there’s a hickey there since I’m one hundred percent sure there’s one on Sawyer.
“Stay here,” he says as he parks in front of the house. It’s four-thirty A.M. and the world is still asleep. I should be, and considering school starts in a few hours, so should he, but he doesn’t seem to care we’ve been up all night and neither do I.
Sawyer leaves the car, rounds the front and opens the door for me. The action makes me joyous and causes me to be a bit shy. It’s a stupid reaction, I guess, but it’s real.
After he closes the door, Sawyer shines down at me as he takes my hand. We go up the walk and then he patiently waits at my side as I unlock the main door. Once inside, I close the door, relock it and have to stifle a giggle when Sawyer immediately uses his body to back mine up against the wall.
He’s solid and strong, and he feels so right against me. My hands wander up to his chest as his hands rest on my hips. If I stretch to the tip of my toes and kiss his lips, how long will we spend making out near the stairwell? Minutes? Hours? Days? An eternity?
“If we start this,” I murmur, “I don’t think it will end.”
Sawyer leans forward, nuzzles the hair behind my ear with his nose and pleasing goose bumps form. “Is that a bad thing?”
No. Not at all, but then I sigh. “It is if my dad finds us like this. He’s awesome, but he’s not that awesome.”
But that doesn’t stop Sawyer from nibbling on my ear then placing delicious kisses along my neck, nor does it stop my fingers from curling into his shirt and dragging him closer to me. He draws me in for another round of kissing, and my slow and hazed mind decides this is one the most brilliant ideas I’ve ever had—sharing this night with him.
“Do you want me to stop?” Sawyer asks between kisses.
I gasp as he kisses the sensitive spot behind my ear. “No.” Yet I uncurl my fingers, place my hand flat against the hard plane of his chest and lightly push. Because Sawyer’s a real man, he immediately backs away and gives me my space.
He hitches his thumbs in his pockets and he looks so adorable that I want to drag him back into me again. But daylight will be breaking soon, our proverbial midnight, and we’ll both be forced to return to reality. Him being Sawyer Sutherland, popular, cool guy, and me being the weird, quirky girl who lives upstairs from him.
“Thank you for tonight,” I say.
“Does it have to end?” he asks.
“The daylight about to break says yes. I, at least, get to sleep on our way to Florida. You have to go to class.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He shrugs his shoulders like he’s unsure of himself, which catches my attention because Sawyer Sutherland is the definition of confidence. “I mean what happened tonight between us. Me and you. It just started. Does it have to end?”
What Sawyer is suggesting is so sweet, so beautiful, but impossible. “What do you see when you look at me?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“Maybe.”
Sawyer is hesitant as he steps toward me, giving me the room to reject his advance, but I stay still because his being close creates sensations in me I want to feel again. He touches one of my curls and the slight pull on my head sends pleasurable shivers down my spine.
“I see beauty.” His voice is so deep, so sincere that it vibrates along my insides. “I see someone who’s intelligent, funny, confident, and unique.”
I search his face, his eyes, desperate to see if there’s more, waiting for him to bring up the tumor like Leo would, but he doesn’t. Probably because he doesn’t understand my situation, not like Leo did. Leo saw the agonizing way my mom died. He saw how it affected me, affected my father, how it tore our family apart and turned our lives upside down.
“I see someone I like being with,” Sawyer continues, “and I hope someone who likes being with me.”
My heart stutters because I like being with him. So incredibly much, and it warms every part of me that he feels the same. He knows I have a brain tumor, but he doesn’t understand what my future holds and what his future holds if he cares for me.