Free Believe: (Intermix) (True Believers) by Erin McCarthy Page B

all this man.” He gestured to his girth.
    Phoenix laughed. “A bull rider, huh?”
    “Exactly.” He reached out and gave Phoenix a fist bump. “I’ll catch up with you later, man. I’ll be in touch.”
    Phoenix nodded. “Take it easy.”
    But he didn’t fully relax until Davis was a good fifteen feet away. Then when I looked at him, his expression was hard.
    “What was that all about?”
    “Don’t worry about it. He won’t hurt you, I promise.” Phoenix let go of my hand and dropped to the blanket. “We should go soon. It’s getting dark already.”
    I sank to my knees, not sure what to say. That wasn’t a good enough answer for me. “Who was that guy? I mean, obviously you knew him in prison, but is he a friend? What do you owe him?”
    Phoenix sighed, and he stared at me, his hand brushing over my knee. “Not friends. Allies. You need someone to watch your back in jail. That’s all. Don’t worry about it. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
    “Why did you let him think I’m Angel?”
    “Because he doesn’t need to know your real name.”
    I let it go because I didn’t want to ruin the day. I didn’t want to see him retreat and close up any more than he already had. So I didn’t ask all the questions that were burning in me. I ignored them and lay back down beside him. Phoenix pulled me close to him, and our bodies touched for the first time when he wrapped his arm around me and I leaned onto his chest.
    “Look at that,” he murmured, pointing up at the sky. “Fireworks downtown.”
    “The Reds must have won their baseball game.” I relaxed onto him, letting my hand rest on his stomach. He was firm and warm, and I smiled a little in the dark, appreciating the irony of the fireworks display over us. So he hadn’t sketched a picture of me. This was a close second for perfect ending. The fear Davis had inspired retreated, and I marveled at how peaceful it was, even in a crowded park. Phoenix’s fingers found their way into my hair and he stroked the strands, causing goose bumps to rise on my skin.
    “I missed the whole summer,” he murmured. “But none of it would have been as good as today was anyways.”
    My heart swelled, and I found myself lightly stroking his stomach.
    When we were encouraged by the cops to leave the park with everyone else twenty minutes later, we rolled up the blanket and walked to the car. There was no mention by either of us of taking him to his cousins’ house. I just drove to my apartment and we went upstairs, tired and a little sunburned. Phoenix sank down onto the couch and patted the seat next to him.
    It seemed safe to mention it now that we were in my place and we had implied he would be staying over by coming here. “I don’t mind you sleeping in my bed again,” I told him, which sounded bolder than I meant it to. I just meant that he didn’t need to bother to start out on the couch, because the truth was, I wanted him sleeping with me. There was something comforting about his presence in a way that made no sense at all. I knew that. But it didn’t make it any less real.
    “Thanks. I’ll take you up on that. But I guess I have to go back to Riley’s eventually,” he told me, taking my hand and pulling me up close to him. “I’m going to need to change my underwear at some point.”
    I laughed. “True. And I can’t help you with that unless you like bikini style.” Funny how I had abandoned the thongs when I had stopped wearing the tight Lycra dresses out at parties and clubs. No longer worried about panty lines, I had gradually shifted back to fuller coverage for comfort.
    “I’m good with boxer briefs, thanks. Dental floss in my ass doesn’t work for me.” He reached for the remote. “You okay watching a movie?”
    “Sure.” I should have been sleepy. That was my constant state of existence lately. But I was wide awake.
    Waiting for him to kiss me. That’s what I was doing. But he didn’t seem like he was going to do anything