Page 108 of Every Little Thing

“Mm. I love you.”

“Getting your mileage out of those three little words, huh?”

“You can’t control me. I’ll say all the little words I want.”

“Uh-huh. I won’t crush your dreams, Paisley.”

“My dreams are impervious to crushing.”

She wasn’t wrong. I turned and held her softly against my chest, just feeling the way we breathed together, the way we moved together, the way we were everything together.

It was a dream. A beautiful, perfect dream.

But every dream ended somewhere. And once we’d cleaned ourselves up and Paisley had helped herself to cheese and grapes from the fridge, and I’d laughed at the Winnie-the-Pooh sight of her wearing only a t-shirt and eating from the fridge—once we nestled in one another’s arms at the window watching the stars over Bayview, feeling her hair tickle my lips, we landed in bed together, Paisley breathing softly on my arm as she fell asleep straightaway.

The girl needed her sleep. She’d been through a lot.

I just hoped she could be happy.

I pressed a kiss to her forehead, slipping carefully out from under her, and I took a while just looking at her—taking her in, committing her to memory.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I love you, too.”

Chapter 28

Paisley

Cold day today. Even with the windows shut, it was an older building, and the cold seeped in from where the skies were gray and the trees were well through losing their leaves. Moody cloud cover had been threatening rain all day, but I’d been up in the bakery since four this morning and it had never made good on its promise. Just making me expect something and then not following through.

I shot off a text to Oliver, helping him coordinate the new endcap display at the bookstore, and I looked up to where Anders was picking out his mini-cupcake from the rack. I pushed the phone away, stepping up to the register, and I put on a smile.

“Morning,” I said, ringing him up before he even got to the register. He had a heavy expression on his face.

“Morning, Paisley.” I didn’t have to tell him the price—he handed over a crisp dollar and two quarters, and I put it in the drawer.

“How’s Nancy?”

He sighed. “Not feeling too well lately.”

“Oh.” I pursed my lips. “Something happen?”

He shrugged helplessly. “We’re old, Paisley. We don’t need a reason to suddenly feel badly. And it’s a bit scarier when it’s us curmudgeonly old folks it’s happening to.”

It wasn’t like Anders and Nancy hadn’t had the occasional health issue since I’d gotten here—nothing that a little bit of extra rest couldn’t fix, some regular checkups, the occasional house call, me or Emberlynn bringing over dinner and spending time with them, and sometimes Nancy coming in to pick up her own cupcake instead—but his expression wasn’t usually this serious. I focused on boxing up his cupcake.

He really needed to just get a reusable container. He could probably have built a castle out of the used ones by now.

“I hope she’ll be okay,” I said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, okay?”

He shook his head, taking the box. “Don’t you worry yourself about it, Paisley. You stress yourself enough these days. It’s bad for your own health, you know. You’ll land in the hospital again.”

Well, maybe if I did, then Harper would come back again. Maybe if I worked a little harder, went a little further, broke myself a little more, she’d come back again. Come break my heart again.

“Okay,” I said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can send Emberlynn to do, then.”

That got a little laugh out of him, smiling softly as he stepped away from the counter. “You know, it’s good to see Bayview has youth like you in it. You and Emberlynn, Aria, Annabel, everyone.”

One less person than I wanted it to have. But I wasn’t saying that. Speaking aloud about her was taboo these last few weeks since she’d disappeared again with only a letter leftbehind, as if saying anything about her might summon back the dull, aching pain I’d had after I’d woken up alone and wandered like an abandoned child through the house calling her name.

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