Page 108 of Lose You to Find Me

After watching each other for a few seconds, she closes the distance. The kiss is slow, patient. Tender. So are the little touches—a stroke of her hand against my beating heart, fingernails lazily dancing over my collarbone, and fingers curling over my shoulder and squeezing.

We move inside to the bedroom, taking our time peeling each of our layers off until there’s nothing between us at all.

I lay her down carefully, brushing loose hair away from her face. “Are you sure?”

She places her hand on top of the one I have cupping her cheek. Then she says the one word that could have changed our story a long time ago. “Yes.”

It fuels the fire that ignites under my skin, coaxing every flick of my finger and hitch of breath until Raine’s back arches. Webbing her fingers through my hair as I kiss down her body, she tugs the moment my mouth meets the spot between her legs.

Every sound I draw from her gets me harder until she’s pawing at my shoulders to pull me up. Climbing up her body, I look down from where I hover over her and say, “From now on, no matter what, it’sus. We’re in this together. Hear me?”

She nods. “I hear you.”

I press a kiss against the crook of her neck and ease myself inside her. “Do youfeelme?”

Her fingernails dig into my shoulders as her legs wrap around my waist to welcome me deeper. “Y-yes, I feel you.”

Another kiss against her throat as I start moving. She meets my hips every time I slide inside, causing me to swallow a groan.

When I meet her eyes again, I say, “Us.”

She stares, her hand cupping the back of my neck as we bring each other closer to the edge, and repeats, “Us.”

That’s all it takes before I let go, knowing we’re finally on the same page. Together. Us against the world, as it always should have been.

From the other side of the closed door, we hear a loud bark that breaks up the moment.

Snorting, I drop my forehead against Raine’s. “And Sigmund, apparently.”

She cracks a smile. “We’re sort of a package deal.”

*

In the followingdays, it seems like things are starting to go back to normal. Or whatever my new version of normal is without Dad. I miss him every day but remember he’s looking after me and everything I do still. Even if he’s not here.

Which makes today frustrating, because even though he’s reminded me it’s okay not to have it together all the time, I still want to make him proud.

Staring at the bill in my hand, I let out a frustrated sigh before dropping it onto the pile of other mail with red lettering on it that nobody wants to see. I try counting my blessings that not all of them are for the store—some are for school. Not that getting anything from the financial aid office is necessarily a good thing. But it makes the choice I’ve made about taking a break from school that much smarter.

It’s time to shift gears, like Dad would have wanted me to.

I’m listening, old man.

When Matt walks into the store with two coffees, I know one of them is for me. He pauses when he gets halfway in, eyebrows raised, when he sees the way I reorganized the shelves. After getting rid of all the old inventory, I decided it was time to clean up the place a bit and do some revamping.

“Hey,” Matt greets, passing me the cup and nodding toward the aisles with his chin. “It looks great in here. You’ve done a lot of work.”

We slap hands before I lift the coffee to my mouth and take a much-needed sip. I haven’t had any all day, and it’s amazing I’m still functioning considering I spent most of the night helping Raine study for one of her upcoming exams.

The space feels a lot more open between the shift in shelving and all the work to clean old grime up. It wasn’t that the place was dirty, but it’s amazing what some deep cleaning can do.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Matt asks, leaning against the countertop. “You said something about whatever it is being a good opportunity for me.”

I set my coffee down and lean back in the new chair I got for behind the counter. Bea dropped it off, saying it was an old one from the bakery she didn’t like anymore because it didn’t match the “aesthetic,” which I think was bullshit considering nothing matches there and I’ve never even seen this chair in all my years of getting baked goods and caffeine at her place.

“You know a kid on the football team named Wells? He’s one of the new running backs that took over my position.” Whenever I see the kid on campus, he always waves a little too excitedly at me until one of his friends smacks him into stopping.

Matt’s brow wrinkles. “I don’t know. Maybe? I’ve only been to a few of the games. One of the new coaches is a fucking snake, so I don’t really feel like going and watching him fuck up the team more than Pearce did toward the end.”

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