That last thing Mont said simmers in my mind, a kettle left forgotten, gathering steam until something gives.
Let yourself be in love. Doesn’t have to be forever to be worth it.
Sounds so damn simple.
But love doesn’t live in a bubble.
It seeps into real life. Rewrites the rules.
Demands more than we said we’d give.
And eventually, it asks what happens when summer ends.
I drain the rest of my coffee and force my focus back to the screen.
But the weight in my chest hasn’t gone anywhere.
CHAPTER 20
Cami
Time blurs when you’re floating, heady and free, the way we’ve been since the Stars and Stripes Festival.
Nothing but skin and sun strung together like seashells on a string.
Each day folds blissfully into the next, as though we’re on a never-ending honeymoon.
For the last two weeks, we’ve measured time in kitten feedings and stolen glances.
Knox is even working less. Only a couple of hours a day now, whenever he gets to it. Unlike when he was awake before sunrise, in his attic, glued to that laptop the second a pot of coffee brewed.
I’m still not sure what he actually does. Something in finance, he told me, but that could mean anything from investment bro to digital pirate. For all I know, he’s some low-key Mafia prince running a syndicate from his attic. Hedidbuy us burner phones. And he won’t let me pay for anything. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter. Real life’s off-limits. That’s our summer deal.
Nonetheless, our mornings stretch longer now. As does the hush we drift through between kisses.
We take walks on the beach, hand in hand. Compete for prizes at the arcade. Share fries under a striped umbrella, brushing shoulders and stealing kisses. At home, we eat when we’re hungry. Sleep when we crash. Lie in bed talking until our voices go hoarse. Or sometimes, we say nothing, tangled in sheets and each other, fast and breathless, chasing white-hot release—other times, so slow, it feels like falling in reverse.
Stripe and Shadow wake us before dawn most mornings, mewing for milk and cuddles and even more cuddles, like tiny alarms.
Knox grumbles. I laugh. Yet somehow, we never fall back asleep alone.
There’s a rhythm to us.
A warmth that lingers even when we’re apart, like when he goes out for an evening jog.
That’s usually when I catch up with my bestie, stretched out on the couch with hot tea, or a glass of wine, and kittens curled into my hoodie.
Paxton asks questions I don’t answer and makes observations I’m not ready to unpack.
Even then, I tell him enough.
And he reads between the lines for what I don’t say out loud.
“This doesn’t sound casual, girlie,” he said last week, more curious than concerned. “Sounds like you’re accidentally falling for your summer fling. And, honestly? Bad. Bitch. Behavior. Because, like,fuckrules.”
I nearly choked on my wine and told him to stop projecting.
So, of course, he kept going.
