Page 40 of Mended Hearts

She pursed her lips, rocked on her heels, and then turned to me with a smile I hated—too polished to be real.

“Leigh, you’re?—”

“Still me,” she said quickly. “Are we still...us?”

“Always,” I said, ignoring the way the word scraped my throat raw.

One time?I finally got to kiss the girl of my dreams and it was going to be a one-time thing? Fuck. Me.

“We have to be, right?”

“Maybe it’ll be easier, now that we got it out of our system?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. There was no getting Leighton Rhodes out of my system. She lived under my skin. Every breathy laugh and moan burned into my memory.

“Me, you, pizza, tunes with Tillie. Little Beau. Staggering sexual charisma aside, it works, right?”

I laughed harder, even as something inside me cracked. “That aside, yeah. I guess so. Only fools mess with what works.”

“Exactly!” she chirped, but I wasn’t the only one swallowing around that lump in my throat.

“I meant what I said earlier.”

“That only you could give me better orgasms than Obi? You know, I believe that.” She elbowed me and I grinned despite myself.

“No. That you were incredible. It wasn’t a mistake. I don’t regret it. Couldn’t.”

She nodded, her voice softer now. “But it can’t happen again?”

“Right.”

“Because the family dynamics would just be...”

“Weird,” I supplied.

“Can’t have that.” She rocked on her heels and held out her pinky. “Zero weirdness.”

“You’rethe weirdo. Don’t look atme.”

“Rude.”

I laughed and linked my pinky with hers, locking her in. “Is that legally binding, Rhodes?”

“You know it,” she said with a huff, letting me wrap an arm around her shoulders as the wind picked up.

“Leigh!” Alice’s voice cut across the yard. She and Grey stood side by side in their matching Lululemon, Jax behind them, Beau bouncing on his toes beside Alice. Mattie stood still, hands in her pockets. “You coming?”

“Be right up!” Leighton called, then turned to me with a soft smile. “Wanna take a walk? Alice finally feels good enough to move.”

“You want me to hang back?”

“I’d prefer you came.”

Maybe. Probably not. But I smiled anyway. “Lead the way, Trouble.”

And just like that, I watched the woman I’d dreamed about for months slip through my fingers like sand.

I spent the whole day regretting every word we’d said, bracing myself for her absence.

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