knew how Mr. Lewis felt. I hadn’t been able to tell him that I knew Hayden was still alive, if barely hanging in there.
I hadn’t been able to tell him about the long-distance dates or the all-night phone calls. I hadn’t been able to tell him that I didn’t feel like I could fill my lungs properly when I woke up in an empty bed now.
“I’ll make sure he calls you more often,” I said. “Thank you for checking up on me.”
“Always,” Mr. Lewis promised.
I never quite felt like I could tell him I loved him, either, but I did. And I knew, even though he’d never said it, that he loved me, too.
I thought maybe that was where Hayden got that from. Neither of them were good at saying the words I love you, but both of them were so good at showing it.
How anyone ever missed it was a mystery to me. They both loved so deeply and so fully and so easily. No wonder they got their hearts broken.
“I’ll let you know if he does anything he shouldn’t,” I said. “And you’ll call me if you need anything, right? I’ve got people on call for you.”
“I’ll be fine,” Mr. Lewis assured me for that felt like the thousandth time. “Enjoy your vacation. I’m expecting you to tell me all about it when you get back.”
“Deal,” I promised.
I probably wouldn’t tell him about the lying in bed naked with his son part, though.
“Incredible,” Hayden said as I hung up the phone and put it aside. “You came all the way out here and he still managed to call at exactly the wrong moment.”
“That wasn’t the worst one,” I pointed out. “Like, we got off easy there.”
Hayden snorted. “Getting off with you is always easy,” he said.
Two months ago, I would’ve bet money he wouldn’t have said anything like that. Seth was rubbing off on him.
… I’d have to remember to say Seth was rubbing off on him out loud the next time they were in a room together. They’d both get a kick out of that.
“Calling me easy?” I asked, stretching out beside him again.
“Remind me what your screenname was again…?” Hayden said, grinning at me.
There were dark circles under his eyes again, but they didn’t matter right now. Not in this little pocket of time we’d carved out for ourselves.
“Remind me of yours?” I asked, grinning right back.
“I was planning to remind you pretty regularly the whole time you’re here,” Hayden said, so casual that all I could do in response was stare at him with my mouth hanging open.
“What? You spend a couple of weeks telling me how sexy I am on a daily basis and you don’t think that might stick?” he asked.
I laughed, heart soaring at being with him again, at seeing him at his incredible best for this tiny little sliver of time we had together.
“The confidence is also sexy, for the record,” I said.
“Would taking you out to dinner also be sexy?” Hayden asked. “Because we need to shower if we’re gonna make our reservation.”
I laughed, rolling off the bed and offering Hayden my hand. “That would be incredibly sexy.”
“Wait,” Hayden said on the way to the bathroom, poking his head out of the bedroom. “Did we forget to close the front door?”
I was still laughing about the front door as I followed Hayden to his ice cream bar after dinner. We’d been so excited to see each other that we’d forgotten about the door.
Somewhere along the line we’d become one of those disgustingly cute couples in love that I’d spent half my life rolling my eyes at, and I couldn’t have been happier.
I loved him so much, and seeing him again was the best thing that’d happened to me since he left Otter Bay.
“Why am I so nervous about showing you this?” Hayden asked, both hands stuffed in his pockets as we stood outside Pleasure. “I feel like I’m about strip naked and run down the street.”
“As much as I like seeing you naked,” I said. “You promised me ice cream.”
“How was the vanilla, by the way?” Hayden asked, pulling the heavy metal-framed door open and holding it for me.
I wasn’t sure what I’d been imagining, but the inside of Pleasure was somehow a complete surprise, from the checkered floor to the crystal chandelier hanging over the actual bar, all the way to the brass-studded velvet-upholstered booths that lined the front and side.
Even more surprising was that it worked. It shouldn’t