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For a second, there was silence. Nothing but our racing hearts and ragged breaths. Xander leaned down, brushing his nose over mine, and I let out a sigh of contentment as he captured my mouth in a soft kiss.
“That was…”
“Yeah.” His eyes shuttered before settling on mine once more. “Are you okay?”
I nodded.
I waited for it to become awkward, for him to retreat into that place inside himself. But the night was full of surprises.
“Wait here,” Xander pecked the end of my nose before clambering off the bed. I watched as he stalked, butt naked, into his adjoining bathroom. He returned with a washcloth. “Here.”
“Thanks.” My cheeks burned as I cleaned myself up.
He disposed of the washcloth and slipped back into bed with me, pulling me into his side as he lay on his back. “I tried so fucking hard to tell myself that this was wrong.” His voice was thick. “But that didn’t feel wrong, Peyton, not a single thing about it.”
My fingers drew lazy circles on his chest. “Sometimes you don’t choose it, it chooses you,” I said quietly.
“What was that?” Xander asked.
“Remember I told you about my neighbor, Mrs. Harrison? Well sometimes when I’d get upset about… everything, she’d take my face in her bony hands and tell me that.”
But I’d never really understood what she’d meant until recently.
I didn’t choose to grow up with a loveless mother, just like I didn’t choose to find her dead on the bathroom floor. Just like I didn’t choose to fall for the man who’d saved me that night.
I didn’t know if I believed in life’s grand design, but everything that had ever happened to me had led me here, to this moment. And I couldn’t find it in myself to hope for anything different.
“I wish I didn’t have to leave,” I whispered, snuggling closer. My fingers traced the script tattoo over his pectoral. I’d noticed it before, but I’d never asked what it meant.
“What does it mean?”
“I was young and foolish and I’m pretty sure I was drunk.”
“But what does it mean?”
“After my dad died, I did a lot of soul searching. I was young and I guess some part of me wanted answers. I had both my parents taken from me… it messed with my head.” His fingers glided up and down my spine, sending shivers through me. “My therapist at the time talked a lot about acknowledging my grief, giving myself time and space to process my thoughts around losing them. I thought she was talking shit to be honest. But Hailee gave me this book on mindfulness and the same phrase kept coming up in it. Be here now. I don’t know, it stuck.”
I ran my fingers over the fading ink. “Do you think it helped?”
“I think I’ve spent the last ten years doing the exact opposite of what it means.”
Pushing up on my elbow, I looked at him. “How do you mean?”
“Peyton,” he let out a heavy sigh. “I’m almost thirty and what have I got to show for my life?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He had his job at Rixon High, but he was going to give that up… for me.
My stomach sank. “Can I ask you something?” He nodded, and I forced out the words. “If you and I weren’t… you know, would you have accepted the job?”
“You can’t ask me that. You and me did happen and I don’t regret it, not for a second.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He leaned in and brushed his lips over mine. “You make me want more, Peyton. I’ve never had that before. There’ll be other jobs. Other opportunities.”
Everything had been perfect, but now it felt like there was a dark shadow hanging over us.
Guilt swarmed the happiness I felt, threatening to blot it all out. “I bet you regret ever walking along the river that night.”
