Page 134 of When the Stars Rise

It’s rare that I get nervous about anything, but I’m nervous as shit right now.

Sunglasses shielding my eyes, I flip my ball cap backward (I might have worn it on purpose because she’s always loved me in a backward ball cap). She thinks it’s sexy. No idea why but I don’t stop to debate it. I need all the tricks in my playbook right now.

I wipe my sweaty palms on my baggy cargos and take a few deep breaths, rolling out my shoulders before grabbing the shopping bags from the back seat and striding up to the front door.

After ringing the bell, I pound my fist against the oak and wait. Nothing.

I guess I should have clued into the fact that she’s not here when she didn’t buzz me through the gates. But I keep pounding on the door and ringing the bell until finally I take a step back and pull out my phone.

She answers on the second ring. Not that I’m counting. “Hey. Where are you?”

“On my way to your house.”

I laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation and scrub my hand down my face. “I’m standing right outside your front door.”

She laughs a little. “What a pair we are.” She pauses. “I wasn’t sure you’d come today.”

How could she ever think I wouldn’t? “Where are you? You want me to drive to—"

“No, it’s okay. I’ll turn around and come back. I’ll see you soon.”

Half an hour later she pulls into the driveway and gets out of her car and there she is—the girl who haunts my dreams and most of my waking thoughts.

My gaze flits over her face but sunglasses cover her eyes, and I can’t read her expression.

She’s wearing these little high-waisted shorts and a cropped T-shirt. Hair falling around her shoulders in waves.

Hayley is so incredibly beautiful. She takes my breath away. A pang of longing hits me right in the solar plexus and renders me temporarily speechless.

Why do we keep ending up in this place?

“Hey.” It’s been a month and that’s the best I could come up with? I clear my throat and hold up the bags in my hands. “I brought the supplies.”

Her gaze lowers and she nods. “Yeah, I can see that.”

I follow her inside to the kitchen and try not to stare at her ass or the sway of her hips but it’s hard. She has a great ass. Tight and round. Best I’ve ever seen.

She spins and clocks where my eyes are but doesn’t say anything. No jokes. No sexy innuendos. Not a fucking word.

I set the bags on the island and start unpacking them because what the fuck else am I going to do?

Normally we do it all together but she’s just leaning against the marble counter quietly watching me.

The silence feels so weighted, so fucking heavy that it’s suffocating.

But I ignore it and forge on, lining up my ingredients on the marble counter like I’m about to do a cook-off on a TV show.

Hayley has a chef’s kitchen with all the bells and whistles. The stainless-steel gleams, not so much as a smudge marring it, and the Moroccan tiles have been polished to a shine.

Her kitchen smells like lemons and basil from the potted herbs in terracotta pots lining the windowsill and I idly wonder if she put them there or if it was her cleaning lady. As if any of this even matters. “I’ll get to work on the chili. Let it slow cook—”

“Noah. Stop.” She puts her hand on my arm but quickly pulls it away and lowers her arm to her side and it feels like a sucker punch in the gut. It’s such a stupid, inconsequential thing, not a big deal at all. But it fucking hurts that she feels like she can’t even touch me without regretting it. “We can’t keep doing this.”

Tell me about it. I’m in hell right now. Have been for the past month. At this point, I just want to get through this day and put it behind me.

I wash my hands and dry them on a towel then grab a knife from the butcher block on the counter. I test the blade with my finger. “Knife’s a bit dull.” I open and shut drawers but don’t find what I’m looking for. She has every gadget known to man but no knife sharpener. “Do you have a sharpener?”

“Noah. I said stop.” She closes the cupboard door I just opened. “Put the knife down. Please,” she adds. “I don’t even like Frito pie that much.” Her eyes fall to the bag of shelled pecans. “And pecan pie isn’t my favorite either. I only started doing this because I wanted to hold on to my memories and I was scaredthat I’d forget. But I don’t need to recreate the dishes of my childhood to remember my parents.”