Hold Onto the Stars by Tracy Broemmer
Chapter 10
Peyton had hated leavingfor school earlier that morning. He’d wanted to see CJ before he left. In fact, he’d waited around long enough that he was almost late to school, beating the buses by less than ten minutes. If CJ hadn’t texted to let him know she was running later than planned and probably wouldn’t get to his house until late morning, he definitely would have been late.
As much as he hated missing CJ, her later start time gave him hope that she would still be at his house after school. Normally, he would stay until four-thirty. But once the afternoon buses had taken most of his students and the rest had been picked up by parents or babysitters, Peyton packed his bag up to head home. He needed to be around in case CJ had any questions or concerns about his property, he reasoned. Besides, he could record his grades at home on his laptop and finish reading the paragraphs he had assigned the kids as social studies homework last night.
A flash of excitement shimmied over his skin when he rounded the corner of his street and saw the Everhart Electric truck parked at the curb in front of his house. She might have turned him down and pushed him away the other night. But that kiss.
Smokin’ hot.
A kiss like that said so much that words couldn’t quite convey. The hesitation, the caution. The getting-to-know-you kisses and the way those kisses rocked your world so hard you had to hold on. Peyton with his hands on her hips. CJ grabbing a handful of his t-shirt. He had asked her permission to kiss her, and she hadn’t just granted it. She had kissed him back. Peyton had felt her lips move under his. She’d parted her lips first. He may have been the first to kiss with his tongue, but she hadn’t shied away from that. Instead, she had kissed him back, hungry and hot and eager.
And then she’d pulled away.
Sometimes, a fire was so hot, it drove people away—the very same people who hovered around it for warmth and comfort.
Junie roamed the fenced-in backyard when he was at school, and she had the doggie door to get back inside if she wanted to escape the heat. But Peyton wasn’t surprised to find the dog stretched out in the grass near the open garage door, head on her paws and eyes closed. She had probably been out all afternoon to be close to CJ. Lucky dog.
Peyton watched CJ in the garage for a few moments before she realized he was there. He walked down the drive, closer to the garage, hands in the pockets of his trousers. CJ turned with a coil of old wire in her hands and tossed it to the ground.
“Hey.” She stilled when she saw him. Peyton flinched at the deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes. As much as he wanted to bound into the garage with the same enthusiasm his dog showed CJ, he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.
“How’s it going in here?” He slipped past her, careful not to get too close, and eyed the walls. The particle board was down, stacked against the back wall. Peyton wondered if CJ had done it herself, but he didn’t ask. No reason to offend her by questioning her physical strength or her job skills.
“Okay.” She moved around him, pulling more of the old wiring out of the east wall. Peyton noticed she wore work gloves, and his eyes were drawn to the spot where the gloves stopped and her wrists began. As if her hands were private and he were forbidden to see them, all he wanted was to tug the gloves off and study her fingers. To see if she wore nail polish. If she wore any rings. If her fingers were long and elegant or if she had small hands.
“What?”
Peyton jerked his eyes up, made fleeting eye contact with her, and looked away.
“Junie been bothering you all day?”
She flashed him a sincere smile and shook her head. “Nope. She’s keeping me company.”
“She is good company,” he agreed.
“I didn’t even get started until after lunch. One thing after another with work.”
“It’s okay,” he promised her.
She pulled her cap up to rub the side of her face on her sleeve, revealing sweat-dampened curls at her hairline. It wasn’t bad out today, but the air in the garage was still, and CJ had undoubtedly been hard at work before he came home and started bothering her. She settled her cap back on her head and then plucked her t-shirt away from her chest as if she couldn’t stand the material against her skin. Peyton found himself imagining what was under her shirt, wondering if her bra was silky or lacy or simply cotton. He took a step back, suddenly uncomfortably warm.
“Okay if I’m out here until five?”
“Of course.” He nodded. “Want something to drink?”
From the set of her mouth, he could tell she was about to turn him down. But when their eyes met, she laughed and gave in with a shrug.
“That sounds great, thank you.”
“You bet.” Hands still in his pockets, he stepped around her and headed back out of the garage. “Be right back.”
Junie climbed to her feet and hurried after him as he pushed the back door open. Once inside, he gave her his full attention, complete with a belly rub when she lay down and rolled over.
“You’re a good girl,” he crooned. Junie licked his hand and then scrambled to her feet when he stood. She woofed and followed him through the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom where he changed clothes.
Comfortable now in casual shorts and a t-shirt, he went back downstairs, grabbed a cold Mountain Dew from his refrigerator and a beer for himself, and put his beer on the counter. Junie bounded down the porch steps in front of him when he opened the door. In the garage, CJ was still ripping the old wiring from the walls.
“Here ya go.”
CJ reached for the can without looking. “Thank you.”
“I’ll be inside if you need anything.”
She spared him a glance and nodded, and then she lowered her eyes to the can in her hand.
“Peyton.” She laughed softly. “Did you get this just for me?”
“I might have.” He shrugged.
She popped the top and took a long drink.
Do not lower your eyes, he told himself, but he couldn’t help it. With her head tipped back and the can at her mouth, Peyton’s gaze was drawn to the long column of her neck. He wanted to take a bite of her sun-kissed skin, to nibble down her neck and flick his tongue in the hollow of her throat.
“Thank you,” she said again. “But you didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.”
She nodded and leaned over to put the can on the floor in the corner of the garage. Peyton watched her, his eyes hungry for her curves, even in the boxy cargo pants.
“Are we good?” He had to ask, because he wanted to kiss her again, and he still felt bad for kissing her Monday since she seemed skittish with him now.
“Yep,” she answered him with her back to him.
“Okey-doke. I’ll be inside.”
This time, his traitor dog stayed outside with CJ when he returned to the house.
“Ingrate,” Peyton mumbled. He snagged his beer and twisted the top off, tipping it back for a long pull before he carried it over to the table. A quick glance out the window told him Junie was right back in her spot by the garage, head on her paws, eyes undoubtedly on CJ. Peyton couldn’t blame her.
He fished his laptop from his bag, turned it on, and then sat down to pull out the papers he needed to grade and those he needed to record. Because he could knock them out quickly, he recorded grades from the spelling tests first.
When those grades were recorded, he stacked the tests, pushed them to the side of the table, and reached for the social studies papers. He had assigned one written paragraph with at least three sentences about what it meant to belong to a community. They had talked just a little bit about communities and citizenship in class the last couple of days, but Peyton didn’t expect anything genius in the papers. Still, it would be a good thing to go back to once they’d finished the unit so he could gauge their comprehension of the subject after really studying it.
He looked up when he heard a tap on his door followed by the sound of it opening. His bottle was empty. He had read ten paragraphs, and he was impressed with the quality of the kids’ writing, but also thrilled to take a break and feast his eyes on CJ when she peeked her head in.
“I’m knocking off for the night,” she told him. Junie squeezed in through the door at CJ’s side and stood with her, as if she planned to go home with her.
“Okay.” He pushed his chair back as CJ stepped inside.
“I can get by to work more on it tomorrow morning.”
“No hurry,” he assured her.
“Well, maybe.” She grinned. “You need to unpack those boxes, and you need to be able to see what you’re doing. Wouldn’t want you to mistake a valuable Miguel Cabrera card for a lesser-known Sox player.”
Peyton laughed and stood, dropping his pen on the small stack of papers he had left to grade.
“Working?” she asked him.
“I was.” He stretched his arms over his head and turned his face to yawn.
“And you expect your students to be excited about homework?” She arched an eyebrow at him and smirked.
“Are you hungry?”
“I am.” She nodded. “Gonna head home and find something for—”
“Stay.”
“Peyton.” She frowned and stepped back even though he hadn’t moved from his spot by the table.
“I’ll make homemade pizza.”
“I told you I can’t do this—”
“What? Hang out with a friend?” He tipped his head at her. “We can at least be friends, right?”
CJ took a deep breath and answered with a slow nod.
“I’m sorry.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“For what?”
“If I made you uncomfortable the last time you were here.”
“The whole town has you and Violet married with two-point-five kids already. You know that, right?”
“But don’t Violet and I get a say in that?” he asked, his voice gruff with longing for her.
“I think you should give it another chance,” she insisted. “Violet’s awesome. Did she tell you she can sink twenty free throws in a row?”
“She didn’t.” He sighed. “How do you feel about pineapple?”
“Not on pizza.”
“And if I can overlook that flaw, would you stay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” She nodded. “But.” She looked about the room helplessly.
“It’s okay. You’re not interested.” He wandered over to the refrigerator. “I get it. Want a beer?”
“I do.” She grinned when he peeked at her over his shoulder.
“But can we just talk about the ‘point five?’” He took two longnecks from the refrigerator and turned to hand her one. “I mean, really? What is ‘point five’ of a kid?”
“I know nothing about kids, so I have no idea what point five of a kid is.” She shrugged and twisted the top off her bottle. This time, Peyton forced himself to look away when she swallowed.
“No nieces or nephews?”
“Only child.”
“I have one of each,” he told her. “Five and three. Horrible kids.”
He was kidding, and from the smirk on her face, she knew it.
“Why did you move here?”
“Sit down.” He nodded at the counter, pleased when CJ took him up on the offer and pulled a stool out to sit down. Peyton hated to turn his back to her, but he had to for a few minutes to gather what he needed to make the pizza crust. “I needed a break.”
“From city life?”
“City life.” He shrugged. “Family.”
CJ quirked an eyebrow at him when he turned and caught her eye. He set a mixing bowl on the counter and then moved to grab a crust mix from his pantry.
“You needed a break from family?”
Most definitely, but he had no desire to go into that story right now. Yes, he was close to his parents, and he and his sister, who was older by three years, had always been close. But that didn’t mean Peyton wanted to live under the weight of so many expectations.
Besides, yes, he’d wanted a break from city life, too.
“It was louder there.”
“Your family?”
He laughed and raised his eyebrows in response, though he concentrated on the crust mix as he added water to it. “Well, yeah, but I meant city life in general. My apartment was a block away from the hospital. Lots of ambulance sirens on the weekends.”
“Mmm.” She nodded. “I’ve never lived anywhere but here.”
Peyton peeked at her, trying to decide if she sounded wistful about that.
“So, do you like it that much, or are you stuck here?”
“Both.” She drank again.
“Explain?”
“I don’t know, Peyton.” She sighed. Another peek told him she was watching him whisk the crust mix and water together. “I do love it here. I love the town. I love the square. I love the people here. But sometimes, I wonder if I would like something else better.”
“Like big city life?”
“No.” She laughed softly. “Definitely not cut out for that. But. Maybe something on the coast.”
“East Coast? West?”
“I dunno.”
“Have you traveled at all?”
“When I was younger,” she answered with a nod. “I went with Violet on her spring break to Florida one year. She and I have gone to Texas together. Wisconsin.”
“What’s in Wisconsin?” He looked up at her curiously.
“Her aunt and uncle live in Milwaukee.”
“Mmm. I thought you were going to confess to a Packers game.”
“How’s a guy from the Chicago area a Packers fan, anyway?”
“Me and my dad like the Packers.” Satisfied that the crust and water were thoroughly mixed, Peyton draped a clean towel over the bowl to let the dough rise. “And my mom and sister are Bears fans.”
He grabbed a box of crackers from the pantry and opened it. CJ watched him arrange them on a plate and then grab a package of cheese from the refrigerator.
“So. You went with Violet on her spring break.”
“I did.” She grinned. “Had a good time.”
“I assume you were on the beach.”
“Yep. Some older guy was into Violet. He was married, though. She shot him down fast.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Who was hot for you? And don’t tell me no one, because I’ll call bullshit.”
CJ tipped her chin down and lowered her eyes to the cheese and crackers. Peyton loved the pink that rushed her cheeks.
“Um.” She reached for a cracker. “A surfer guy.”
“So, you’re into beach bums, huh?”
“I was that year,” she admitted.
“Did you hook up with him?”