Page 137 of Paper Hearts

And that’s all it takes for her to be talking a million miles an hour and places the hat she got him on his head. “It looks good on you.”

He carries her inside with him and I step foot in his apartment for the first time. I never went to Ender’s apartment in Atlanta. My parents never allowed it, but I imagine it looked something similar to this. My steps are slow as I take in the small apartment. Right when you walk in, the kitchen is to the left, and then a living room with a brown suede leather couch backed against gray walls, surrounded by large windows and a sliding glass door that leads to a balcony with a chair outside. There’s a thick black rug on the floor in front of the couch with vacuum lines and the distinct smell of some kind of cleaner. At least he cleaned up. I remember his room when we were younger, and I didn’t know what to expect coming here.

“Thanks for the hat. I love it,” Ender tells Eddie, setting the hat on the counter. “Did you have fun in Disney Land.”

She frowns. “I was too small.”

“Ah, that’s okay. You’ll be big enough before you know it.”

I step out of the entryway and into the living room, my sandals clicking against the tile floor. On the other side of the small galley kitchen is a hallway.

Ender holds Eddie in his arms and leans down, reaching for our bags. I watch closely as the muscles in his back, triceps, and forearms flex and contract. He sets them further inside the room and turns to face me. “How was your flight?” he asks, leaning in to kiss my cheek.

Eddie grins. “Mommy drank. A lot.”

“Eddie,” I sigh, laughing. “I did not.”

She eyes Ender seriously. “She did.”

“Two glasses of wine,” I admit.

Eddie holds up her fingers and counts them. When she holds up four, she shoves them in Ender’s face and pokes his eye. “She has this many.”

Rolling my eyes, I scan the apartment again. There are shoes by the door, a coat hanging on a rack, various pieces of mail next to it on a bench, but it’s relatively bare. No photographs. Barely any personal belongings. “How long have you lived here?”

Ender sets Eddie down and reaches for his shirt that’s draped over the side of the couch. “Couple months.” He kicks a box tucked beside the couch and pulls his shirt over his shoulders. “I’m not here much. Working long hours these days.”

I step closer, unwilling to have much distance. He smells amazing. Like deodorant, leather… I don’t know. Take my word for it. He equals deliciousness. If it wasn’t for Eddie, I probably would have jumped in his arms already. “Are you working here in Mobile or out of town?”

“All over the place,” he mumbles, watching Eddie at his feet as she digs through her backpack. It’s full of paper, crayons, and fruit snacks, and probably a half-eaten muffin she shoved in there at the airport. She takes out a fruit snack, well, two, hands Ender one and then one for herself. Guess I don’t get one.

Ender smirks and takes the package. “Thanks, kid.”

“I make you a picture,” she tells Ender, sprawling out on the ground as if she’s completely comfortable here already.

While Eddie colors a picture and Ender pours me a glass of water, I find a photograph in his apartment on the end table next to his couch. I notice the oil painting of him for Christmas one year, but that’s not the one that holds my attention. It’s the one of us at the lake. Same one Arya has a copy of. It’s the night he left me.

I run my fingertips over the wooden framed its incased in. “When did you get this?”

Ender glances over his shoulder at me as he closes the door to his refrigerator. “Arya sent it with her letter begging me to come back.” He steps closer and hands me the water. “I think she thought it’d make me come back.”

I take the glass from him. “It didn’t.”

“It wasn’t that it didn’t,” he tells me softly, searching my face. We’re only inches apart and I want to kiss him so badly. “I feared what would happen if I did.”

“And now?”

His gaze drops to Eddie on the floor. “Now I wished I would have never left.”

I’m about to say me too when Eddie stands and shoves a piece of paper at Ender. It hits his stomach. “Here. Hang it up,” she orders him, like she owns the place.

He takes the picture and walks over to the refrigerator. With a pizza advertisement magnet, he hangs it on the side of the refrigerator. “How’s that?”

“That’s good.” She follows him into the kitchen. “You got food in here? I’m hungry.”

“Eddie,” I groan. “You ate at the airport.

“I’m still hungry,” she says, shrugging.

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