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Refusing to think about tomorrow had distinct disadvantages. She wasn’t at all prepared for this talk. It turned out sometimes you didn’t have to seek out tomorrows. Sometimes when you least expected it, they pounced on you.

How could she convince him that what they had together was worth making sacrifices for? Marlowe put down her phone. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

Grandma craned her neck to peer out the window behind Marlowe. “Well, you’d better decide because he’s here.”

Marlowe turned, checked, and yes, he’d pulled up to the front of the house. He climbed out of his car. Handsome, serious, determination in his stride.

Grandma went to the door and opened it before he even rang the bell. “Welcome,” she said. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Jace asked.

“It all depends on what you plan to say to my granddaughter.”

Marlowe hurried to the door. “Grandma!” There were many times, like right now, that she wished her grandmother didn’t say exactly what she thought. She opened the door wider so Jace could come in.

“Well, it’s true.” Grandma folded her thin arms with an air of judgement. “But I’ll leave you two alone so you can talk.” She shuffled off toward the hall to her bedroom, muttering under her breath.

“Sorry about that,” Marlowe told Jace and headed to the couch.

The two of them sat down, side by side. When his eyes met hers, they had a stormy cast to them.

She shifted her position and spoke with brightness she didn't feel. “I hear Jennifer came for a visit.”

“Yeah.” He looked up at the ceiling and a muscle pulsed in his cheek. “My family is probably never going to let me forget that they were right about her.”

“Oh?”

He reached out and took Marlowe’s hand, encompassing it in his. “Being with you has made me realize what I want in a girlfriend, and it’s not her.”

Good news. Marlowe would have been downright happy about it if she wasn’t fairly certain he was also about to say that he wanted a girlfriend who actually lived in the same state as him. This was about to be a repeat of the conversation they’d had when she was sixteen.

“I want you,” he said.

Time froze for several seconds as she processed the words. Yes, he had definitely said them.

A weight lifted off her shoulders and she could breathe again. Maybe living in the same state wasn’t necessary. “I want you too.”

He twined his fingers through hers. “I keep telling myself that I fell in love with you way too fast, but the truth is it hasn’t been fast because it started years ago when we were in high school.”

Her heart skipped a beat, and history seemed to shift and rearrange. “You were in love with me then?”

A smile crept over his lips. “I think I fell in love with you the moment I found out you spray-painted the Safeway.”

“You clearly have a weakness for bad girls.”

“No, I just have a weakness for you.”

He ran one hand across her cheek and cupped her chin as though she were something precious, something that he loved looking at. His gaze went to her mouth, and his lips followed, dropping light kisses there. He moved in closer, his body connecting with hers, pulling her to him. More kisses, not as light. His lips made a trail along her cheek.

When they went to her neck, she murmured, “Do you know when I fell in love with you?”

“When I saved you from pie Armageddon?”

“When I was a freshman, I saw you in the library studying. You were handsome and smart. I hadn’t realized those qualities could coexist in a guy before then.”

He lifted his head. “Those were your only two qualifications to fall in love? Handsome and smart? Apparently, I’ve been trying too hard to win your approval.”

She slipped her hands around his waist. “Freshmen aren’t picky. I have more exacting standards now. Fortunately, your qualifications have increased with age.”