The Problem with Forever

When he started walking toward an empty stone picnic set, my tongue finally came unglued from the roof of my mouth. “You...you won’t get in trouble?”

Glancing over his shoulder, he shrugged. “Worth it.”

That didn’t reassure me, but I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t do a happy set of jumping jacks this time. He placed our stuff on the table and then sat, straddling the bench. Patting the spot next to him, he grinned.

I dropped my bag on the tan pavers and as I swu

ng a leg over the bench, I stopped to look at him. He was watching me through thick lashes, head still tilted, grinning so that lone dimple was begging to be touched. I realized that this was the first moment Rider and I had been alone. No prying eyes. No adults watching over us. No one walking past us as there had been in the parking lot

yesterday. We were alone, just him and me, like it had been so many times in the past.

I don’t know why I did what I did next, but a decade of emotion swirled up inside me. Maybe it had to do with everything he’d done for me in the past. Maybe it was just because he was sitting right there and we were in the present.

And I never felt more present than I did in that moment.

Bending over, I wrapped my arms around his wide shoulders and I squeezed him. Probably the lamest hug in history, but it felt good. It felt magnificent when he rose up a little and circled his arms around my waist. His hug was better.

When I pulled back, his hands slid off my waist, to my hips, and lingered for a moment. A strange sensation curled low in my stomach. He let go, but the heated awareness remained. “What was that for?”

Shrugging, I sat, tucking both legs under the table. My face was hot. “I...I just wanted to.”

“Well, you can do that whenever you want to. I don’t mind.”

I grinned at him, and when he chuckled, another strange thing happened. I shivered. I wasn’t cold, actually quite the opposite.

“Mouse...”

Our gazes collided, and dammit, it was like suddenly being thirteen again, sneaking food in a world that was just Rider and me, except we were older now, and it wasn’t just him and me against the world. I wasn’t a little girl. He wasn’t a boy. And back then he’d been... Well, he had been mine. It wasn’t like that now. He had a girlfriend who thought I was mute, for starters.

That realization really was like a kick to the stomach.

So I probably needed to stop with the hugs. The weird curling-stomach feelings. And most definitely the shivers. All of that needed to stop. The way my lips curved up at the corners wasn’t going anywhere, though.

“You have to tell me what you’ve been doing all this time.” He pushed one of the slices toward me and then handed over a napkin I hadn’t even seen him grab.

The grin I was wearing like a dork spread as he did what I’d known he was going to. Picked up the pepperoni, eating the slices before he ate the pizza.

He cast me a sidelong glance, voice patient as it had ever been while he finished off the pepperoni. “Mouse.”

My gaze flickered up to the scar above his eyebrow and my smile faded a little. I focused on the slice of pizza and took a deep breath. “That night... Um, the last night, I met someone in the hospital. Carlos Rivas—Carl. He was...is a burn specialist.”

Grabbing the milk, he peeled it open with long fingers. I noticed what looked like red ink on the inside of his pointer finger. He handed the carton over to me, and I continued. “He’s married to Rosa. She’s a heart surgeon. They...both worked at the hospital, and I think CPS told them I was...mute or that something was wrong with me.”

He frowned as he picked up his pizza. “You’re not mute. And nothing is wrong with you. You’re freaking brilliant. Screw that shit.”

I shrugged a shoulder. “They visited me a lot after I...I spoke to them.” Pressing my lips together, I peeled off a huge slice of pepperoni. “When I woke up after surgery, I...I asked for you. I asked Carl.”

It had been the first time I’d spoken to anyone outside that house in years.

His head swung toward me sharply, eyes more gold in the sunlight than brown. “I really did look for you, Mallory. Like I told you, I went to the county hospital. No one would tell me where you were. Just that...” He exhaled roughly. “Just that you weren’t coming back.”

“I wish...I’d had a way to see you. I kept asking, but...” But everything had been scary and overwhelming. “What happened to you?”

His brows lowered. “I was shipped out to a group home.” Folding what remained of the slice, he eyed it. “So, there’s more to this story. Tell me.”

Pressure settled in my chest as I offered him the piece of pepperoni. His lips twitched into a small smile. “I spent a little time in the hospital and then...I was also placed in a group home.”

“Where?”