Page 144 of Summer Love

My stomach knots. Jace’s smell… impossible to forget. For as long as we’ve known each other, I’ve always stolen his T-shirts and hoodies. I’d find an excuse every time—I’m cold, I’ve got nothing to sleep in, this one’s more comfortable. He never said anything. He just smiled.

I pull on the boxers, the waistband barely holding on my hips, then the T-shirt, which hits me mid-thigh. The white letters are cracked across my chest.

I open the door and step out, barefoot, hair wet.

Jace is sitting on the trailer step. He’s rubbing Flip’s belly, the dog stretched out at his feet. When he hears me, he turns around.

“Wow…”

I blush, the way I did at seventeen.

Without a word, we go inside and kiss. Against the door first, my hands in his hair, his on my hips. The T-shirt rides up under his fingers. Then we back toward the bed and sit side by side.

His mouth moves down my neck. I close my eyes.

I’m a fucking bet.

The line comes back. I clench my teeth and push it away. That was before. The bet was a stupid teenage thing. I’ve changed, and so has he.

His mouth slides to my collarbone. My fingers tug at the neckline of his T-shirt. The heat of his skin seeps through the cotton.

His hand goes under my T-shirt; mine settles on his hip, then moves down along his shorts, to his thigh.

His whole body stiffens. He holds his breath.

I take my hand away, rest it on his arm.

“We don’t have to,” I say softly.

We stay still for a moment, sitting shoulder to shoulder. Then he lies down and I lie against him. We keep kissing, but it’s different, softer, slower.

My hand leaves his arm and moves down to his thigh. Under my palm, the scar is uneven, wider than I imagined—a thick ridge through the fabric of his shorts.

Jace freezes again. I don’t take my hand away. I keep my palm open on his thigh, not moving, not pressing.

“I haven’t done it since the accident,” he says, his voice rough.

“You mean… since me?”

“Yeah.”

I push up on one elbow. He stares at the ceiling.

“Why?”

A bitter laugh escapes him.

“One time, a girl… she saw the scar and left.”

I don’t ask anything else. I don’t ask him to show it to me.

I lie back against him, my hand still on his thigh. He doesn’t push it away.

Our first night comes back to me. Seventeen for me, eighteen for him. I thought it meant something. The next day, I found out it was a game, that none of it was real.

For him, though, it was still his last time.

I close my eyes and curl against his shoulder. He puts an arm around me and we stay tangled together, breathing in the same rhythm.