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CHAPTER 27
Ivy
I don’t wantthis day to end.
I’m sitting around a bonfire, sipping a vodka seltzer and listening to the stories being exchanged by a dozen people who are either related or who have known each other forever. There’s laughter and good-natured finger-pointing as three or four of them are insisting that Harrison was behind the senior prank, while he’s laughing and denying it.
“I swear, it wasn’t me. If it was, I would take credit, trust me.”
“That’s true,” Ford’s sister says with a nod. “Harrison will never let us forget his accomplishments.”
Ford is sitting next to me and he leans in and brushes a quick kiss against my earlobe, causing me to shiver. “I have a confession,” he murmurs. “I was the mastermind behind the senior prank.”
I pull back and eye him. “What? Are you serious? Though I can see that relocating the principal’s entire office to the football field would be just your style. They say not a paperclip was out of place.”
Ford nods. “And yet, no one believes me, even though I’ve tried to take credit. I have a spotless reputation.”
That makes me grin. “That’s because they didn’t see you last night. That’s a whole different side of you.”
He nudges my knee. “You bring out the growly in me.”
I lean against his arm. “I like that side of you.”
“I’m going to show you yet another side.”
At first I assume it’s a sexual innuendo—which I’m all for—but Ford jumps up off the log we’re sitting on and maneuvers through the crowd, heading back toward the nylon gazebo he and Harrison popped up earlier to give us relief from the sun.
I turn my attention to Harrison and Liam, who are bantering about the s’mores they’re making.
“You’re toasting your marshmallow wrong,” Harrison tells him.
“I want to do it this way.” Liam has four or five stacked on his metal skewer and is turning it over the fire like it’s a spit.
“They’ll never cook that way.” Harrison only has one on his skewer and has it buried in the flames. “You have to really get in there.”
“I don’t want to burn it.”
“How many bonfires have you been to?”
“Uh…one?” Liam says.
“So none, since you posed it as a question.”
Crossing my arms across my chest, I hug myself a little. I’m wearing Ford’s sweatshirt since it got chilly when the sun went down. I wasn’t really cold, but I wanted to wear his shirt. I raise a sleeve to my nose and take a subtle sniff. Sandalwood and burning wood. I love it. I’m not cold now either, I just am ridiculously happy.
Watching Liam and Harrison with each other makes my heart full. Being here with them, and Ford, makes it feel almost impossible to imagine my regular life back in California.
Harrison is trying to shove Liam’s skewer into the fire.
“Stop. You’re so annoying,” Liam tells him, even as he leans closer into Harrison’s personal space.
Harrison removes his own marshmallow, and it’s charred to within an inch of its life.
“Perfect,” he declares. Then he pulls it off and holds it up to Liam’s lips. “Taste.”
“No.” Liam pulls away.
Harrison taps Liam’s bottom lip with the marshmallow anyway, leaving a sticky smear behind. Then he leans in and licks it off of Liam. “Definitely perfect.”