Page 185 of Dove

She huffed. “I do, but only?—”

Her phone gave a trill sound, reminding us that someone had been trying to get ahold of her.

Her hands began to shove at me, and I knew the time we’d carved out for ourselves was over, private bubble burst. The outside world was waiting for us to resume our responsibilities.

I stubbornly pressed all my weight on her, refusing to move.

“What if it’s Mitch?” Dove asked, worry tinging her voice.

“Mitch doesn’t have your number.”

“Yes, he does.”

“What?” I reared back to look at her. “Why?”

She stared back at me like I had two heads. “Because he’s ourneighbor, Josh.”

Her phone gave another trill, and she shoved at me more persistently.

Grumbling, I rolled off her. I needed to get rid of the condom anyway, something Dove had tried to fight me on, but I’d been adamant about using. Maybe once she was done school, and we could have a deeper discussion about the type of life we wanted for ourselves beyond the one we lived now.

Despite her sound arguments that she was on birth control, there was an echo of something grimmer that fueled my excuses, a deep-seated worry rooted in the fact that childbirth had taken my mother from me. But I refused to acknowledge it. We had plenty of time before I had to open that roughly healed wound.

“It better not be Mitch,” I warned while I tied the rubber off and chucked it in the bathroom attached to my bedroom. “He has my number. No need to bother you.”

Not that Mitch would ever do anything, he was a good friend. I’d always had a sneaking suspicion he was gay, anyway. He’d never said anything, and I never asked. He was far closer to his own father than I was to mine, but there had been a reason Gareth was best friends with his old man. They were alike in a lot of things. If Mitchwasgay, I knew exactly why he’d never acted on it.

The same reason I’d never acted on my feelings for Dove.

Some things were just better left as secrets, especially if they were landmines destined to blow up your entire life.

Still. No one needed to be contacting Dove right now, not while she was supposed to be focusing solely on her future. Which meant farm business was tabled for the next day,at least.

Dove was laid out across the bed on of her belly, all that ripe skin on display as she searched for where her cellphone had fallen to on the floor. I curbed the intense urge to plant my handon her ass, to coax pink handprints to life on her supply skin, stepping into my boxers instead.

“Oh.” She scanned her phone, a text thread pulled up. “It’s Rev.”

“Yeah?” I opened my dresser drawer and snagged a piece of clothing out of it. “What’s she want?”

She sat up, still reading. I stood in front of her, holding the hoodie out I’d picked for her to wear. We were on the cusp of winter and this apartment tended to be a bit drafty.

When she was done, she glanced up at me. When she saw what I was holding, she smiled.

“Want me to wear your clothes?” she teased.

“They look better on you,” I muttered, embarrassed. “Arms up.”

She obeyed, just like I knew she would. My clothes at the farm had started to dwindle the moment I arrived. She could blame it on the dryer all she wanted; I knew a thief when I saw one. She liked wearing my clothes just as much as I liked seeing her in them.

Her head popped out of the neckline and her arms slid through the sleeves. I gathered her hair from where it was stuck inside, letting it fall down her back. I combed my hands through the strands framing her face, pushing them back so I could plant a kiss on her forehead.

I let myself bask in happiness as my old life merged with the one I’d been forced to live for three long years. Seeing Dove in the apartment I’d always been so alone in gave me new perspective—I saw a future rewritten within these walls.

“What did Reverie want?”

Dove sighed, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I think she might have figured out a way to keep the farm going while I’m away at college. At least for a while.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, beyond intrigued. “How’s that?”

If it involved Reverie, I was skeptical.

Dove handed her phone to me. Reverie’s text was long-winded and riddled with exclamation points, but when I was finished reading, I was smiling.

My girl was smiling right along with me.

Damn it, that just might work.

THE END