“Arden,” I say breathlessly and he pulls back to look between my eyes. “As much as I want to continue what we’ve started here, we’re in the middle of a very public location where anyone could walk by at any moment.”
Arden looks around and notices that I’m telling the truth. He groans and rubs his forehead against mine.
“I don’t want to let you go.” He clutches me tighter and I don’t want him to let me go either.
“What’s the probability that this works out?”
“What? Us?”
I nod, giving him one more chaste kiss on his lips.
“Statistically speaking, I’d say the chances are really fucking high.”
I laugh and he looks at me like I hung the moon and stars and I look at him like he gave them to me to hang. And then I realize one thing.
We are far from perfect but we are perfect for each other.
Chapter Forty-Five
Danika
WestayatArden’sthat night and I let Memaw completely dote all over me, like she usually does. I’ve missed that old broad, feels like I haven’t seen her in forever. Memaw makes me a special birthday dinner with her signature biscuits and gravy and I eat far too much, but I love every second of it.
We don’t have sex in Arden’s childhood home, even though he really, really wanted to—and so did I, who am I kidding—but we did cuddle and he held me all night as if I was the most important thing in the world to him.
I did not hear from my father but my mother called me and messaged me no short of twenty times since I left the house. I promise Arden that I’ll call her when we get back to campus. I need a little bit of space—more like thousands of miles—between us before I can talk to her with a clear head.
We fly back on Sunday morning and by Sunday afternoon, I’m curled up on the couch with my anatomy textbook and Arden is next to me with hisIntro to Engineering Designbook. Pulling out my laptop, I go to check my email, expecting something from my advisor. What I see instead causes a shudder down my spine.
An email from the payroll security telling me that my next semester’s tuition is unaccounted for.
“Son of a bitch,” I mutter.
Arden looks over my screen. “What?”
“He did it. He fucking did it. He took away my school funding.”
“What? Who?”
“Kevin. In the last fight we had, I told him I was no longer his daughter and he kicked me out. He kept threatening me about paying for my schooling. I guess he actually followed through on something for once.”
Arden looks at the email. “We’ll figure it out. I can get you a job at the cafe and we’ll cut back on takeout, it’ll be—”
A knock at the door breaks us from our panic spiral. Arden gets up to see who it is and when he looks in the peephole he looks back at me before opening the door.
“It’s your mom.”
“What?” I jump up from the couch. “Is she okay?”
Arden looks back at me, unease clear on his face. “Should I open the door?”
The knock sounds again and I jolt at the sound. Arden looks at me and I nod. He opens the door.
“Hi, Mrs. Freeman.”
I can see my mother’s eyes widen at the sight of him opening the door, as if she didn’t really believe that what I said about us living together was true.
“Arden, hello. Is Danika here?”