Page 57 of The Road to Finding Us

I don’t even try to hide the fact that I’m staring at Lily as she takes her spot in the circle. I watch as she mouths something to a curious Veronica, words that look a lot like fucking Aspen Bellevue.

I smirk, looking down at my lap and thinking about what I’ll do when this game ends.

I’m busy twiddling my thumbs in my lap when I hear my best friend’s voice.

“To hell with this game,” Maverick says. “I only want to kiss one person here.”

‘Atta boy, I think, watching with raised eyebrows as he continues. “Veronica, it’s you.”

The circle goes completely silent, everyone too busy watching the story unfold in front of us. Maverick gets closer to Veronica, whispering something that doesn’t reach my ears.

They exchange a few words before he pulls her face to his and they make-out.

About damn time.

Even as Maverick and Veronica separate, I think about how happy I am for my best friend—and for V. She and I have developed a friendship recently. Once I got over the fact that she didn’t want to sleep with me, I realized I wasn’t actually interested in her to begin with. I just wanted to play the game, find someone to occupy my time since I couldn’t have the girl I wanted. Lucky for me, she wasn’t having any of it. Instead, she became a good friend. One that, even earlier today, I ran to for advice. Advice that I thought sucked at first, but advice I ended up taking, judging by the conversation I just had with Lily.

After what seems like a damn eternity, the game ends and people start to trickle home or pass out on the couches. Maverick and Veronica have both long gone to their own rooms.

Lily’s busy getting comfortable on one of the living room couches when I pull her off it.

She doesn’t put up a fight as I tug her toward my bedroom. Luckily, it’s on the side of the house that’s opposite Maverick’s.

I walk the familiar path to my bedroom backward, not sparing a second from looking at Lily, the look on her face too beautiful to look away from.

When we make it through my bedroom door, she slams it behind her, instantly jumping across the space between us and landing in my arms.

Both of us fall onto my bed, her on top of me. Her knees spread out on either side of my hips. Lily leans down, her hair creating a fence around us, her breath wafting over my lips as she says, “Kiss me like you’ll regret it in the morning.”

“I’m going to kiss you like I won’t.”

And then I do, making good on my promise.

Except, the moment her lips touch mine, I know with even more certainty that there’s no way I could regret this kiss in the morning.

In fact, I’m afraid I’ll crave it.

28

Lily

Present

“Aspen, I repeat—for the fourth time—I think we’re about to hit a bad storm.” I close out of the weather app on my phone for the umpteenth time, as it’s only solidifying my own worry.

We’re about to hit a storm—a big one if the radar is correct—and Aspen is too busy being all carefree to give a shit.

“Lily, we’re in a vehicle. We’re going to be fine.” His thumbs dance against the steering wheel to the song playing on the radio, one that had to have been released twenty years before either of us were born, but it’s the only station coming in currently.

I look out the window, zeroing in on the looming storm cloud above us. Just as I’m about to open my mouth to remind him that Gladys is a tad untrustworthy, the sky opens up in a torrential downpour. The rain beats against the metal of the car loudly, drowning out the sound of the music playing inside.

We spent all of yesterday exploring Nashville together. Once we got past some of the weirdness between the two of us, we decided to use time to our advantage and do some exploring. Neither one of us had ever been there before, and it was nice to spend a mostly-carefree day with him. When I first agreed to road trip to South Carolina with him, I didn’t expect to agree to extend any amount of time in a city with him. But when he asked me to stay an extra day, with that infectious smile of his, I couldn’t say no.

“Where even are we?” I ask, looking out the window for clues. All I can really see is the open road of the two-lane highway, the cascading rain not helping the case. We were supposed to stop somewhere random for the night, but I haven’t been paying enough attention to the road signs to know where we are.

I’d been too obsessed with following the projection of the storm in relation to the little blue dot on my phone signifying our location.

“We’re getting close,” Aspen mumbles, looking down at his dash at something.

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