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I step closer, the toes of her snow-covered brown boots brushing against my bare feet and sending a shock of awareness pulsing through me as the icy water melts on my skin. She gulps but stands her ground and peeks up at me with those same mesmerizing eyes that have haunted me for years.
“Normal, huh?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Like the normal we could’ve had?”
She licks her lips. “Maybe.”
“And the easy that brought us together in the first place?”
Her breath hitches. “Possibly.”
“Hey, guys! We’re ready! We even peed!” Grady yells from the family room.
Saylor flinches in surprise before her soft laugh fans across my chest. Dropping her gaze to the ground, she tucks her hair behind her ear. “Speaking of which, I should uh, probably go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll meet you in the family room.”
?
??Okay,” she answers, but she doesn’t move a muscle. She’s like a scared little deer, debating whether or not she should flee in the opposite direction, and I can’t let her do that.
“Hey, Say?” I murmur.
Again, she finds the courage to look up at me. “Yeah?”
My calloused fingertips scrape the sensitive flesh along her jaw as I cup her cheek and lean a little closer. “I miss our normal. Our easy.”
“Me too,” she admits.
“I’m sorry I made everything so complicated.”
Her smile is pained as she whispers, “We both did. I’m sorry too.”
“I know how much complications can stress you out.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yup.”
“Like before a big test,” I offer.
Her brows furrow as if she has no idea where I’m going with this, so I decide to spell it out for her.
“Do you remember how much you’d stress before finals every year? How you’d fixate on all the problems you were afraid you weren’t ready for, instead of focusing on the topics you were nailing?”
“Yes?”
My mouth quirks up on one side as my thumb runs along her jaw. “Do you remember what I would do to distract you after a long night of studying so that you’d finally stop stressing about the unknown for a minute?”
She bites her lip, then breathes, “Yes.”
“Will you slap me if I distract you right now from all the tiny voices inside your head that are begging you to get back in your car and leave me again?”
Her mouth curves up on one side. “Maybe.”
“And when you say maybe, what kind of odds am I dealing with? Fifty-fifty? Sixty-forty?”
“Seventy-thirty,” she offers, biting back her grin.
