Page 106 of Crash & Burn

I don’t let my mind go to the place that it’s threatening to go. There is nothing good enough about me. Not when it comes to her.

And when she figures that out, my borrowed time with her will be up.

Silence takes over before I hear her breathing get heavy. While I want to stay with her, fall asleep alongside her, and stay here in our movie night forever, I know that I should probably get home.

On the bright side, she did say she wanted to do this again tomorrow, so we can finish the rest of our marathon. That is what gives me the courage to unwrap myself from around her, ignoring my dick that doesn’t understand that its job is done. For tonight.

Mia looks so peaceful as she sleeps, and I wonder if she still has dreams, like the one she had on the road trip to our first show last summer. I wonder if she healed. If she isn’t haunted by the past.

If she can do it. CanI?

No. What am I talking about?

I’m too far gone.

“Where are you going?” I hear as I’m putting my pants on. I look down to see Mia, her eyelids threatening to close but she sits up on her elbow.

“Go back to sleep. It’s late. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You’re not allowed to leave when I’m sleeping.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” She is so fucking cute. I can’t handle it. She is pouting, trying to show me she is mad, but it is the cutest damn thing I have ever seen.

“I got to go, baby.”

“You can go,” she says, sitting up. “But you can’t leave without saying goodbye.Ever.”

Something flashes in her eyes. There is a sadness threatening to take over the stars I see in them, and I hate that I was the cause. Then, it’s gone. Almost convincing me that I imagined it.

She stands up, wrapping her arms around me. Her bare chest against mine is a warmth I’ve never known. We stay like this until I feel the goosebumps on her skin, so I reach down to our pile of clothes and put my white hoodie over her head.

“Oh, I willdefinitelybe keeping this,” she says as I put the hood on her head and tie the drawstrings in a bow.

Good, I think to myself.

The sight of her in my clothes will never get old.

“Never got the coffee stain out of mine,” she adds.

Oh, how times have changed since that day in her kitchen and I thank all that is good in the world that it has.

Chapter 35

Eddie

Being here, at Lenny’s, in Emmett’s office, is the last place I want to be. Ishouldbe waking up next to Mia, maybe in her bed, maybe on the blankets and pillows on her living room floor. I regret leaving last night, but I knew Mateo would find it odd for me to not have come home last night.

Not that I owe him an explanation.

I just want to avoid how often I need to lie to him.

“Eddie!”

I shake my head as if shaking the thoughts away. “What?”

“Did you not get enough sleep last night, dumbass? I need your help,” Emmett barks. He is on another level today, pissed that he had to come in but more pissed that these applications for Annie’s replacement are all young college girls who he thinks will bring in even more of a college crowd than we already have.

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