Page 8 of The Last One You Loved

When I looked over at Maddox, he’d moved so his body hovered slightly over mine, and his eyes were scouring my face.

“What did you wish for?” he asked in a deep gravely tone that had become his in the last few years. The tone that made my stomach quiver with want and need.

“You know I can’t tell you. It won’t come true, then.”

“I wished…” he started and then shook his head. “Why don’t I just show you.”

And before I could even think about it, he laid his lips on mine. A soft kiss that wasn’t weak as much as it was hesitant, as if he thought I might shove him away. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and tugged so his body collided with mine like the meteor had with the earth. Light and fire and burning particles. Every warning skipped from my head as his tongue slid along my mouth, and I opened it, letting him in, forgetting everything but the all-consuming need to be closer to Maddox than we’d ever been before. He groaned, and my body seemed to think it was a call, because it arched into him automatically. Too many days of wanting this had the simple kiss turning ragged and raw in mere seconds.

Lost in the moment, the bottle I still held tilted and sent a stream of beer over his neck and back, causing us to jerk apart.

“Oops,” I said, smiling up at him as he chuckled. He pulled the bottle from my hand, setting it with his on top of the cooler, and then turned back to me.

“Tell me you wished for it, too,” he said.

There was a beg in his voice that I responded to by pulling him back to me, placing my mouth on his and mumbling, “I’ve been wishing for years.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners as an enormous smile took over his face, transforming him from a bright star to a supernova. We lost ourselves to kisses and hands and skin. Beautiful touches that turned breaths into pants that trailed up to the sky and the stars. We spent hours exploring the last parts of each other that we hadn’t yet learned. Bodies we’d only partly seen in swimsuits at the lake. Bodies that had filled out in muscles and curves.

Hours later, we were still touching. Eventually, the batteries on the boombox died, the moon crossed above us, the crickets went to sleep, and an owl hooted somewhere in the dark.

He pulled his lips from mine with a sigh but didn’t let me go. His arm was wrapped firmly about my waist, holding me against him. I placed my head on his chest.

“It’s late. We should probably head back,” he said reluctantly, and for the first time in hours, my stomach clenched, the burning acid returning.

“One more minute,” I begged. I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want to lose the love I felt flowing between us to walk into a cold house filled with hatred.

“Okay, one more minute, but then you’re coming home with me,” he grunted.

Tears hit my eyes. It wasn’t possible, and he knew it. I shook my head.

“I’m not taking you back there, McK. Not ever.”

For the next few minutes, I let myself believe that both my wishes had come true. I let joy overtake the fear and worry. I let us both stay in the bubble world we’d created where nothing but stars and kisses existed.

Lost in my memories,I didn’t hear the hospital-room door open or the curtain being yanked aside until it was too late.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” a deep, angry voice boomed.

All I could do was wish, as I had a decade ago, that Layton and I had one more minute. One more wish to keep our worlds from tumbling down around us.

CHAPTERFOUR

MADDOX

MEMORY I DON’T MESS WITH

“Moonlight on the back seat

Breeze through the wires

Springsteen on the speakers

Girl, I'm on fire.”

Performed by Lee Brice

Written by Montana / Davis / Brice