“Why did you have Noah before me?”
“We’ve talked about this. It doesn’t work like that, dear!” she called back, and a more genuine smile wormed back onto my face.
“Fuck that,” Sully muttered, and then he was whirling me into his arms, picking me up and dropping me down on the couch for our movie date.
It would be okay. We didn’t have to have everything figured out yet.
“One year,” I repeated.
“Ididmanage to make it through eighth grade, even if I hated it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Eighth grade,” he repeated as he settled onto the cushions beside me. “The year I survived without you.”
“We weren’t even together then,” I laughed.
“But I knew we would be,” he said.
And then he tossed me a wink that made all the tension in my body disappear.
CHAPTER TWENTY
sully
ELLIE SAT ON THE couch with a bowl of popcorn, positioning herself as far away from me as possible. I eyed the space between us, hating it. Wondering how to get rid of it. Deliberating if it was really necessary.
When she caught me staring, she cocked her head to the side. “What?”
“Nothing, it’s just…we’re not in high school anymore, you know?” I laughed, though it sounded hollow. “My mom’s not going to come in and force a pillow between us if we sit too close.”
Ellie tossed a kernel in her mouth. “You don’t know that. She might.”
The image of my mom walking into the room—puppy in hand, most likely—popped into my head. Yeah, it was certainly possible, but I couldn’t imagine her constructing a pillow fort between us the way she did when Ellie and I had first started dating. It would definitely be the opposite.
“If my mom walked in right now, she’d probably squeal and throw us a condom before running away again.”
The corner of Ellie’s mouth quirked as she raised a brow. “Condom’s kinda unnecessary at this point, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said dryly, seriously wishing I’d beenmore careful when I picked my words and wishing Ellie hadn’t piggybacked off them.
Because now I was thinking about condoms.
I was thinking about the last time I’d used a condom.
I was thinking about being inside Ellie, andfuuuuck.
I was thinking about how that condom hadn’t made a goddamn difference.
And what it would be like now—to be inside herwithouta condom.
God, what I wouldn’t give to—shit, no, I needed to stop. I needed to not think about this. At least not right now. Not while she was right next to me, giving me a cautious glance.
I should say something else. I shouldreallysay something else, anything else.
“You good?” she prompted when I couldn’t think of one damn appropriate comment.
An unsteady sigh left my lips. “I’d be better if you didn’t put ideas in my head, Eleanor.”
