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“Listen, I don’t care if you hate me. I don’t care how bad it hurts to see you with someone else. I don’t care if you ever fucking speak to me again. I will suffer through all of that and more to make sure they don’t fucking take you.”
Wes slowly dips his head forward, but his lips don’t land on my mouth. They fall like a feather onto the raised welt on my right cheekbone. The gesture is so gentle, so sweet, that it breaks my heart in two. I remember how Wes used to flinch and grit his teeth when I cared for his bullet wound. That’s how I feel right now. His tenderness hurts, but only because it’s making me realize how badly I needed it.
My eyes flutter open as a strange sense of déjà vu slithers into my veins. Panic replaces pain as I frantically search the flowers on Wes’s shirt for telltale horseman silhouettes.
“Are you real?” I whisper, touching my fingertips to the orange hibiscus over his heart.
Wes drops his forehead to mine and slides a hand into the hair at the back of my head. “Are you?”
I reach for his breathtaking face with both hands, needing to kiss him, to touch him, to convince myself that this isn’t just another cruel dream, but the sound of a clearing throat shatters the moment like a gunshot.
Wes’s head whips around to face the entrance. Then, his hand forms a fist in my hair when he sees who our unexpected guest is.
Carter’s jaw flexes and nostrils flare as he stands in the doorway, holding a green beer bottle with dandelions and wildflowers sticking out in all directions.
“I came to check on you, but”—he eyes Wes up and down with disgust before turning his disappointment back on me—“looks like you got company.”
Something changes in his demeanor, and suddenly, he’s Cocky Carter from high school, smirking as he crosses the room like he just sank a three-pointer to win the game.
Wes loosens his grip and leans against the counter, lazily rubbing the back of my neck.
Carter stops right in front of me and glances down at my split cheek. From here, I can see that he must have taken a pretty good hit during the food court scuffle too, because one side of his jaw is definitely swollen. His eyes flare behind his well-placed mask, but us getting smacked around by the runaways isn’t what he came here to talk about.
“I just wanted to be the first one to tell you, happy birthday.” He grins triumphantly, first at me and then at Wes, as he hands me the bouquet.
I accept it mechanically and stare at it in disbelief.
“It’s May?” I ask quietly and to no one in particular.
“Yep. May 3.” Carter puffs out his chest.
“I …” The flowers blur as my eyes look past them and focus on the floor. “I didn’t think I was gonna have another birthday.”
I blink and look up to find Carter watching Wes with smug satisfaction on his face and Wes watching me with thinly veiled concern written all over his.
“Thank you, Carter,” I whisper, giving him a one-armed hug while my free hand grips Wes’s bicep. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
I’m sure Carter and Wes are glaring at each other over my shoulder, but Wes won’t give him the satisfaction of acting like he gives a shit.
“A’ight, Rainbow Brite,” he says, shooting me with a finger gun and a wink as he walks backward toward the door. “Come by later. My folks wanna tell you happy birthday too.”
I don’t respond, and the second Carter’s six-foot-three-inch frame is out of sight, I feel Wes’s whole body tense up beside me.
I set the flowers down and turn to face him.
“Please don’t freak out. Carter and I are just fr—”
“It’s your birthday?” Wes’s eyebrows lift and pull together.
“Oh. Uh … yeah. I guess it is.” I smile, still trying to process the fact that I lived to see twenty after all.
“Fuck.” He tucks his damp hair behind one ear and stares out into the empty hallway. “I didn’t know.”
I laugh. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know either.”
“It doesn’t,” Wes deadpans.
Then, without warning, he leans over and seals his lips to mine. My thoughts scatter. My heart pounds. The lights behind my closed eyelids glow brighter. And the switch in my brain that once produced joy creaks and groans until it finally breaks loose from all the rust and cobwebs and begins dumping glitter into my bloodstream again.
