His mouth finally curves into a real smile. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I lean in and kiss him once, softer this time. “Because I’m kind of done imagining mine without you too.”
This time when he kisses me back, he smiles into it.
31
HARLOW
November 21 is supposed to be a date on a calendar.
Just a square on a page, a number on my phone screen that I can just overlook.
Except my body doesn’t treat it like that. My body treats it like a bruise. Something you touch by accident and then spend the rest of the day trying not to flinch from the pain.
I wake up before my alarm, eyes open to the sun not yet up and the anything but quiet hum of my dorm building. Somewhere down the hall, a girl laughs far too loudly for this time of day. I can hear a shower running, feet padding along the hallway, and everyone else just moving about their lives.
I lie there and try to decide what kind of birthday this is going to be. The kind where I disappear. Or the kind where I show up.
So I get up.
Shower. Hoodie. Mascara because I’m stubborn and refuse to look like someone who didn’t sleep, even though that’s exactly who I am.
I’m tying my shoes when there’s a knock on my door.
Not the quick, impatient kind.
The careful kind.
My heart trips, because I already know who is standing on the other side of my door.
Knocks have patterns. Weston knocks like he’s starting a fight with wood. Kai knocks like he’s announcing himself. Grayson knocks like he’s hesitantly asking if he can exist here with me.
I stand there for one stupid second, staring at my door like it might open itself. Then I walk over and pull it open.
Grayson is standing in the hall with two coffee cups in a drink carrier in one hand and a paper bag in the other. Wearing a PCU hockey shirt and athletic shorts, eyes a little tired in a way that makes him look more human than hockey god.
He looks at me and his face shifts. Not a smile. Just something soft, like his whole chest unclenches.
“Happy birthday,” he says quietly.
It hits me low. Warm and sharp at the same time.
My throat tightens. “You do know it’s literally seven a.m. on a Saturday, right?”
His mouth twitches. “I know. I’m trying to be first.”
I blink. “First at what?”
“Making you smile,” he says, like it’s obvious.
My mouth tries. It fails. It tries again and succeeds just enough that he sees it. His gaze catches the tiny curve like it matters. God, I hate him a little for being like that.
Something closer to I don’t know what to do with how much I feel.
He lifts the paper bag. “I came with gifts.”
I stare at a blueberry muffin. The exact kind I told a username in the dark didn’t feel scary. My chest squeezes. I hate that my eyes sting instantly. Grayson’s gaze flicks to my face, to the way I go too still.
