Page 72 of Merry Me
I didn’t speak. I didn’t joke or deflect or run.
I walked.
I slipped off my shoes, crawled beneath the covers, and let him pull me into the warmth of his chest. His arms wrapped around me like they’d been waiting, like they knew how to hold all the pieces.
He didn’t kiss me.
He didn’t ask questions.
He just held me.
And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I let myself be held.
No armor. No walls.
Just me.
Just him.
And the quiet, trembling beginning of something that might just be real.
CHAPTER 14
NATALIE
That night I dreamed…
The air was thick with summer…heavy with pine and the scent of lake water,warm enough that our skin stuck where it touched,but neither of us moved.We were stretched out on a quilt by the shore at Lakeview Park,tucked away from the world in a little pocket of night that felt like ours.
Easton lay beside me,one arm behind his head,the other brushing lazy patterns against my hip.His T-shirt had ridden up slightly,and my hand rested on the sliver of bare skin just above his jeans like it had found a home there.
We’d started sneaking out a few weeks earlier—when the heat made it impossible to sleep and the world felt too big to stay inside.My parents thought I was at Sarah’s house,and Easton had muttered something to his dad about a football meeting.But really,we were here,every night if we could help it,wrapped in stolen time and the illusion that nothing would ever change.
He was talking softly,something about the stars and how that cluster above the horizon looked like a heart—“if you tilted your head just right”—but I wasn’t really paying attention.Not to the sky,anyway.
I was watching him.
His mouth.His profile.The way his lashes flickered when he looked up as if the universe had personally invited him to dream.
“Do you see it?”he said,his finger outlining a cluster of stars just above the horizon,his tone bright with excitement.
I squinted,following his finger,trying to see what he saw,but all I could make out was a random scattering of lights,twinkling against the dark. “A heart?”I teased,turning my head to look at him,a playful smile tugging at my lips. “I think you’re making that up,Easton.It looks more like…a lumpy potato.”
His laugh rumbled through me,warm and unfiltered. “A potato?You wound me.No vision at all.”
“None,”I said,grinning as I rolled onto my side to face him.
He was already watching me.Not the stars.Not the sky.Me.
The way he looked at me then…I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.Like I was something cosmic.Like I was the constellation.His eyes were reflecting starlight again,distracting me from anything else,but it was the way they softened that nearly undid me.
“Come on,”he murmured,brushing a piece of hair from my cheek,his fingertips lingering. “It’s totally a heart.It’s our heart.”
“Our heart?”I repeated,amused.
“Our star,”he said,correcting himself,quieter now. “We found it together.So it’s ours.”
I swallowed around the sudden tightness in my throat.It was such a dumb,sweet thing.A made-up star,a teenage boy with a wild imagination and a crooked grin.And yet,I knew I would carry it with me forever.
