Page 72 of Stealing Sunshine

Panic restricts my airway as I duck out of the doorway and hightail it back to my room. I don’t make a sound as I close the door behind me and sit on the edge of the bed. Pressing mythighs together, I try and ward off the incessant throb between them, but it doesn’t work.

I’m flushed, so hot beneath my shirt that I rip it off and throw it across the room. My nipples are sore and as hard as the pebbles in the riverbed earlier.

Disbelief rattles my every thought. Fear follows when everything starts to sink in. She saw me. She had to have known I was there. My name was a warning because she was . . . orgasming, and it was too late to yell at me to leave. Right?

I press a hand to the mattress and shake my head.

No.

I’m going to forget this ever happened and hope that she does too. If not, I’m going to be packing my things up tomorrow and crashing back at my brother’s house.

Bryce and I have made too much progress to revert back to how we used to be. I won’t let it happen.

It’s only one more thing I have to pretend, so why does it feel like the most challenging of all?

22

DAISY

A week passes in a blur.My first five days as a real-deal teacher are over, and it took me all of my Saturday to recoup half of the energy I spent.

Bryce hasn’t mentioned what happened the other night at all. Not the next morning or the following one. It was a relief not to have her sit me down and call me a creep before kicking me out, but then again, she’d have to be home sometime to speak with me. And I haven’t seen her since the night of our hiking trip.

I’ve missed her company, and I can’t seem to shake my disappointment at the realization she doesn’t feel the same.

Every evening this week, she’s been gone doing what I can only assume is her part-time tattooing gig. I’ve spent them all alone, only finally reaching out to Kiki yesterday for some company. We fell asleep mid-Fifty Shadesmarathon until we were woken by what I swear was Bryce’s fist slamming into my closed bedroom door at midnight.

She hasn’t said anything about the spying or the fist slamming thus far this morning, even with me staring at her across the kitchen table like a crazy person and slurping from my juice box. Sure, she’s given me cool, distanced looks here and there,but in all honesty, I’m sensing a bit of an angry vibe brewing. I can only hope it isn’t because of what I’ve done.

“What did you get up to last night?” I ask, done with the silence.

Even beneath her oversized tee, I can see the shifting of her shoulders as she adjusts her position on the dining chair. Lifting her eyes from her phone, she quirks a brow.

“I was working.”

“Until midnight?”

“Why does it matter? Were you waiting for me to get home?”

I bite the straw in my mouth. “No. But your whereabouts are something a girlfriend should know.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had one. You’ll have to tell me all of the rules you have for me to follow.”

She’s trying to annoy me. Testing her limits, maybe, to see how much I can take. Excitement sparks in my blood.

“If you want rules, we can make some. I just want to know if you’re going to be home late every night in case I’m asked about something you’ve done and have to keep up appearances. I wasn’t aware house calls took place until the early morning hours.”

A muscle twitches in her cheek as she sets her phone down on the table, the weight of her full attention smacking me right in the face.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Am I going to be asked about why you’re spending your nights boarded up in your room with another woman while I’m gone?”

The question makes me pause. I knew there was something off about her this morning, but the whip-like tone of her voice is far worse than I’d have expected.

“Is that why you haven’t spoken to me this morning?” I ask, fully aware of how carefully I should tread here.

---