I found my phone on the charger, then pulled up a message for Jet.Hey, I’m free all day. Want to meet up?
* * *
JET
The second I sent the text to Noah, I regretted it.
It was his fucking birthday, and I dumped all over him. After a night of tossing and turning and working myself up, I snapped in the morning and sent this long message, apologizing, but mainly just going on about how much I liked Peyton. The words flew out of me, this defensive rant about how we were good for each other and how Noah shouldn’t judge us based on one mistake, how my brother was out of fucking line. I insisted that I wasn’t going to turn around and hurt Peyton, no matter what Noah thought. The need to defend us pushed through all the guilt that had been weighing me down, but the second I hit send, my stomach tightened.
I had pushed Peyton away the night before, and now, the angry, impulsive text was going to drive Noah from me, too.
My breath was heavy, and my head hurt. All of my worst fears were drowning me, and unlike in the past, I couldn’t run away this time. My instincts told me to flee Pittsburgh and to forget these past few months, but I couldn’t because what I said in the text to Noah was true.
Peyton was the man I wanted, and I wasn’t strong enough to leave him.
When I got out of the shower, tears burning in my eyes, my phone buzzed with a message. I quickly dried off to read it, dread sinking into the pit of my stomach, scared of what it would contain. When I saw Peyton’s name and clicked it open, though, I exhaled a shudder of relief.
Thinking of you. Can we meet up today?
By noon, he was at my place. I pulled him right into a bear hug, so relieved I choked on my tears, then hauled him into the kitchen.
“Good to see you, too,” Peyton chuckled warmly and squeezed me back.
“Sorry,” I grunted. I rubbed his arms as I stepped back. “Didn’t realize how much I needed to see you.”
“You heard anything from Noah today?”
I winced as I turned to put on some tea. For a second, I wavered on the edge of telling him about the message I’d sent, but when I looked him in the face again, the impulse to hide it disappeared. The text was probably another huge fucking mistake, but Peyton was the one person who always just supported me instead of judging me.
“I haven’t heard from him. I did send a text message that might have sounded a little… mad?”
Peyton let out a puff of air. “Oh, good. It wasn’t just me.”
I turned on my heel, shooting him an eyebrow as he sat at the tiny kitchen table. “Excuse me?”
“I kind of yelled at him this morning. I’d been worrying that you’d be upset I did that.”
“Me?” I thought about it as I turned back to the tea, my face to the cabinets. “I’m usually the one getting yelled at,” I tried to joke, but Peyton didn’t laugh.
His hand landed on my bicep, then his other on my side. I hadn’t heard him stand, but he took up position behind me. “Jet,” he said, “come here.”
I turned, and we kissed. His mouth closed over mine, and I leaned in to the friction of his beard. Peyton held me in his strong arms, close, and I felt his heart beating.
“Thanks,” I rasped when he stepped back. I rubbed the heel of my palm against my eye. Then the kettle whistled, breaking the moment. “What did you yell at him about?” I asked.
He gestured for me to stand back and went to the stove. He was silent for a second as he poured the tea, then answered. “I was mad that he didn’t invite you to spend the day with your parents.”
I almost choked. “Peyton, babe, I don’t know if I gave you the wrong impression, but Idon’twant to spend the day with my parents.”
He cocked up half a smile as he turned with the mugs. “I know. I like that about you.”
“Oh.” I took my tea. “So why were you mad?”
Peyton rubbed his beard, a gesture that I knew meant he was thinking about his words, picking them carefully. “Because Noah is wrong to push you out of his life,” he said. “Your parents are not good for him. He gets stressed and starts acting like this anytime he sees them, and I guarantee, they’ll just criticize him and say something cruel anyway. It’s what they always do.”
“Fuck them,” I grunted. Even though Noah wasn’t treating me right, thinking about my parents being shitty to him prickled my anger.
Peyton shook his head as we walked out into the living room. “But you,” Peyton continued, “you make him happy. You show up for him, and I honestly believe that you’ll keep doing that. He shouldn’t pick them over you.”
