Page 27 of Shattered Promise (Avalon Falls #4)

“You’ve always done it,” she adds, smiling like it costs her something. “Back in high school, too. Right before you’d say something important. Or lie.”

I laugh once, rough and startled. “That so?”

She shrugs, and it’s unfair how light she can make things that feel like they weigh a ton inside me.

“Anyway,” she says, brushing her hand along my wrist as she passes Theo to me, “I’ll let you carry him. But only because you look good like this.”

It’s soft, casual. Like it doesn’t cost her anything to say it.

But it hits like a goddamn freight train.

My fingers tighten reflexively on the curve of Theo’s back, and for a second, I forget how to breathe. She’s already turning away, adjusting the strap of the diaper bag, like she didn’t just undo me in five words.

The walk back to the truck is slow, crowd thinning as the sun goes orange at the horizon. The festival’s heavier on the beer garden now—more adults clustered around food trucks, fewer kids, the energy shifting from family chaos to something looser, messier.

The temporary parking lot is dark, lit only by a few scattered headlights as cars navigate the makeshift rows.

Theo’s head sinks against my shoulder. He’s out cold, his fist still tangled tight in my collar. Abby pushes the stroller, her steps in sync with mine, close enough I can smell the citrus of her shampoo and the faint, unmistakable note of summer.

She always smelled like summer to me. Like sunny afternoons and late night street racing. Like the kind of peace you don’t realize you’re missing until it brushes past you in the dark.

Neither of us says much. The silence is thick, but it isn’t uncomfortable.

The air around us is cooler with the night, heavy with the scent of the festival and woodsmoke from a bonfire they’ve lit at the far end of the field.

Somewhere across the lot, someone’s playing a harmonica, the notes floating over the cars, sweet and a little haunting.

I hit the unlock on the truck, and the cab’s already cooling off by the time we get there.

The guitar goes in the back, the stroller folds up with a snap, and I buckle Theo into his car seat with the kind of muscle memory that no longer needs thinking.

Abby stands beside me, one hand on the open door, and for a second I think she’s going to climb in, but she doesn’t. She just stands there, looking at me.

“What?” I ask, softer than I mean to.

She shakes her head, and I realize she’s smiling. “It’s just . . . you,” she says. “You’re different. But you’re also exactly the same.”

“I don’t know how to take that.” Should I thank her or apologize?

“Thank you for inviting me today. It was exactly what I needed.” Her gaze roams over my face, but I have no idea what she’s looking for.

“You’re always invited.” The words are out before I can think about how they don’t really make sense.

The corner of her mouth quirks up. “To the Fyr Bal festival?”

“With me.”

She stares at me for a beat, nearby headlights casting half of her face in shadow. “Are you giving me an open invitation for . . . you ?”

I shuffle forward a step, crowding her against the open rear passenger door. “If I am?”

She swipes her tongue along her lips and tips her head back to hold my gaze.

Fuck, she’s beautiful.

“Then I’d take it,” she says, and it’s so quiet I almost miss it. The only reason I hear it at all is because I’m tuned to her like a goddamn frequency, every cell in my body bent toward her. Always her.

She doesn’t move, doesn’t shrink back or try to brush it off. She just stands there, braced by the frame of the open door, the space between us going electric.

I could close it. I could close the space and close the question and kiss her.

But the threat of losing everything holds me back.

So I flatten my palm high on the door frame, lean in and rest my cheek against hers. Just enough to feel the heat of her skin and the way her breath stutters out at the contact.

She tenses, then softens, the smallest tilt of her head pressing her cheek into the rough stubble of my jaw.

“Mason,” she whispers.

The world narrows for a second. There’s nothing but the two of us, the hush between heartbeats, the scent of her hair and the nearness of her mouth. My pulse is a drumline in my ears.

I want to kiss her so badly it feels like gravity. Heavy and inevitable.

Instead, I breathe her in. Let the moment hold, let it ache. My voice comes out low. “Get in the truck, Trouble, before my self-control evaporates.”

She tilts her face, her lips brushing against my cheek as she says, “And if I want it to? What then, hm?”

My cock swells in my shorts, and my vision blurs. The only thing I know is her.

“Please,” I say, gutted and honest. I don’t know if I’m begging her to get in the truck or to cut the cord on my control. Maybe both. Maybe I want her to ruin me.

We stand there, suspended. Her lips against my cheek the only contact between us. After too long and not long enough, she exhales and nods.

Her lips brush along my jaw as she says, “Alright, Mason, alright.”

She flattens her palms against my chest and nudges me back a step, holding my gaze the entire time. Defiance arches the curve of her brows as she ducks underneath my arm and slides into the passenger seat.

I let my head hang low and exhale a slow breath. I glance at my son, who’s sleeping soundly, none the wiser to his father having some kind of existential crisis over his best friend’s little sister.

I close Theo’s door and climb into the driver’s seat. She doesn’t say anything else, just watches me like she already knows the spiral I’m stuck in. And maybe she does. Maybe she always has.

I turn the key, headlights sweeping across the gravel as the engine hums to life.

Beside me, Abby pulls her knees to her chest and rests her head against the seat, her reflection a ghost of a girl I don’t deserve.

I keep my eyes on the road, hands locked on the wheel—but every part of me is still back there, in the space between her lips and mine.

And for the first time in a long time, I’m starting to think I won’t survive this if I don’t let myself have her.