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Val’s eyes bulge, and she stares at a different spot on the ceiling. “No. It can’t be.” Her eyes widen impossibly large. “Nelson, I think it’s been closer to fifty years now.”
“Did you open it yourselves?”
“Absolutely. Who else would have?” Nelson scoffs.
I laugh and do the math, guessing their ages. They’ve got to be at least in their eighties. That means they opened the museum when they were about my age.
“How is it? Running a place like this, I mean.”
“It’s a job, that’s for sure.”
“Quite a job,” Val echoes.
“But I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”
Val stares at Nelson and smiles. “I feel the same.”
“The town I’m from has a small display of artifacts in the corner of the library, but nothing like this.”
“That’s a shame.”
“It really is.”
I imagine Phoebe and I running a place like this back home. Her red curls eventually turning gray as we dedicate our lives to Clover Creek’s history until some spritely young kid comes in asking about the town in the early 2000s and we feel too old to get out of bed.
But Phoebe’s made it clear this isn’t anything more than a hookup and a dance.
She’s also made it abundantly clear she wants nothing to do with Clover Creek. I remember Elijah’s long conversations with her double-checking she truly wanted to move across the country. She had been steadfast in her decision and only had a year left before she graduated.
Once she was done in North Grayslake, would she want to stay? Or would she move on to another place?
If she wants to be with me, I’m able to follow her wherever she wants to go. I know what I want. She’s what I want. But an ache tears through me. I followed Liam to California and regretted leaving. Now that I’m back in Washington, I finally feel like I’m home and I’m not sure I want to leave again.
Chapter Seven
Phoebe
Ben shuts my bedroom door and stalks over to me. My pulse is booming in my ears, blood rushing so fast I can’t hear anything else.
It was my idea to have him stay at the Nu Theta Nu Nu house with me. Partly for the convenience of it and the memories I knew we’d make in my bed. But also partly so Marjorie would leave me alone about him—as ridiculous as she is, she’s not going to make a fool of herself in front of someone as hot and esteemed as one of the Steel brothers. I gag slightly as I think of how she fell all over herself asking him what he wanted for dinner.
He handled it with ease—like he does everything—and told her he’d be taking me out to dinner.
That dinner happened, and now we’re having dessert.
Each other.
With no delay, his lips and hands are all over me. Teasing me, caressing me, sending me into planes of pleasure I’ve only ever felt with him.
It’s exactly what I was hoping for.
Liam and Felicity’s wedding was only a few days ago, but I don’t know how I can get to the end of this weekend knowing it’s, well, the end.
“I know this is casual—” I say between kisses. “But maybe when I’m home this summer—” He nips my neck and I moan. “We can do more of this?”
He hesitates and my stomach stirs. I’m so worried I said too much. He hasn’t given me any sign he wants more than what we currently have, and the last thing I want to do is mess anything up.
But a half-smile quirks his lips, and he wraps his arm around me, pressing his hand to my lower back until I’m so tight against him I can feel the length of his cock through my pants.
