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“No,” I say firmly. “We’re not doing that. No more sneaking.”
When we reach my street, I feel my confidence trying to seep out of me. I fight it, laying my hand on Brian’s arm, keeping the movement low so nobody can see.
Squeezing onto his bulging muscles, I say, “We can do this, but we don’t have to. We could keep sneaking around. We could hide it—us—for days, weeks, months. We’re choosing to do this because we love Dad and don’t want to keep lying to him.”
“Yes,” Brian says fiercely. “Exactly. That’s it. I agree. Together, Evie.”
“Always.”
He parks up in the driveway. Neither of us reaches for the door handle.
“He’s normally in on Saturday mornings,” I murmur, “but maybe he’s gone out. Maybe we’ll have to wait.”
Then Dad appears at the front window with a frown, his hand raised in a wave. Somehow, the gesture seems uncertain, almost like he’s preemptively angry.
Oh, heck. Despite what I just said, I don’t know if I can do this. It gets worse when we’re in the house. Mom is sitting in the corner chair, her legs folded, looking down at the ground as if she can’t meet my eye.
Dad stands and gestures at the table. “I’m sorry, Evie. I was looking for something, and I found these.”
No, this can’t be happening. The notebooks are spread across the table—the proof of my crush.
“We need to talk,” Dad says.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Brian
There’s a big heart on the front of one of the notebooks. It’s the one I opened before, the declarations still alive in my mind.
We’re going to be together forever.
True.
I’m going to lose my virginity to him.
Also true.
I’ve struggled to come to terms with the crush. She’ll only ever belong to me, and not just her body, not just because of her virginity. She wanted me long before she should have wanted any grownup. That’s the part that makes me pull away, cringe, and wish her crush had started when she was eighteen instead, but I also trust her. Hell, let’s be honest. I love her.
“What were you looking for?” Evie says into the somehow dangerous silence.
Janine nibbles on her thumbnail, working at the edge to tear it loose. Roger won’t look at me, even as I stare right at him, instead looking at Evie. Roger’s lean features and sharp eyes show his rage, but he’s hiding it like he often would when we were kids. “Your mother wondered if you still had that locket she gave you when you broke your arm after you fell out of the tree.”
He turns to me, his eyes shining like he could break down in tears at any moment. “You were there that day. You rode with us to the hospital—the same hospital where she was born.”
“I remember,” I tell him.
“And now you’re…”
I almost deny it. I’m not sure how he knows from the contents of the notebooks alone that we’ve done anything, but I’m not going to try and squirm out of this. It’s not right.
“How do you know?” Evie says, her voice low, with an edge to it. “You must’ve read through them to know anything.”
“I read them, okay!” Janine explodes, but it’s a contained eruption. She stays in her seat, waving her arms violently, sitting up. “Roger didn’t want to, but I had to. We read what you wrote, Evie, not just when you were a kid, but the stuff you’ve written after, about kissing him… about what you did physically.”
I glance at Evie. She smiles tightly like she can’t help but glow at the memory but knows she never should’ve written it down.
“Her dreams came true.” Roger glares at me. “That’s what she wrote in the latest entry. She’d always wanted to… Fuck, I can’t even say it.”
Evie flinches when Roger curses since it’s so rare.
“Be with me,” I finish for him. “I know. She’s told me.”
“And now you’re together, or are you just using her for sex?”
“Dad, it’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?” Janine flares. “Enlighten us, please, because I have no idea how this could work. Ever. And you, Brian, I thought I knew you. She told you about the crush, and somehow, you still think being with her is appropriate?”
“We’ve talked about it,” I say. “She says she’s mature enough to make her own decisions. I trust her. I believe her.”
“Ah, then that’s okay, then,” Roger snaps.
“Can we sit down, Dad? Can we talk?”
Roger looks at Janine. She gnaws on her thumbnail, then stops herself, sighing shakily.
“Fine, yes, let’s talk. Maybe you can trick us into thinking this is okay.”
“It’s not a trick.”
Evie sits, wringing her hands in her lap, and I sit beside her. I leave a cushion between us to let them know I’m not trying to show off our connection. I really want to wrap my arm around her and kiss the top of her head, squeeze her shoulder, and give her some skin-on-skin contact so she can feel the heat in me.
