Page 45 of Wildest Dreams

“I need, like, a minute to process this,” she says. “I wish that you understood how cute the whole burly cinnamon roll thing is.”

I blink at her.

Cinnamon roll?

Then I make a gravelly sound in the back of my throat.

“Fallon.”

“Fine,” she relents, still laughing. “So, I don’t know about her seeing the porch last night because we stayed in this cabin with you, but–”

“Wait, what?”

My head snaps up, suddenly on high alert.

“You slept in the cabin last night? You… you let her sleep over there alone?”

My leg is no longer bouncing.

Fallon’s lips part into ano, and she glances quickly up at Hunter.

“Well, obviously we said that we’d stay with her… but she said that she was okay staying over there on her own. Like, I think that she wanted to be on her own.”

I shove my tongue in my cheek, my breathing turning a little uneven.

She slept over in that un-fucking-locked lake housealone?

“Tanner, I swear, we wouldn’t have left her alone if she hadn’t asked us to. Besides, Tristan walked her over there because it was dark and–”

My eyes burn into Fallon’s and she instantly halts.

“Uh,” she says breathlessly, “what I meant to say is that–”

“Tristan walked her home?” I ask, serial killer calm.

Fallon squints into the sunrise and makes a wishy-washy sound, fingers twiddling frantically with her fluffy blonde ponytail.

“You see them go over there?”

She twists her lips to the side and squeaks out a tiny, “Maybe.”

“They kiss or what?”

Fallon’s eyes fly up to mine and she lets out a nervous hiccup.

Hunter breathes out a laugh, holding Fallon tighter so that she can nuzzle up on his chest.

“No way,” he says, his voice confident and gruff. “Connell didn’t let ’em out of his sight. Might’ve pecked her on the cheek but–”

I don’t hear the rest of the sentence as my blood rushes around my temples.

Pecked her on the cheek.

I try not to picture one of my former Carter U teammates holding Aisling under the moonlight, probably resting up all cosy against the railing that I’d just goddamn made. But it’s right there anyway, ready to haunt me for the rest of my life.

I tug my shirt away from my neck and rasp, “Where is she now?”

“She’s gone to town for supplies,” Fallon says. “…and some pyjamas.”

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