“You have a life,” she counters.
A bitter laugh escapes me. “An empty one.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a nobody, Lana.”
“You’re somebody to me.” Her hand clasps on to mine.
You’re somebody to me.
Her words act like medicine, sinking into my skin and easing the pain of years’ worth of damage from feeling inadequate.
“Do you really mean that?” I rasp.
Her head barely moves as she nods.
“Why didn’t you ask me to stay last night?” I ask the question I’ve been beating myself up over since then.
“Because I was scared,” she admits, her voice barely audible over the leaves rustling around us from a strong gust of wind.
“Scared of what?” I give her hand a squeeze.
“Plenty of things when it comes to you.”
Such a Lana answer.“Pick one.”
“I’m afraid what will happen once you leave again.”
“What if I stayed?” The question bursts out of me without any hesitancy.
Smooth, Cal.
She blinks. “What?”
“I’m not in a rush to go anywhere, so what if I stuck around Lake Wisteria for a while?”
Her forehead pinches. “Why would you do that?”
“Isn’t the answer obvious?” I tuck the fluttering strand of hair behind her ear before tracing the soft curve. Her breathing shifts as she looks up at me with her large brown eyes that reflect the moon above us.
Her lips part, and I find the idea of kissing her impossible to ignore. I lean forward and capture her mouth with mine, swallowing her gasp.
The kiss ends as quickly as it began, yet she breathes heavy like she just ran a race.
“You want to stay?” The words rush out of her mouth.
“Only if you want me to—”
She initiates the kiss this time, cutting off the last bit of my sentence with her mouth pressing against mine. The buzz starts at my lips and travels down my spine.
Kissing Lana feels like the world started spinning again. Like I’ve been frozen in place until she reentered my life, tilting it back on its axis.
I’m not sure how long we kiss for. At some point, she breaks away to straddle my lap. We both groan when she grinds down against my cock. Her head drops to the side, so I kiss my way up her neck, teasing her until she ends up rocking back and forth against me.
Everything about our kiss feels different. New.Hopeful.
And I want to make sure that hope never dies. No matter what it takes.