She tells me about the time she set off a fire alarm at her college dorm while making a grilled cheese sandwich at three in the morning. I tell her about the summer I was twelve and built a raft to cross the lake. It sank forty feet from the dock, and they had to send out a search party and found me floating halfway to the next town. She tells me that for a long time she fantasized about moving to Scotland and running a bookshop in Edinburgh. I tell her I used to dream about being a park ranger.
“Tell me a secret no one else knows,” I say. “Not even Emma.”
Peyton covers her face with both hands and shakes her head.
“I can’t. I can’t confess this one.”
“Now you have to.”
“No.”
“Whatever it is, I promise I won’t judge you.”
She groans into her palms. Then she drops her hands, stares at the ceiling like she’s making peace with the heavens, and says, “I’ve never readPride and Prejudice. I’ve only watched it on TV.”
“You have never read the most famous romance novel in the English language? That is quite scandalous.”
“I know what happens! I’ve seen the Keira Knightley version and the Colin Firth one. Multiple times. I just never got around to the actual book.”
“Just when I started to think you were tolerable,” I say, shaking my head.
“I still get the reference, and you’re an ass.” She shoves my shoulder. “Your turn. Tell me yours.”
“I can’t watchTerminator 2without crying.”
“Why?” she asks, pressing her lips together, not to laugh, presumably.
“The Terminator sacrifices himself. He lowers himself into the molten steel to save humanity.”
Her shoulders shake. “Do you cry before or after the thumbs up?”
“That’s what gets me every time.”
A strangled noise escapes her throat.
“Go ahead.” I sigh. “Let it out.”
Peyton explodes in a full, hiccupping laughter. “You—” She wheezes. “You absolute softy.”
I roll on top of her, pinning her beneath me. My hands block her wrists against the pillow. My hips press her into the mattress.
Her laughter dies mid-breath. Her eyes go wide, pupils expanding.
“If you want,” I murmur, lowering my face until my nose brushes hers, “I can show you how much I’m not soft.”
Her chest rises against mine on a sharp inhale.
“Yes, please,” she whispers.
She lifts her chin and catches my mouth, and the kiss dissolves whatever was left of my willpower. Her wrists twist free from my grip. Her fingers slide into my hair, nails scraping my scalp, pulling me closer, deeper.
I kiss her jaw. Her throat. The dip of her collarbone. I trace the path down with my mouth while her breathing turns ragged above me, her fingers tightening in my hair.
She arches beneath me, and the sounds she makes—low, broken, needing—are the best thing I’ve ever heard.
I tell her she’s beautiful. I tell her she’s perfect. I tell her I love her again and again because the words are new in my mouth and I can’t stop saying them.
And when she whispers them back, I know I want to spend the rest of my life listening to her say those three words.