone got there, she could use a distraction.
CHAPTER 13
Ross
“Holy shit, Alix, the stove is on fire! Why the hell is the stove on fire?”
Even through the deepest sleep of his life, a sleep so deep it felt like he’d actually died a little and gone to sleep heaven, Chance’s whiny ass voice reached him. Ross ripped himself out of the peaceful, dark, blissful state he’d been in. It wasn’t a dream. He hadn’t been dreaming about Chance, that was for fucking sure.
The first thing he noticed, when he jerked upright in bed, was that he wasn’t in his bed. The second thing that was glaringly obvious was what he’d done with Alix was real and perfect and amazing. Unfortunately, the kick to the balls was also real and it was not perfect and not fucking amazing. They still throbbed like someone was lighting a match between his legs and holding it there like a torturous son of a bitch. The third thought that intruded on his sleep fogged brain was that he smelled smoke.
“Get the fire extinguisher!” Chance’s frantic voice came again, so loud it sounded like he was standing right next to the bed.
“What fire extinguisher?” That was Alix, just as frantic.
Ross leapt out of bed. Even in his panic, he wasn’t going to run out there naked and risk his nuts all over again. His eyes scanned the room frantically and they came to rest on one object. It was pink and fluffy but fuck it. It looked like it would offer some serious protection for his already aching balls, as there was probably a foot of fluff on either side.
Alix’s robe.
The thing was about eight sizes too small and groaned violently when Ross tugged it on. He did up the belt in record time- it was a good thing Alix liked to swim in her robe apparently- and bounded out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen.
Where six-foot flames were currently shooting their way out of the stove in the kitchen.
“Holy fuck!”
“Do you know where the fire extinguisher is?” Chance turned to him in desperation. Alix was nowhere in sight.
“How the fuck would I know! It’s your house!”
“Alix can’t find it!”
“Do you even have one?”
“Of course, we have one!”
Alix dashed into the kitchen. She came to a dead stop, her face red with panic, when she saw Ross. He stared at her for a heartbeat. She stared back.
“Fuck it.” He shook his head. “Do you have a pair of oven mitts?”
“What? Are you crazy!” Chance shouted.
“No! Ross! Don’t!” Alix screamed.
He knew exactly where the oven mitts were. Right in the drawer by the stove. He ripped the thing open frantically and it was a damn good thing that Alix’s mom liked the industrial things that went up to her shoulders, since she was terrified of her burning herself when she cooked. She’d once given herself a wicked burn taking a pie out of the oven and ever since then, industrial oven mitts it was.
He tore off the robe even faster than he’d put it on. The thing looked like you could safely wrap a house in it. He set the oven mitts on the counter and dashed to the bathroom, since he knew they hadn’t drained the tub. He threw the robe in, soaked the bastard, and ran back to the kitchen with his fifty-pound burden.