Someone’s tryingto cut short the best night’s sleep of my life, but my body’s not having it. I burrow deeper, snuggling into the world’s warmest pillow. It smells faintly of sugar and shampoo, and it lulls me back asleep. Pure bliss.
The annoying noises become more persistent and so does the itching on my neck. The sound is now intelligible and decipherable. A low, teasing voice. A hand brushing my skin.
“If you don’t get up now, I’m joining in.”
God, that voice. I’d recognize it in my deepest dreams. And apparently, that’s exactly where I am—cozy, in the dark, and clinging to something alive. My eyelids fight their weight. I crack one open and blink at reality.
The pillow I’ve been drooling on is Lily. I fell asleep in her bed again, curled around her, holding too tight to someone I’m supposed to let go.
I don’t miss the smile and temptation in his voice. Notgoing to lie, I’m tempted too. But that’s been my state for weeks now.
Tempted to admit to my feelings and how fast they’ve escalated. Tempted to admit what I dream about, both asleep and awake. To admit the fears that make me cry when I’m alone in this house.
So I do what I’ve been doing. I deflect.
Getting untangled from Lily, I turn to Preston before I get up. He’s crouched behind us, grinning like this is his favorite view in the world.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he murmurs, brushing hair off my face, “but I took a picture before waking you.”
“Can I see it?”
“Now or after I print it and hang it on the wall?”
“Now. And print two copies, please.”
He shows me, and damn it—it’s perfect. The nightlight’s soft glow, my arms locked around her so tight it’s a miracle she’s breathing. And smiling.
That’s when it hits me: this might be all I ever get.
A picture won’t be enough. I need this burned into the inside of my eyelids. Who am I kidding? I need this to be my routine.
But someday soon, this may not be a part of my life. I’ll wake up in London with no little girl pressed against me, no man stealing kisses in empty rooms, no sound of laughter down the hall.
And it’ll wreck me.
That ugly voice in my head doesn’t whisper; it roars.There’s no guarantees you get to keep this.
By the time we make it upstairs, I’m barely holding it together.
Preston sits on the edge of the bed, eyes soft in that unbearable way that right now makes me want to cry and scream and kiss him all at once. God, I’m a mess.
“They know,” he says. So happy, so relieved. The final piece of a 799-piece LEGO project just found and placed.
My stomach drops, pressure suffocating my lungs. “Of course they do. Callie couldn’t keep it in, could she?”
“Not in her nature, no. And I couldhide itfrom them, but I’d never lie to them.”
He watches me, confused. His smile falters. “You okay, baby?”
That’s what does it. That question. His softness.
“No,” I snap. “No, I’m not okay.”
He watches and waits, ready to calm a storm.
I pace, hands in my hair. “None of this was supposed to happen, Preston. I was supposed to be a Band-Aid, remember? Temporary. Help you heal, help Lily laugh again, get you both going,then leave.”
My voice breaks, but he doesn’t interrupt. He just listens.
