“It’s not about the money.”

He’s silent a moment. Then: “Have you even slept?”

“No.”

He sighs. “Can you please look at me?”

I swallow, thick, and work up the courage to face him.

“Is it about us? Are you not happy with us?”

The desperation in his voice shatters me. “No. I’m happy.” I hate this. “So happy. But I think that’s part of the problem. That happiness can’t last forever.”

“You’re not even letting it begin.”

“In a couple months, you’ll be gone. And I don’t expect you to stay with me when you leave.”

His hand slams on the counter. “What the fuck, Lane!” he shouts, his voice echoing off the walls. “It’s like you’re trying to find reasons to end this! If you don’t want me, just say that!”

I jump in my seat, cover my ears. “Don’t yell at me!”

He’s quick to get to me, his arms around my head. “I’m sorry,” he says, stroking my hair. “I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”

I grasp onto his shirt, sob into his chest. “I don't know what I'm doing, Luke,” I cry, looking up at him. “You have so much going for you and you're so determined, and your goals and dreams are this close to becoming real, and I'm so lost.”

“Laney…” he whispers.

I push him away. “And you’re going to college and going to live this amazing life and I’ll be here, doing nothing.”

LUCAS

Those eyes give me everything. You could line up a thousand pairs of eyes, and I’d be able to tell you which were Laney’s. I could even tell you exactly what she’s feeling when I’m looking into them. If she’s turned on, angry, confused, elated, lying.

There’s more to what she’s telling me, I know that much. But after seeing her reaction when I yelled, I don’t want to push her. I want to heal her. And so I take her hand, lead her to the couch. “What did Dad tell you when you told him all this?”

She wipes her cheeks, looks down at her lap. “He told me to speak to you.”

“He’s a smart man,” I say.

She sniffs once.

“When my parents graduated from UNC, Dad didn't know what he wanted to do. He just knew he wanted to marry my mom. So they got married, and he got a job working construction and for the first couple years, they saved every penny they could. They bought their first property when they were twenty-four. It was this shitty, tiny apartment just outside Raleigh. But they took the knowledge he'd learned through work, fixed it up, and by the time they were twenty-five, they’d flipped their first property, turned a profit. My parents took that profit, did it again and again. Then mom got pregnant with Luce.”

Her smile is a slow build, a beautiful image.

“Eventually, they settled into a house—not this one, but it was bigger than the apartments they were flipping. My mom came from money, and my grandfather was the one who invested in Preston Construction after I was born. They moved here, got a fresh start.”

She nods, those eyes confused. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because for years, it’s been something I’ve wanted to do.”

“Okay?”

I shift her until she's sitting sideways on my lap, and I keep her close, stroke her leg. “Lane, Dad and I found this well-priced, two-bedroom apartment that's falling apart. It's in Chapel Hill, just outside UNC. My dad's in negotiations with the sellers, and if we get it, I want to spend the summer fixing it up, and I want us both to live there.”

Now those eyes are wide, surprised and elated. “Are you serious?”

“I know that you might be confused about what you’re going to do next year, but I’m not. When I say that I’ve been thinking about this for years, I mean all of it, babe. Ever since you said you wanted to go to UNC, I’ve been planning this. Even if we weren’t together, I still wanted us to be together.” I remove her glasses, wipe her tears with my thumb. “You've been such a huge part of my life, and I didn't want college to change that. I know that might sound selfish, and it is, but I didn't want to let you go. And now… I hate sleeping in a bed without you in it. I hate waking up and not having you next to me. I'm in this, Lane, and I’m crazy in love with you.”

Her mouth meets mine, her lips salty with her tears. “I love you so much, Luke.”

“So quit questioning it. Let’s just be in love.”

“Okay,” she whispers, a smile tugging on her lips. She stands up, takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. She closes the door behind us, making the room as dark as it is outside. Her hand skims my arm, over my shoulder, until she’s pulling me down by my neck, her lips finding mine in the darkness. I savor her touch, her kiss, and then she’s moving again, until I’m lying on the bed and she’s on top of me, straddling my hips, and I know what she wants, I want it just as bad. She removes my t-shirt, kisses down my neck to my collarbone. “This is my favorite part of you,” she says. “Whenever you run, the sweat builds here, turns me on so bad.”

My hips jerk up, pushing into her. “I want a light on,” I tell her. “I want to see you.”

She shifts, and I sit up with her, help her take off her jacket, her top. Then she takes my hand, places it over the bare skin of her chest, just over her heart. “You don’t need to see, baby. You just need to feel.”

I nuzzle her neck, kiss the skin right below her ear and she whispers my name. I try to respond, but all that comes out is a groan. Her nose nudges my chin and I blindly cup her face, and a moment later, her soft, wet lips are on mine. I close my eyes and bring her hips closer. She moans, her lips parting, and I taste her tongue, touch her bare back. I lie back down, flip us over until she's on her back and my hand is on her stomach. A few inches lower and I'll be where I want to be.

She runs her fingers through my hair while I lower my hands to the band of her jeans, sliding a finger side to side. She squirms beneath me, her fingers clenching, tugging my hair, pulling me away from her neck. She kisses me again, soft and slow, and then hard and fast, driving me insane with want, with need. Then she grasps my wrist, guides my hand so I’m moving lower while she unzips her fly. Now I’m under her jeans, above her panties. She’s so hot down here, and I tap my fingers against her. She whispers, “Don’t tease me, baby.”

I’m quick to move the fabric aside and slide a finger inside her. “The way you touch me,” she says. “I wish I could erase all other touch, feel nothing but you.”

There's something almost magical about getting naked and exploring a person's body with your hands and mouth and sense alone without being able to see the person. Fingers tap and tease and you feel every curve, every dip. Hear every gasp, egging you on to keep doing what you’re doing, tasting and swirling and flicking and sucking, and she squirms and she gasps and she moans and she cries out in pleasure, her thighs pressed against my ears, convulsing with her orgasm, and if that's magical, then her mouth around my cock is beyond a fucking miracle because I've never had an out-of-body experience until now. I close my eyes, let her take me to the edge and then pause. Tease. Edge. Pause. Tease. And I'd love to tell you how long this goes for, but I couldn't even count to ten if you paid me.