“So we’re really doing this?” she asks quietly.
“If that’s what you want.”
“I do.”
I look at her—really look—and something inside me lurches, raw and unrelenting. Irrevocable.
“Then yeah, Princess.” My voice drops. “We’re really doing this.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
SADIE
Ican’tbelieveIasked Wesley to be my summer fling.
Even thinking the words feels unreal, like I temporarily left my own body and let some braver, more audacious version of myself take over. It was impulsive and reckless and almost definitely a mistake—but after he kissed me, my thoughts scattered completely. All that remained was the dizzy, impossible want for more.
At the start of summer, I was daydreaming about being Kolson Kennedy’s girlfriend. It was safe, predictable. Something that made sense on paper, even if the reality would’ve eaten me alive.
And now?
Now I’m tangled up with a broody cowboy who looks at me like I’ve both ruined his peace and become the center of it.
It doesn’t make sense.
None of this does.
I’m going to have sex with Wesley.
The thought drops like a stone into my stomach. I try to swallow the weight of it, repeating to myself over and over that it’s not a big deal. We are two consenting adults, engaging in a physically intimate relationship. No senseless feelings, no emotions.
Just sex.
Simple and easy.
Except the wordsimplehas never applied to him, and every time I repeat the words in my head, my chest tightens.
Maybe I should’ve mentioned the small matter of my virgin status, but it shouldn’t be some world-altering revelation. That is the whole point of this—to take off the pressure and just live my life. Virginity is a social construct. It’s just the first time. It’s not that monumental.
And that’s what I’ll keep telling myself until I believe it.
This morning, at breakfast, I kept waiting for him to look at me. Even once. Some small flicker of acknowledgment that last night wasn’t a dream or an accident or something he’s already regretting.
But he never did. Not once. He joked with Emmett, quietly passed the syrup, and kept his gaze anywhere but on me.
And I don’t know why that stings.
I thought maybe last night would shift something between us—start something. But after he agreed, we drove home, said good night, and disappeared behind separate doors. No lingering pause. No low, warm invitation. Not even a soft brush of his mouth against mine.
It shouldn’t matter.
It shouldn’t matter.
It shouldn’t matter.
But it does.
Shouldn’t he…want me? Even a little? Isn’t that the whole point of this arrangement?
