Page 26 of Before This Ends (Before)

His eyes roam my face before he drops his gaze to his daughter when she asks, “Can we make tacos?”

“Absolutely.”

“Yay!” She grins, giving my waist a squeeze, and I squeeze her back, then follow the two of them to the living room, where Miles stops to put on his jacket.

When we reach the door, he lifts Winter off her feet, then turns to me and leans down. Pressing a soft kiss to my cheek, he catches the edge of my mouth before pulling back to look me in the eye.

“See you tomorrow, Em.”

“Yeah.” I clear my throat and fight the urge to touch where his lips just were. “See you guys tomorrow.”

“Bye, Emma.”

“Bye, honey.” I step out into the breezeway and smile when Winter waves at me from over her dad’s shoulder, then go back inside and lock the door behind me. What I don’t do, as I go back into the living room where all my boxes are stacked up, is think about Miles or my strange reaction to having his lips on me in a totally platonic way.

I also don’t start unpacking. Instead, I drag my suitcase down the hall to the master bedroom, dig through my clothes until I find a T-shirt to wear to bed, then head for the shower. When I get out, there’s a text waiting for me from Miles, and I ignore the knot in my stomach and open it up. It doesn’t say anything more than he and Winter made it home, so I give the message a friendly thumbs up so he’ll know I saw it and place the phone on the nightstand.

The last thing I need is to become weirdly fascinated with Miles, because he’s the only guy I’ve been around these last few months. Which means even if I’m not one hundred percentreadyto start dating, Ineedto start dating.

CHAPTER11

emma

With Winter tucked between me and the handlebar of the shopping cart, her weight resting against me as she rides standing on the metal bar beneath, I listen to her tell me about a boy she had an encounter with on the playground who wouldn’t leave her alone.

“And then he tried to kiss me.”

“He didn’t,” I gasp in disbelief, and she tips her head back to look up at me.

“He did.”

“What did you do?”

“I was going to punch him.” My eyes widen at the back of her head. “But last year, I had to go to Mrs. Harris’s office for punching another boy, and I didn’t want to get in trouble again, so I just kicked him.”

“I…. Well….” Oh God, I don’t even know how to respond. I mean, I’m all about setting clear boundaries, especially when you’re a girl, but I don’t think punching or kicking a kid at school is the right thing to do. That said, I don’t know what Miles has told her to do in those situations, and I don’t want to step on toes by inserting my two cents. “Umm, maybe next time that happens, you could talk to the teacher.”

“I did before, and they just say not to tattle.”

“A teacher told you not to tattle, when you told them that a boy tried to kiss you and you didn’t want him to?”

“Yeah,” she mutters, then asks, “Can we get ice cream?”

“Sure.” I turn the cart down the frozen-food aisle. “Did you tell your dad the teacher told you not to tattle?”

“No.” She gets down from where she’s standing and moves under my arm to open one of the coolers, taking out a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream while I make a mental note to talk to Miles about what she just told me.

“How much homework do you have?” I ask when she climbs back between my arms.

“Not a lot. I have reading, and I need to study for a spelling test.”

“When is your test?”

“Friday, but Dad makes me study every day.”

“That’s good. It means you’ll feel prepared Friday when you take the test.” I roll us toward checkout.

“I guess that’s true.” She hops down again and starts helping me put our stuff onto the conveyer belt.

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