“That was my lawyer,” I say, walking back to my stool. “Matt has dropped the lawsuit against you and your parents.”
The fork clatters to her plate.
“For real?”
I nod.
For a moment, she doesn’t move. Then she’s off her stool and rounding the island, and before I can brace myself, she throws her arms over my shoulders and hugs me tight, her face pressed into my neck.
“Thank you.” The words are muffled against my shirt. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her closer. She fits against me perfectly—the top of her head tucked under my chin, her curves pressed to my chest, waking up nerve endings I’d numbed, leaving them stinging and alert.
“You don’t have to thank me,” I say into her hair. “I told you I’d take care of it.”
“I know, but—” Peyton pulls back just enough to look up at me, her brown eyes shining. She doesn’t finish whatever she was going to say.
The space between our faces is nothing. Inches. Less.
I have never been more glad about my no-kissing rule. And I have never been more miserable about it.
My thumbs find the curve of her lower back, tracing small circles over the soft fabric of her sweater. Her fingers thread into the hair at my nape, nails scraping lightly against my scalp. The touch scrambles my signals, making me forget to exhale until my lungs start to burn.
“I should call my parents,” she says. Her voice is hoarse, stripped of the breath needed to carry it.
“Yeah.” Mine isn’t much better. “You should.”
Neither of us moves.
Her gaze drops to my mouth. Stoking the dense, suffocating pressure that’s been building for weeks, the same pull I’ve been fighting every single day.
With an atrocious effort of willpower, I squeeze her sides once and step back.
“Go, call them.”
She blinks, surfacing from whatever trance we’d both fallen into, and nods, disappearing into the living room with her phone.
I stand in the kitchen and try to remember how to breathe.
She’s gone for about fifteen minutes. I clean up the dinner dishes. Load the dishwasher. Wipe down the counters. Straighten the dry-erase board on the fridge, where her latest note reads:
I googled the ending of the book on your nightstand. Oh, maaaan!
I shake my head, unable to suppress a smile.
When she comes back, the bubbling happiness is gone.
Peyton walks into the kitchen with her phone clutched in one hand, tapping it against her other palm in a nervous, rhythmic gesture.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She stops on the other side of the island. “My parents. They acted happy at the news, but something’s off.”
“Off how?”
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head, frustrated. “Their voices were weird. Too bright. They were trying too hard.” The tapping continues. “I need to go home for the weekend. Check on them in person.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”