Page 121 of Rent Free

She reached up as if to feel it, but her arms slunk down to her sides, as if she didn’t have the energy to get them up there.

I stood up and walked toward her, my heart so full it felt like it was going to burst.

“What’s his name?” she asked quietly.

I smoothed back a lock of hair from her bruised face. “Forest.”

“And yours?” she asked.

I grinned at her then. “Atlas.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t sound familiar.”

I traced the line of her nose, one of the only things on her face that wasn’t bruised. “It will. And if it doesn’t, I’ll make you fall in love with me all over again.”

Her eyes went big. “I love you?”

“You adore me.”

I think I need to quit my job to focus on my laundry.

—Pepper’s secret thoughts

PEPPER

1 week after the accident

“I adore you?”

The man sleeping at my side jolted awake.

Which meant the little boy in his arms jolted awake, too.

Forest always woke silently, and never cried—fucking Emory.

I might never forgive her for hitting me with her car, but I certainly wanted to murder her in cold blood for how she treated her son.

“You remember,” he said.

“I remember,” I confirmed, reaching out my hand for Forest but stopping when I saw. “How long have you been sleeping here?”

“For days,” he shrugged.

“And Forest?”

Did he hear the longing in my voice?

I wanted them closer.

But I was scared that I looked as hideous as I felt.

“Forest has been a trooper.” He moved, reading my mind. “Mom comes to get him in the morning, and either Dad or one of my brothers bring him back to me when he gets out of school.”

“You’ve been here since it happened?” I gasped.

The gasp made my entire body jolt, causing a significant amount of pain.

“Here,” he placed Forest on my bed. “Stay here, buddy. I’m going to get a nurse.”

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