My face burns.
“It’s so cute he calls you Tiger,” Madison whispers.
I smile. I can’t help it.
I start typing on her phone.
Leave her alone.
Madison frowns. Then jumps when the three dots appear immediately.
Callum: Make me.
Madison’s eyes go wide as she looks at me. “He’s got it bad for you.”
“I will murder both of you!” Elle shouts from the living room.
I hand Madison her phone back and walk toward the girls, trying to suppress the smile threatening to split my face in half.
“So,” I say, forcing my voice to sound normal. “My dad will be back a little before midnight.”
They’re almost done packing anyway. Madison keeps glancing at me like she wants to talk about the guys, but I widen my eyes at Zinnia when she’s not looking. It’s not the time.
When they’re gone, I get Zinnia to brush her teeth and lie in bed alone. Zinnia won’t stop talking about the girls, and I realize how much we both needed some normalcy.
When I’m lying in my own bed, I stare at the ceiling. My chest feels warm and full like something’s expanding inside me, and I don’t know how to contain it.
They came back.
Jax, Zephyr, and Callum drove all the way here just to talk to me. Just to make sure I was okay.
Nobody’s ever done that before.
I hate that I’m lighting up with butterflies. Hate that I’m twenty years old and I’ve never had attention like this before. Hate that I don’t know what it means or if it means anything at all.
But maybe it does.
Maybe they actually care.
The thought makes my stomach flip.
After I overthink a few scenarios, I hear my dad’s Honda Pilot pull into the driveway a little before midnight.
I try to sleep, closing my eyes. I count backward from one hundred.
Nothing works, so I get up to pee and get a drink of water.
The house is dark except for the light in the kitchen.
My dad’s sitting at the table, surrounded by paperwork.
He looks up when I walk in.
“Hey, Lily,” he says. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Just needed some water.”
I fill a glass at the sink, keeping my back to him.
