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“My mom had a love/hate relationship with crack.”
Fuck. What she’d endured… I knew it had been bad, but I didn’t know how bad.
“She turned tricks to feed her habit, so I was used to a stream of men coming and going. I got really good at hiding or staying away. We had this neighbor, Mrs. Harrison. She’d let me stay over sometimes if my mom was messed up. She used to bake me cookies and let me watch cartoons to my heart’s content.”
“Peyton…” My voice cracked.
No child should ever have to endure that.
But Peyton hadn’t only endured it, she’d come out the other side stronger. Brave and beautiful and confident.
“When I met Lily, I was so excited to have a friend, a real honest-to-God friend. She didn’t look at me and see the girl with the junkie mom and thrift store clothes. She saw me. I’ll never forget that.”
“She’s a good kid.”
Peyton winced and I immediately regretted saying it. But it came naturally to refer to them as kids. Because that’s what they were—my friends’ kids. High schoolers. Teenagers.
Kids.
Jesus, what the fuck was I doing?
“Oh no, I know that look.” Peyton’s hand drifted to her throat. “You’re about to tell me this was a mistake and that you should take me back to the Ford’s.”
“You mistake me for a good guy,” I said quietly.
“You saved me.”
“I also broke about a hundred moral boundaries with you.”
“I know one moral boundary you didn’t break with me.” A faint smirk played on Peyton’s lips.
“Would it scare you if I said I wanted that? That I wanted you?”
Dangerous territory… I was letting conversation slip into dangerous territory again.
“Why would it scare me?”
“Because I’m not some cocky little shit who doesn’t know his way around a woman’s body.”
Her breath caught, her eyes big and bright and brimming with curiosity. “Don’t say things like that to me unless you mean them,” her eyelashes fluttered, “it isn’t fair.”
“Nothing about this is fair,” I whispered, my arm sliding along the back of the couch to gently tug the ends of her hair. She’d pulled off her hat earlier and woven her golden waves into a braid over one shoulder.
I wasn’t sure if she was even aware of it, but Peyton leaned into my touch, a soft whimper spilling from her lips.
Jesus. It was a serious test of restraint to not go to her, to pull her into my arms and kiss her the way I’d wanted to ever since that day down by the lake at Jase’s house.
I wasn’t even sure how we’d gotten here, to a place where I was seriously considering breaking every rule I had for her.
I’d never had anything that was just mine. Usually, I sabotage everything good in my life because I didn’t know how to do… this. I didn’t know how to let someone in.
But Peyton was different. She knew what it was like to grow up feeling alone in the world, to feel abandoned. Peyton knew… when so many didn’t.
Our stories weren’t the same, but our souls, our souls were.
“What are you thinking?” I asked her, my fingers still toying with the ends of her hair.
“You were right.” She let out a heavy sigh, staring at a spot on the wall. “That night you found me, I think there was a part of me that just wanted it all to stop. I think there was part of me that wanted it…” Slowly, her eyes lifted to mine, filled with so much anguish the air whooshed from my lungs.
