Page 35 of Never Landing

They grinned at me, blowing on the cookie. “Thanks, Mr. Everett!”

When they went to sit at the table with their cookie and milk, the other boy was glaring at me like I’d pissed in his breakfast. “We don’t want to get old like you.”

“Will,” Aurora said, warning in her voice.

“Will?” I asked, interested. “Ezra’s best friend, Will? He asked about you today. He owns the grocery store now with his wife.”

They all stared at me for a moment, and I watched the emotions cross Will’s face. Doubt, then shock, and horror, and finally, heartbreak. An understanding that he’d lost something, and it was still out there. The point of this whole thing was the opposite of that, after all. They played with their friends forever. Never losing anything.

But Will had lost something. And worse, he’d forgotten it. The heartbreak turned quickly to frustration and anger, and he turned away from me. “I don’t care about Ezra. He picked stupid Marsha over me. We’re not friends anymore.”

I took it in stride. “Okay. I can let him know if you want. Or you could tell him yourself. He and Marsha are going to come this summer, for a barbecue.”

I didn’t press any further than that, and he didn’t answer, but there was calculation in his eyes. Interest. I only hoped he wouldn’t react badly to the fact that Ezra was pushing a hundred years old.

“What’s a barbecue?” Mary finally asked, after swallowing the last of her cake.

And that was how we ended up sitting through Peter’s vivid description of what I’d told him about a barbecue. I wasn’t sure how, coming from him, it sounded a thousand times more appetizing than anything I’d ever done. Maybe he was the one who should be in advertising, instead of me.

With how little luck I’d been having finding a freelance job, I’d been considering walking away from the racket altogether. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out to do the job. Or any job. I’d wanted to be an artist for a living, but the last few years in advertising had shown me that wasn’t ever going to fill my artistic drive. I always ended up sketching and painting on my time off anyway, and that was a thousand times more fulfilling than making art to sell stuff. Not that making ads sucked, it just wasn’t the kind of art that made me excited.

Peter showed the last of the kids out of the house, and I had to hold myself in place. Aurora gave me one last look back, and a tiny smile that seemed almost approving. Approving of what? That I’d pushed down my morals and not tried to snatch the kids up and protect them, when I knew I couldn’t?

She had let Peter go when he’d decided to. I had to believe that she’d do the same with the others. That if I convinced them to come home, she wouldn’t interfere.

It was just a little overwhelming, trying to decide where to start. Especially when I was already trying to find a way to both retain and fix grandma’s house without a freaking job, and help Peter, and sort out?—

“Hey,” he said, tapping me on the nose, dragging my attention back to him. “Everything okay? You seem a little...sad.”

I looked up at him, and it was perfect. In that moment, I knew I could tell him everything, and he would be with me to deal with the fallout. “I’m a little worried about making enough money to keep the house up,” I explained. “There’s a lot that needs fixed, and I’m not handy. Apparently no one in Cider Landing is. And if I don’t find a new job, I won’t be able to hire anyone anyway, and I just...I want to take care of you.”

Peter’s smile was small, but genuine. “Everett. I’m pretty sure we’re going to take care of each other. Best friends,remember? Partners.” He cocked his head, gaze drifting off into the middle distance for a moment. “Daddies. That means married, right? Could we—I know not right this minute, but—” He broke off, cheeks flushed, and looked away. “Sorry, I know you’re worried I’m still a kid. You don’t have to?—”

That couldn’t be allowed to stand. I swooped in and pressed my lips to his for a second, before pulling back. “Partners,” I told him. “I mean, Jessie’s daddies might be married. Men can get married and adopt kids nowadays, if they want to. And maybe it’s a little premature to go talking about kids, but you’re my partner in all this stuff, Peter. I don’t think you’re a kid.”

He bit his lip, looking into my eyes, maybe searching for the sincerity behind my words. So I leaned forward and kissed him again.

This time, he pushed into the kiss. Not that cute chaste way kids do. No, he pressed against me, eyes closed and arms wrapping around my neck as he tentatively nudged his tongue against the seam of my lips. Suddenly, I felt like a kid. A teenager getting kissed for the first time. I opened for him, and he pressed in, claiming my mouth, forceful and demanding, and somehow not the slightest bit awkward or sloppy. He’d skipped right over teenage fumbling and straight to unholy hotness.

When he pulled back, his cheeks were flushed pink, and he grinned at me. He looked me over, and I imagined I had to look much like he did. Flushed, lips swollen, hair mussed. Debauched. There was something sly and satisfied in his smile at that.

“Perfect,” he said, finally.

Fuck me, I was completely in love with this man.

22

Peter

Wekissed.

I wanted to punch the air. I wanted to lean my head back and shout so the whole world knew that I’d kissed Everett Bailey.

He wasmine. He wanted me to be hispartner.

And when I pulled back, he looked...unreasonably tasty. Better than pizza or cookies or anything else I could imagine, because he was just the slightest bit rumpled and his lips were pink and beautiful and swollen in a way that drew my eyes straight down to his perfect mouth.

It felt like I’dwon.I wasn’t sure what I’d won, exactly, but I was Peter not-quite Hawking and I was supremely freaking victorious.

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