Page 75 of Chase Our Forever

“It’s already planned. You can’t tell me no.”

Reed lets out a low whistle. He leans over to talk to Jace, who sits on his other side. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” he whispers, but it’s a terrible excuse of a whisper.

Jace laughs before taking a drink of his water. “Yes, Reed, I sure am.”

“Honey, would you pass me the salad?” Mom interrupts, the request probably louder than it should be.

Dad gives her a puzzled look. He looks at the salad bowl, which is closer to her than it is to him. “This one?”

Mom widens her eyes while keeping the smile plastered on her face. “Yes. That one.”

He hands it over to her without any further questions. I smile, going back to eating my dinner, knowing my mom was absolutely trying to help me out by changing the subject. It works—small little conversations break out around us.

I find Liv’s foot underneath the table. I run the tip of my boot along her foot, making sure I have her attention. Her eyes find mine.

“Why don’t Clara and I go with you to pick up my gift?” I ask, keeping my voice lower as my family continues to chat around us.

“Because I want it to be a surprise.” I love that her cheeks get a little pink as I play footsie with her. Seeing her react so quickly to the little things that I do drives me wild. I’m already ready to get her alone tonight and kiss her. She put on some sort of lip gloss before coming to dinner, and it’s been driving me wild all night. I can’t wait to find out what it tastes like.

“I promise not to look,” I counter. I don’t know why I’m so persistent about going with her. We don’t have to spend every moment together, but I’d like to. Work next week will be busy, and I selfishly want to soak in every moment I can with her this weekend.

“I’ll only be gone an hour or two. The weather’s supposed to be nice, just cold,” she adds at the end. Her words send a tinge of admiration through my heart. She’s so thoughtful, thinking I’m scared of her driving alone. We’re supposed to get snow, but not until late tomorrow night. She should be perfectly safe driving to wherever she needs to for my gift. So it’s not that I’m scared of her driving—although I’d prefer to be the one doing it—it really just comes down to me wanting to be with her.

Now that I’ve accepted there’s no way I can fight falling for her any longer, I want to spend as much time with her as possible. I pull my eyes away from her long enough to see that my family aims curious looks in our direction.

I sigh, sitting back in my chair. I still want to try and convince her to just let me and Clara tag along, but I’ll try again later. Right now, my family’s being nosy, and I’ve probably already given them enough indication that something’s up between me and her.

“We can talk more about this later.”

45

LIV

“Let me drive you,”Dean demands, sitting on the end of my bed as I rifle through my closet to find clothes to change into. We’ve had a busy day of church and spending time at his family’s house before he had to bring me back here to grab my things and get my car.

I shake my head, pulling out one of the sweaters I’d thrifted. “I’m very excited about what I got you, and I want to go pick it up. You need to go back to your family’s house and spend time with them and not be my unneeded taxi driver.”

A corner of his lip turns up in a smirk. “I can be a very sexy taxi driver, though.”

I roll my eyes at him before pulling off the dress I’d put on earlier in the day. My body heats under his stare. It was only yesterday morning that we first had sex, and since then, we can’t get enough of each other. The moment he put Clara to bed last night, he carried me from the basement to his room, where we stayed up way too late, lost in each other. “Can you not just let someone surprise you with something?” I tease, pulling on the sweater, even though I’m tempted to close the distance and let him undress me the rest of the way.

Dean shakes his head. “It’s all your fault. If you weren’t so perfect, maybe I wouldn’t be desperate to spend every second with you.”

I let his words sink in for a moment. A smile spreads across my face before I close the distance between us. I still need to put on a pair of pants, but it can wait. First, I just have to kiss him for saying something so sweet.

His arms instantly wrap around my waist as I climb into his lap. I lean in, softly pressing my lips to his. He lets me, his hands strong against my back as he presses our bodies together. We lazily kiss for a moment before I pull away just enough to be able to talk and look him in the eyes. “Have you ever heard of absence makes the heart grow fonder?” I tease.

He lets out a low, disapproving groan. “That’s a myth. Let me drive you.”

Before I can respond, he kisses me again, but this time, he deepens it. His hands drift lower until they’re cupping my butt. His fingertips press into my skin as he kneads the muscle.

I have time, so I savor the moment with him. I’ve thought about kissing him so many times it almost feels like an out-of-body experience to actually do it.

Eventually, the kiss ends, and our foreheads fall against one another’s. “I’m going to run a town over and pick up your gift. You’re going to spend time with your family. And then I’ll give you your gift on your birthday, and you’ll love it.”

He lets out a dramatic gasp. “On my birthday? You mean I have to wait until the weekend to get it? But you’re picking it up today.”

I shake my head at him and playfully swat at his chest. As much as I’d love to push him into the mattress and get tangled in the sheets with him, I’m supposed to pick up the gift in just over an hour, and I don’t want to be late. “Maybe if you’re good, you can have it sooner.”

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