Page 107 of Pick Me This Time

My heart skipped a beat. I wanted to be in his bed tonight just as much as he wanted me to be there, but he and I hadn’t really worked anything out. Aside from my suspicion that Fiona had either been lying or greatly exaggerating the truth, nothing had really changed between Sterling and me.

Yet, our days together were coming to an end, and if I could have one last night with him, I’d take it. Even if I knew I would only be subjecting myself to even more intense heartbreak once he finally left.

I found myself nodding anyway, deciding that heartbreak was heartbreak. At least this way, I’d have another memory to look back on when he was gone. “Take me to bed, then.”

Sterling grinned and offered his hand to help me keep my balance as I climbed back over to my side of the truck. “Are you sure?”

“It’ll be our last hurrah,” I murmured as I reached for my shirt, hiding the pain in my eyes with the fabric as I pulled it on.

He didn’t respond, simply gathering his own clothes and hurriedly getting dressed himself. When we were decent, he started the truck, reached for my hand, and twined his fingers through my own. We stayed that way as he drove to the house.

As we approached, an attached garage I’d never actually been inside opened, and I glanced at him questioningly. He chuckled, squeezing my hand. He drove in once it was all the way open. “I don’t want you getting even wetter than you already are, and I don’t mean that in the dirty way.”

I gave him a playful shove as he parked in the dusty dark depths of the garage, climbed out, and walked around to open the passenger door for me. Looking around, I accepted his hand once more. I saw all sorts of old farming equipment, ATVs covered in thick blankets of dust, and shelves full of tools.

“Someone needs to tidy up in here,” I murmured as he led me to the kitchen door. “Think John will let me sort it out for him?”

Sterling smiled as we walked into his house. “I doubt it, but you could try. You’d probably have a better shot than anyone else.”

I added it to my mental to-do list immediately. Once Sterling left, I would have to keep busy and this was another way I could serve Northfield Farms and my community.

After silently following him up the stairs, I paused when he shut his bedroom door behind us. For obvious reasons, I’d never spent much time in here, but I had seen it before.

I remembered the last time I’d been in here as if it was yesterday. “It hasn’t changed at all since your senior year.”

The same navy blue curtains hung in the windows, the bedding the same hunter green, deep red, and navy blue. His antique wooden bookshelf even still held his old books, but his desk now had a sleek laptop sitting on top of it instead of a writing pad.

Trophies lined the tops of his shelves and posters of NFL players from back in the day peppered his walls. It was nice and toasty in here. An old fireplace lit the corner of his room. If memory served, it had been the main bedroom before the Norths had expanded the house.

Sterling smiled as he brought me with him to his bed. I ran my fingers through his hair. He sighed and closed his eyes. “I forgot you even knew what it looked like back then, but yeah. I haven’t touched it. Does it weird you out?”

I shook my head, stepped back to pull my damp shirt off, and dropped it on the floor beside me. “It doesn’t weird me out at all. In fact, it’s kind of exciting, like we’re getting to travel back in time and be together despite all the odds stacked against us.”

“I like the sound of that.” He yanked the comforter back, slid an arm around my hips, rolled me onto the bed, and climbed in it with me. He pulled the comforter over both of us and sealed his lips over mine.

This was just a continuation of the fantasy that we would somehow get to be together forever, but just for tonight, I decided to indulge. Just one last time. And then I would find a way to get over him—even if it didn’t feel like that was possible.

Not ever.

Not in the slightest.

Not at all.