Page 41 of After All

Peyton laughed again. “Stop. Thinking about cookies and sex together isnothelping me.”

Heather laughed too. “Why are you killing time? You couldn’t just hang at Scott’s and watch TV?”

“I didn’t want him to think I was just sitting around, waiting for him to come home.” She’d come to the bakery to work, and she had. Everything was prepped for tomorrow. And then some. But it still wasn’t time to go back to Scott’s. Peyton and time on her hands were almost always a recipe for trouble.

Heather sighed. “Scott would kind of love to know you were just sitting around.”

“I know.” Peyton chewed on her bottom lip.

“Peyton,” Heather said gently, no longer laughing. “You can give in to Scott. He’ll take care of you. He’ll be there no matter what. He’s proven that over and over. You can trust him.”

Peyton felt tears stinging her eyes and she blinked several times. “I know,” she said. “That’s the problem. He’ll be just like my dad, and he’ll never leave, no matter how bad it gets or how horrible I am or how miserable he is.” Scott was completely the type to stick with something. Or someone.

“You’renotgoing to make him miserable,” Heather said firmly. “You’re amazing. You have to quit thinking that there’s some monster inside just waiting to bust out and terrorize everyone you know.”

But there might be. Not like her mom. Peyton had worried—still did from time to time—that she’d inherited some of Jo’s affliction, but so far she could only chalk up her emotional swings to being a little high-strung and having a short fuse. And sometimes Booze. But there was something about her mother with her dad that she absolutely saw in herself with Scott—she loved being the center of his attention.

Peyton pulled in a breath. “Leaning on Scott would be amazing,” she finally said. “Him being there for me over and over again has always felt so good. For a while there, I got into trouble just so he would come and get me.”

“I know,” Heather said softly.

“But I’m past that. I need to take care of myself. And I realized that that feeds intohisissues.”

“Scott has issues?” Heather asked.

“He’s this big save-the-world hero and gets off on helping people, and the thing is, if I turn into this needy woman who wants him around all the time and calls him for every little thing and doesn’t want him to have his own life, then he’ll get sucked in. Part of him will love it. My dad does. But he deserves better than that. He deserves to be with someone who doesn’t justneedhim.”

Heather was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, “You really think you would turn into that woman?”

“I already feel it,” Peyton said, feeling her emotions welling up—panic, mostly, with a touch of self-loathing. “I’ve been staying with him forone dayand I was already disappointed that he went to Kyle’s tonight. I’ve already texted himandKyle, checking up on him.”

Heather laughed. “You texted his doctor to check up on him?”

“I did. I’m a mess.”

“You’re not a mess,” Heather said loyally. “And Scott really cares about you.”

Peyton knew that. It was part of the problem.

She heard the laughter on Heather’s end of the phone and then a deep voice asking if everything was okay.

“You need to go,” Peyton told her. “Call me when you get back to town.”

“Okay. Everything will be okay. Just don’t fall the rest of the way in love with him before I get back.”

Peyton laughed. “You’re coming home tomorrow.”

“Exactly,” Heather said. And she didn’t sound like she was laughing.

Peyton sobered up and nodded, even though her friend couldn’t see her. “Okay. Yeah.”

“And…probably don’t make the cookies.”

“Yeah.”

Chapter Seven

Peyton was still woundup after she made three batches of cookies.

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