Page 50 of Promise Me Not

I want to hold you…

I blink at the thought, my back going ramrod straight as the realization slaps me in the face.

Iwant to be the one to hold her.

Oh.

Shit.

Payton’s door opens,and my mom slips out, her eyes slightly puffy and a look of exhaustion tainting her soft features.

“How is she?” I wince at the stupid question.

Obviously, the answer isreal fucking shitty. Still, my mom offers a smile. “She slept for a while.” When she lifts the plate in her hand, I see it’s still piled high with my dad’s cooking. “She didn’t even take a bite.”

“She has to eat.”

“She will, baby. Just not right now. I left some snacks by her bed, just in case. Water and some candy.”

I nod, my eyes closing for a moment, and when I open them, both my parents are standing there, staring down at me with soft expressions.

“I take it you’re not headed back to the house with the others tonight?” my dad asks.

I shake my head. “Nate won’t care if I camp out on the couch.”Or right here.

My dad’s knowing smile tells me he’s fully aware of what I didn’t say.

“Mase…” my mom begins, but Dad wraps his arm around her, and they share one of those parent looks. When she faces me, her smile is a gentle, slightly concerned one. “I’ll come check on her later today before we decide if we’re heading back home or not, okay?”

I nod, climbing to my feet to hug them both, and watch them disappear around the corner. After I hear the gang say their goodbyes, Nate, Lolli, and Parker appear. They don’t say anything, just nod as they shuffle by like zombies and close themselves inside their rooms.

The house goes quiet, and suddenly I’m wide awake. I look to my phone to find it’s well past four in the morning. We’ve been up all night.

Sighing, no sooner do I settle against the pillow my dad propped behind me at some point and close my eyes than a muffled sound comes from inside the room.

Footsteps pad across the carpet, and I jump to my feet, my hand wrapping around the knob. I wait a moment, then gently rap my knuckles against it. She doesn’t say not to come in, so I cautiously turn my wrist, pushing it open to find her sitting in the chair in front of the window.

There’s not much to look at from this angle, but she can at least see the light starting to peek through the darkened sky. When she turns my way, there’s a definitivethunk thunkin my chest, and I rub at the spot.

Her cheeks are blotched red, her big blue eyes low and defeated, but when her lip curls into a small smile and she says, “I knew it was you,” a tiny spark flickers across her eyes.

I force a smirk I don’t feel and put more pep in my step than I feel. “Oh yeah, and did you know I was coming in here to steal you away?”

She stares a moment, and tension wraps around my shoulders as I prepare for her to tell me to leave, but she doesn’t do that.

Payton stands, slides her feet into a pair of fluffy slippers, and walks past me. She pauses at the door, finds me over her shoulder, and says, “I hoped as much.”

With that, she walks out, and I hurry after her.

Like a couple of kids doing something they shouldn’t be, we tiptoe toward the front and silently slip out the door. We’re loaded in my Tahoe and out onto the road in less than a minute.

She doesn’t ask where we’re going, and I don’t feel the need to fill the silence in the car, so we sit in it all the way to the only place open around here at this time of night. Or morning, technically…Peppy’s Diner.

Inside, we find a booth in the back corner and sit down.

Payton looks around the place, taking in how busy and loud the diner is at this hour, and finally, a smile she doesn’t force tips her lips.

She needed a little chaos to pause her own.

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