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Her eyes lit up as she watched me pour the cereal. “Rice Krispies. The Christmas kind.”

“I stocked up over the holiday. Pretty sure cereal lasts forever.”

Hazel irises glimmered with specks of green when I carried a bowl over to her. “I remember buying you a box on Christmas Eve.”

I ate my cereal standing up, leaning back against the counter across from her in my running shorts, still sans a shirt. “Yeah, you did.”

“Then you tried to pay for all my groceries and still snuck money in my pocket, even though you lost the bet. You’re a good man.”

A good man.

The title gnawed at me with rotting teeth. Pretty sure good men didn’t fuck around with their daughter’s friends and lie about it.

I was definitely a piece of shit.

“Mm,” I said tersely.

We ate our cereal in silence, stealing glances, dodging some, both of us lost in our own heads. Before I could think of something to say, the song morphed.

Fucking Wonderwall.

Her smile twinkled back to life when the first few chords rang out, and I recalled a chilly afternoon out on Whit’s deck, shortly after her flu bug had passed. She’d looked halfway in love with me at that point, so I’d had no choice but to reroute things, telling her I’d originally gotten the CD for someone else. A lie, of course. Only her face had flashed through my mind when I’d been browsing through albums at the record store.

One specific CD for one specific girl.

I’d told myself it was innocent, but here we were.

Sighing at the memory, I chewed through another bite of cereal and mulled over my words, a darkness scratching its way inside. “Looking back, I wonder where exactly I fucked up, you know?” I wondered aloud. “Maybe it was buying you that damn CD. The little moments. Definitely the training sessions.” Jaw clenched, I glanced down at the floor tiles. “Feels like every step took me in the wrong direction and we ended up here. In this goddamn purgatory.”

Halley’s brows gathered between her eyes, the smile wiped off her face. “That’s not how I see it. I like to think everything happens for a reason.”

“That’s an imaginary concept designed to make you feel better about your life and help you sleep at night. Santa Claus, angels, wishes, fate. They’re not real. They’re coping mechanisms.”

Her frown deepened. “You sound so cynical.”

“Maybe I am. I’m a thirty-six-year-old man fooling around with a teenager.” The hitch of her breath had guilt joining in on my pity party, and I closed my eyes, exhaling a slow breath.

Halley hesitated before jumping down from the counter and stepping over to me. “Regardless of what this can or can’t be, please don’t diminish what it is.”

My eyes opened and narrowed. “What exactly do you think this is?”

Her delicate palms slid up the length of my torso and landed on my chest. “Something beautiful.”

More fantasies.

More pretty lies to help her sleep at night.

“Beautiful things don’t last,” I said, trying to remain stiff and sharp-edged but tenderizing against her touch. I wanted to reach for the lie, too; weave it and mold it into something honest, something worth keeping, but I was too aware of everything it wasn’t.

“I know. But they can still be beautiful while they’re here.”

Halley lifted up on her tiptoes for a kiss, and I was helpless to the magnetism. I lowered my head and caressed her lips with mine, stupidly allowing the soft moment to warp my darkness with streaks of light, with glimpses of a fairy tale that would never come to be. I deflated on a sigh, on a dream, on a wish for so much more.

But I couldn’t let it last, couldn’t draw it out. I couldn’t give it a pulse. If I breathed any more life into it, it would outlive us both.

Pulling away, I turned my back to her and set my bowl on the countertop, pressing forward as my arms tensed and my muscles twitched with bitten-back emotion. “You should hop in the shower and get ready to head out,” I said, stoning my voice. “It’s getting late.”

Her body heat buzzed against my back as she idled behind me, exhaling a breath. “I could. Or I could kick your butt at Resident Evil.”

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