Page 76 of The Do-Over

Nick’s entire face changed into a smile and he slowly shook his head as he looked down at me. “I like knowing you, Emilie Hornby.”

I swallowed and thought again as he grinned down at me thathe wasn’t going to remember this. Any of this. He was going to wake up tomorrow and not know me again.

I hated that so much that I felt a pinch behind my eyes, but managed to sound casual when I said, “Same, Nick Stark. I had the best day with you today.”

His face grew serious, but he didn’t say anything. The moment just hung there, strung in between both of our gazes. His eyes roamed over my cheeks and forehead and chin, and it occurred to me that the two of us were seeing that moment in entirely different ways. I was desperately hopeful that he would remember it all the next day, and he was memorizing every moment to look back upon fondly.

Because the DONC, for him, meant forgetting today once the sun came up tomorrow.

“Ready to go home?” he asked, his voice quiet and a little gruff.

I nodded, incapable of speaking through the disappointment.

“Em. Wake up.”

“Hmm?” My eyes fluttered open and there was Nick, smiling at me as I awoke from the nap I’d apparently just taken while my head was resting on his shoulder.

That face—damn. He looked sweet and amused and hot, and I really wanted to go back to sleep. On him. Forever. He said, “We’re at your dad’s house.”

I looked through the windshield, a little disoriented, and was relieved when I realized he’d parked by the back of my house, instead of in the driveway.

“Oh. Yeah.”Please don’t let me be drooling. I sat up and reachedfor the door handle, a little sleep-drunk from the smell of Nick and the warmth of his truck. I stepped out, and he was right there beside me in the cold darkness.

“You sure you want to sneak in?” he asked, walking beside me after I closed the door and headed for the back of the house where my window was. “Seems risky.”

“It’s not.” I opened the gate and went into the backyard. The moon was high and bright as our feet crunched over the snow, and I was a little surprised he was coming with me and not waiting in the warm truck. “My room is in the basement, so my dad and Lisa sleep two floors above me. And he snores like a freight train.”

“Spoken like a criminal,” he said, and my laugh made a cloud in front of my face.

I unlocked the basement door and pushed it open, and I could feel Nick’s warmth as he followed me inside. He didn’t say anything as I opened the door to my bedroom, but as soon as I closed it behind us and we felt a little safe from getting caught, he full-on grinned in the dark—thank God for the bright moonlight shining through the window—and whispered, “Youarea sociopath.”

I followed his gaze to my bookshelves, which were color-coded without a single book out of place, and I had to admit that my room looked a little… sterile. Even without the lights on. I just shrugged and smiled as I opened my nightstand drawer and grabbed the keys.

“Is that…?” He pointed to my closet with his eyebrows raised. “Thecloset? Where the infamous confession box lives?”

Something about the fact that he remembered made my heart flutter. I felt like Nick saw me—saw all of me—and it caused a warm pinch in my chest. I nodded, giving him an embarrassed smile, and then I said, “Wanna see?”

“Stop trying to get me to play ‘five minutes in the closet’ with you,” he whispered, his eyes playful. “Andof courseI want to see.”

I opened the door, flipped on the light, and pointed.

He stepped inside the walk-in closet, and I went in behind him. My mind immediately raced to intimate places as I quietly closed the door; we were so, so alone together in the quiet of my basement bedroom closet. Thankfully, before I could overthink too much and die of a heart attack, he gave me an open-mouthed grin of surprise and said, “Wow, your closet is color-coded, too.Areyou a deviant?”

“No, I just like to know where everything is, and this system makes it simple.”

He whispered, “I might be a little afraid of you right now.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t pull out the confession box.”

“Please show me.” He crisscrossed his hand over his chest and said, “I’ll be good.”

A quiet giggle escaped as I reached behind him for the shoe box. He poked me in the ribs as I stood on my tiptoes, and I was so ticklish that I nearly fell on top of him as I grabbed it. I heard his deep, quiet chuckle in my ear—he was so close—and it occurred to me that my closet was a really nice place to be.

Especially when he said into my neck, “Your perfume is making me dizzy, swear to God. We need to hurry.”

That made me breathless as I spun around and held out the box. “This is it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Just a shoebox? Really? I pictured something much more interesting.”

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