Page 80 of Paper Hearts

He chuckles, his hands in his pockets as he leans into the railing, his gaze gliding down my body with a hunger I haven’t seen in months. “No, you’re not, Hads.”

I smile shyly.

“Dinner?”

“With you?”

He nods. “Arya’s out with Roman, why not?”

Yep, Arya and Roman are dating now.

“Okay.”

He winks, takes my hand, and we head toward his truck.

“Why didn’t you go to college?” I ask once we’re in his truck.

“Because my dad wants me to.”

I roll the window down in his truck enough to draw in a breeze. “So you won’t because he wants you to?”

“It’s not for me.” He shrugs, sliding the key into the ignition.

I wonder how much of anything isn’t for Ender. Will someone like him ever define a relationship with marriage?

“What are you going to do this fall?”

“Well, certainly not college,” he answers, annoyed. No one is going to tell Ender James what to do and that’s especially the case for his dad. The more he pushes, the more Ender resists, until there’s a wall that no one can climb.

“You like to break rules, don’t you?”

A strange look crosses his face. “You like to break me.” Leaning toward me, he drapes his arm across the back of the seat.

“What do you mean?”

“Is that really what you think?” he asks, twirling a strand of my hair between his fingers. “That I don’t give a shit about anything?”

I’m afraid to answer him but I do. “Yes, sometimes.”

He rolls his eyes and drops his arm. “People see what they want.”

But do they?

Ender takes me to dinner, and though I have a great time with him, all I care about is getting him alone, preferably with a bed. I think he’s on the same page because his hand is never far from my thigh.

We’re standing on Aunt Leslie’s porch when he backs me up against the railing. “I can’t take much more of this,” he groans, his hands on the railing, hips holding me in place.

“Of what?” I ask, a giggle escaping me as I wrap my arms around his shoulders. I thread my hands in his hair as he cranes his neck forward to capture my lips.

“Being away from you. Someday it’s going to be me and you, baby. Nobody else.”

And I believe him. “Should we….” I let my words trail off, smiling up at him.

He smirks. “You want to?”

I nod and slip my hands into his over my hips. Just as we’re heading over to his house, Arya and Roman return and Myles wants us to take him to a party at Sunset Cove.

While my night doesn’t end how I thought it would the first day at the lake, I will hold the memory of Ender and me, moonlight on our skin, firelight in our eyes and laughter on our lips close forever.

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