Our lips meet in a searing kiss, but that’s all we do, despite his noticeable excitement, and there’s something so simple in that.
Could we always be like this? Could we make out like we’re eighteen again and never get tired of it? Could we have something like this for real?
I ... I think I want it. Maybe more than I realized, but I do. I want Ezra to come home to me at night, make love to me in the kitchen, then snuggle me in bed at two in the morning. I want laughing until we cry over nothing at all, inside jokes, late-night car rides, and kissing just because we can. I want it all, and I want it with him.
At some point our kiss slows to the point that we’re just resting there with our lips against each other, not really moving.
Eventually Ezra rolls off me, and I snuggle against him like I’ve done so many nights before. His arm goes around me, his fingers grazing over my back in long strokes.
“Summer?”
“Yes, Ezra?”
“I meant it. If the bank says no and you need help, I want to be the person who gives it to you, okay?” His voice is soft, pleading even, and dammit if I don’t want to give in.
But I can’t. Not when I still don’t know just what this is we’re doing.
So I settle for “We’ll see. Now go to sleep. We have an early day tomorrow.”
He hums, accepting my answer for now, and pulls me closer, his fingers still stroking over me.
That familiar warmth that always fills me when we lie like this spreads as I listen to his breathing even out, and sleep begs to take hold.
I’m just about to the point of giving in when I hear the faintest sound.
“Ezra?”
“Hmm?” he says sleepily.
“Do you hear that?”
“What?” He shuffles around, jostling me. “Hear what?”
“I don’t know. It sounds like a buzzing.”
“It’s your phone,” he says, squinting over at the device sitting on the dresser.
What? Who could be calling at this hour?
I push the blanket back, and a chill racks through me at the sudden cold. I pad over to the dresser just as my phone goes black again.
Right away, it brightens once more as it shakes against the wood.
Port Harbor Hospital
My heart sounds like the drum line at a college football game.
Bumbumbumbumbumbumbum.
“Who is it?” I faintly hear Ezra ask, but I don’t answer him. I can’t.
Shaky fingers wrap around the phone, and I slide my thumb across the bar at the bottom, pressing the device to my ear.
“H-hell ... o?” The word is so unsteady, I’m surprised I even got it out.
“Is this Summer Turner?”
“Y-yes?”
