Page 84 of One Day

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I felt like I didn’t have to steal a piece of you for myself anymore. I suddenly had all of you, all to myself. It’s kind of silly.”

“It’s not silly,” I say, reaching across the table to pull her hand out from under her chin.

If what she’s saying is true, it means the first night we slept together, she was content in knowing she had all of me, but more than that, she has always had every piece of me. Even if it had been subconsciously, I’ve always been choosing her. I lift her hand up and press it over my heart, letting her feel it racing.

“You do have all of me. I’m all in with you, Sunny.”

Her lips curl up, her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt where her hand is pressed against my chest.

“Same here,” she tells me. “I’m not going anywhere. I know I’ve said it before, but you really are stuck with me. I like you a little too much to let go of you. I want all the days you’ll give me.”

“You can have all of them.”

“Alright, you two, two pieces of peach pie and two coffees. Let me know if there’s anything else you need, alright?” Laurel asks, putting a plate in front of each of us as well as two mugs. Lifting the coffee pot off her tray to fill them up before setting the bowl of to-go creamers next to the pearly white mugs.

“Thank you, Laurel,” Sonya says, untangling her hand from mine. She grabs two forks from the cutlery holder on the edge of the table against the wall, holding one out to me with a grin on her face. “So, tell me about this internship. Are you excited?”

“Very. I know I was worried about the whole thing with my mom and what she was going to think, which now, looking back, was kind of ridiculous. Even if it upset her at first, she is always going to support me, and now,” I pause, shaking my head at the thrill running through my body. I let myself get worked up for no reason, and I held myself back from everything. From letting myself be excited about my accomplishments to distancing myself from my mom and not allowing myself to dive in with Sonya when this is all I wanted. “I’m just excited. To get to do something important and stay here. That’s a big factor.”

“Big fan of Michigan, are we?” she teases, scrunching her nose up. I’m about to correct her, to tell her the reason I wanted to stay is because of her, but then she grins. “I’m glad you’re staying here, too, Cowboy. I missed you last summer, and truthfully? I don’t think I would have survived another summer without you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She nods her head, digging her fork prongs into the tip of her pie. “Oh, yeah,” she hums, bringing the fork up to her lips. “What does your mom think about you staying?”

“She didn’t love the idea at first, but she gets it,” I say, pulling my own plate a little closer. “We talked about it, and she gets why I want to stay here. She’s planning to come spend a week or two here during the summer to keep me from having to head to Georgia for the summer. It works out with Flynn being in New York for the summer for her internship.”

“That’s great! You two should come to Ryley while she’s here. We can have dinner with my parents, and I can show you where I grew up,” she shares, pausing only a second. “I…that might be presumptuous. You don’t want to meet my parent—”

“It sounds like a great idea, Sunny. God knows my mom would love it.”

“Yeah? Not too much.”

“Never too much with you,” I tell her when her phone buzzes on the table. Her cheeks are warm when she looks at the screen, the smile on her face dropping. “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head. “It was just the results from our presentations,” she says, pressing her lips together. “It’s kind of dumb, but I thought maybe if I showed them what they were missing, they might change their minds about the direction and go with me.”

“Sunny…”

“It was wishful thinking.” A smile tries to edge up the corners of her lips, but I can see right through her. She’s disappointed, even if she knew the chances were slim. She felt good and she got her hopes up, and now her mask is falling. Sliding my hand across the table, I turn it over and watch as she eyes it wearily. A second passes before she slides her hand into mine, letting me curl my fingers in.

“You don’t have to be so tough with me, Sunny. It’s okay to be upset.” I squeeze her hand, giving her a branch to grab onto. “I’m going to hold your hand through it all.”

She doesn’t say anything, just squeezes my hand back, and this time, when she looks at me, the veil of a smile slips. Her bottom lip wobbles, and she all but melts into me when I slide out of my side of the booth and into hers.

“It’s okay,” I whisper against her hair, curling my arms around her. “I got you, Sunny.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

SONYA

“One more to go, Sunny!” Bekah calls from the kitchen when I step down from the stairs, a wild grin taking up her face. “Then we are free and can do whatever our heart desires.”

A snicker falls from my lips when I reach the bar stool, dropping my bag on it to grab my travel mug from the dishwasher. “This coming from the girl who decided to take a spring class.”

“Dylan asked me to take it with him,” she says, resting her hands on her hips. “What was I supposed to say? No?”

“It was an option,” Reid chimes in from the living room couch, where he’s typing something on his laptop as I head for the coffee pot. Bekah takes the mug from me to fill it up with her and Reid’s. “It’s what I did.”

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