Page 17 of Forsaken Oath

“Don’t ruin it for me now, Peach. Gotta keep the dream alive, yeah?”

“What if it’s terrible?” Her voice is soft, a whisper threading through the night air.

“Your name? No chance. Nothing about you could ever be terrible.”

Her amusement quiets, her face softening as she looks at me. “What if your mom and I share the same name? Or your sister? That might be a deal-breaker.”

The idea of calling out one of my family member’s names while she’s riding my face isn’t ideal, but a deal-breaker? I don’t think so. Still, I’ll play along. “I see your point. As long as your name isn’t Hazel, Abbigail, Coraline, or Josephine, we’re good. Shit. I guess Elizabeth and Evangeline and Virginia too.”

Her brows rise higher with every name I rattle off. “That’s a lot of women in your family.”

“It’s a big family.” I pause, dying to put a name to the gorgeous face I’ve been staring at for the last several hours. “You plannin’ to keep me waiting all night?”

She looks up at me from underneath her lashes and pushes up onto her tiptoes. She still doesn’t come close to my face, our height difference is enough that I need to lean down. Which I’ll happily do anytime if it means I get to kiss those sweet lips again.

“Eloise,” she breathes out, her lips dragging against mine with each syllable.

My breath hitches with the contact, and I feel like a fucking thirteen-year-old again. “Fucking perfect.” The words come out as a grunted hush. I give her a second to pull back, but when she doesn’t, I take her mouth with mine.

It’s a soft kiss. An exploratory one. Not that it lacks any of the heat of our earlier kiss under the table.

We pull back from one another at the same time. Her eyes are slow to open, her lashes a dark smudge against her sun-kissed cheeks.

Goddamn, she is so fucking pretty though.

Time stretches on, and before I know it, we’re in the back of my pickup truck, a couple of blankets spread out beneath us as we stare up at the sky. The stars twinkle overhead, clearer than I’ve ever seen them in years. My late grandpa taught me about the stars when I was young. He told me that if I ever get lost, I can look to the sky, and it’ll guide me home.

I point up at the stars, drawing lines in the air to connect the bright spots. “See those stars right there?” I say, my voice low. “That’s Andromeda.”

“Andromeda,” she repeats, her gaze following my finger. “What’s her story?”

I prop myself up on my elbow, my shoulder brushing hers, and look at her before glancing back up at the sky. “Legend says she was a princess, chained to a rock as a sacrifice. All because her parents messed up and offended the gods. So she’s paying for their mistakes.”

“Sounds about right,” she huffs an unamused laugh, a quiet, warm sound that’s perfect against the backdrop of the night. But as I keep going, her eyes soften.

“Yeah, but there’s a twist.” I pause, watching her face as I talk, noticing the way the starlight reflects in her eyes. “Perseus, a hero with his own mess of problems, comes to rescue her. He doesn’t have to. He could walk away, but he decides to risk everything to save her.”

She shifts, tucking her arm under her head as she watches me. “And they end up together?”

I smirk, glancing back at the stars. “Yeah. They’re fated. Doesn’t matter how impossible it is or how many things tell them to stay away. Perseus doesn’t care what it costs him. He just . . . couldn’t leave her.”

I look back at her, and for a second, the world feels smaller, like it’s just us and a handful of stars. Her face is turned toward me, close enough that I can see every little detail. “Why that story?” she asks, her voice soft, like she’s afraid of breaking whatever’s between us.

I shrug, trying to keep my tone casual, though I feel my pulse pick up. “Guess I like the idea of it.” What would it feel like to love something so much that you’re willing to sacrificeeverything for them? What would it feel like to be on the receiving end of that kind of devotion?

She goes quiet, but her eyes stay on mine, and it feels like the air between us is thickening, filling with words we’re not saying.

It’s peaceful here, lying under the stars with a woman I barely know, but somehow feel connected to. Like we’ve shared something special, rare.

The night is slipping away though, and as the sky begins to lighten with the first hints of dawn, reality starts to creep back in. The weight of responsibility, the things I need to do, the life I need to return to.

My eyelids are heavy, but my body feels strangely awake, buzzing with the kind of energy I associate with racing. I scoot down to the edge of the truck bed. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom. Don’t go anywhere, Peach.”

“Wait.” Her hand lands on my forearm.

I pause as she knee-walks a few steps toward me. She leans in and plants a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth. I turn toward her just a half-inch, enough to capture her mouth in a kiss sweet enough to make my stomach ache.

It’s over before it goes anywhere, and I leave her in the back of my truck as I jog toward the bathroom building. That ache doesn’t go away, spreading into something more acute. I don’t even bother drying my hands, jogging outside in record time.

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