Avenging Angel (Pounding Hearts 5)

Snorting, he drops his arms and puffs out his little chest. But he still comes around the chair cautiously, afraid I’m going to jump him at any second.

And he’s right to be afraid because as soon as he’s close enough, I pounce on him.

I don’t stab him with the fork, though. No, I drop it and wrap my arms around him, giving him the biggest hug I can give.

His entire body stiffens up in response.

But I don’t care, for two seconds I manage to push some of my love into him before I jump back and cackle.

“I never said anything about not hugging you though!”

As I move to the desk and hop back up to sit, Casey just stands in place with this shell-shocked expression on his face.

An expression that starts to worry me.

Did I seriously fuck up?

Not knowing what else to do, I cackle at him again and say, “You have my girl cooties now!”

That seems to bring him out of it. Shaking his head, his eyes return to focus and he pouts at me. “Ew. You don’t play fair.”

Completely unapologetic, I smirk and pick up my phone. “You can pay me back next time…”

Glancing down at my screen, I see a long text message from my father.

Fuck.

My eyes quickly scan across all the words before the preview disappears, and my heart drops to my stomach.

My father wants me to meet him, Tristan, and Tristan’s father at the Bellagio for dinner tonight.

A shadow passes over my phone a second before Casey asks, “What’s wrong?”

Jerking my head up, I blink in surprise to see Casey suddenly standing close to me.

“Oh, nothing…” I mumble and turn my phone over before he can read it.

Casey scowls and the look he gives me has me instinctively bringing the forced smile I seem to be wearing more and more these days to my mouth. “It’s just my dad. I’ll text him back later.”

“Oh,” Casey says as if he’s a little surprised and then a strange expression passes over his face.

An expression that seems to be a mixture of envy and sadness.

I have the sudden, intense urge to hug him again. To wrap my arms around him and hold him until that expression disappears.

What the hell happened to him? How can a boy so young be filled with so much sadness?

“I think they gave me cookies. You want a cookie?” I stumble out and lean over to dig into the plastic bag.

Yeah, I feel like the biggest idiot as I pull out the two cookies that came with everything I ordered and hold one out to him.

But I don’t know what else to do.

I don’t know how to fix him.

Hell, I don’t know how to fix myself.

“Yeah, sure,” Casey says with so little enthusiasm as he accepts the cookie, you’d think I was handing him a head of broccoli or something.