“Okay.”
“Just like that?”
He smiled, kissing her jaw. “Just like that.”
“Will Hilary be able to come?”
He blinked away and shrugged. His mother was a mess physically, but emotionally, too, she was broken. “I know she’ll be near us eventually. I don’t know if she’ll be able to right away.” He knew Delilah heard the implied, unspoken message: We’ll bring her to us as soon as she’s ready. I’m not staying in Morton a day longer than I have to.
“Gavin?”
“Hmm?” He pulled back to look down at her, and his heart tripped a little inside his throat at the determined look in her eyes. Gavin didn’t think it was possible to keep feeling more, but he did. More admiration and lust and gratitude and adoration. At least for now his world still felt tiny; other than his stranger-mother, Delilah was his only person, but she was such a consuming presence he only really wanted her near him while the shock ebbed and the reality of this new, odd life took shape.
“I love you,” she said simply.
“I love you, too.”
“We can do this, you know?” She ran a soft fingertip over a scratch on his cheek that had nearly healed and then slowly rubbed his lower lip, distracting him. “Eventually people will forget about us. Your mom will be better. She’ll find a way to be okay. Maybe not for a while, but after we graduate, it’s going to be what we wanted. College in a new town, just us. Living in an apartment together.”
He bent, kissing her as he rolled her to her back, hovering above. Her legs slid up his sides, her hair spread out beneath her, and while he loved the image of the future she described, he couldn’t deny how much he appreciated this view, too.
“You mean someday we’ll do this on a real bed?” he asked, giving her the smile she liked, the hungry one that made her eyes go unfocused and her cheeks heat.
She nodded, dazed, but it was almost impossible for either of them to imagine, he knew. It wasn’t easy to process all of this. Their lives would never be normal after what had happened.
He kissed her with his smiling mouth. He didn’t need normal. He didn’t even know normal, and she’d never seemed to want it anyway.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners/besties/soul mates/brain twins Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. The coauthor duo writes both young adult and Adult fiction, and has produced ten New York Times bestselling novels, including Beautiful Bastard and Sweet Filthy Boy from Gallery Books. Their books have been translated into more than twenty-three languages. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com, facebook.com/ChristinaLaurenBooks, or on Twitter at @Lolashoes (Lauren) and @seeCwrite (Christina) or follow @ChristinaLauren for official news.