Page 127 of Forget Me Not

“What?”

“That’s manipulation, Nova.” He rolls toward me when I curl back from him and presses his hand to my hip to hold me there. “I’m sure he wasn’t all bad, but from where I sit, he manipulated you, cheated on you . . . hurt you. It fucking sucks for him that he didn’t make it, but don’t live your life for him. Live it for you.”

Tears burn in the backs of my eyes, but I can’t look away. Not when he’s holding my gaze in his chocolate one, so full of honesty and anger for the past.

“He silenced you, refusing to listen. Don’t let that happen again, and don’t apologize to me for kicking me out when I piss you off.”

“I shouldn’t have been so ru—”

He cuts me off with a shake of his head.

“You’re beautiful, Nova, but you deserve to be heard. Whether that’s from me making you come or from pissing you off. Either way, you fucking let me hear you.”

He waits a beat, giving me time to challenge him.

“Okay,” I say finally. It feels like he’s given me the world in the palm of my hand, yet I don’t have the slightest idea what to do with it.

“Okay.”

I check the bedside clock behind him and realize I’ve been here for three hours. “I should get home. I have to work early tomorrow.”

“And you have your class in the evening?”

I pause. I’d completely forgotten.

“How did you remember that and I couldn’t?” I tease, but he just rises from the bed, slipping a pair of jeans on while he watches me.

“Guess your memories fading, Grandma.”

I gawk at him. “You did not just say that to me.”

He chuckles darkly, taking my ankles and dragging me down the bed to hover over me.

“And if I did?”

Well, he’s got me there.

After a moment, I break. “I can’t come up with a witty comeback with you hanging over me like this.”

He laughs—actually laughs—and stands, pulling me with him.

“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

After we stop to say goodnight to Gran and Pappap, who are both already passed out in their recliners, Reid and I climb the hill toward the cottage under the moonlight.

“It’s starting to get chilly at night,” he murmurs as the breeze blows in off the Atlantic.

“I know. I don’t know how I’ll survive the winter treks up here.”

It dawns on me, then, that he won’t be here for the winter. He’ll be out on some boat, thousands of miles across the world.

He pauses at the front door to the cottage and something different hangs in the air between us.

“Listen . . .” I start, but he cuts me off by pressing his lips to mine, gentle and sweet and full of something that makes my knees feel like they’re going to buckle underneath me.

“I know I told you I want to hear you, just right now, I need you to go inside, okay?”

“Is everything okay?”

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