Page 34 of Carson

She gives me a nervous smile, then studies the ground.

I know my dad told me I had to keep my cool, and he’s right. I need to keep my head on straight for her, but I’m not about to hide my feelings.

I reach for her, placing my hand on her cheek and tipping her head back slightly. “I really hope the person you’re talking about is me, because it will help ease my embarrassment over losing my fool head over finding you gone.”

“That’s an understatement,” my dad says under his breath.

Her grin widens, but her eyes sparkle in the sun with unshed tears. “How can you miss someone you just met?”

“We didn’t just meet. Don’t you remember the plans we made before coming to this planet?”

She giggles. “The one where I agreed to deliver you a pizza to get your attention?”

“That’s the very one.”

My dad chuckles, shaking his head and walking away. “Cole, take Carver and go on up and get those bikes unloaded, then you need to come back by here and pick up your brother for church.”

“He can’t drive himself?” my brother asks.

Dad doesn’t say anything, and I assume Cole got the don’t argue with me look from him. No answer is the answer. Vehicles start around us, but Luna and I don’t break eye contact.

Everything in the world is perfect right now.

My soulmate is back, and she finally recognizes me.

I lean down and place my lips at the very corner of her mouth. Her breathing picks up, but she doesn’t pull away.

Her fingers hesitantly land on my chest.

“It’s okay. I’m glad you came back,” I whisper against her skin.

Her fingers begin to curl into my shirt.

“Next time you want to leave, we do it together. Promise you won’t leave me behind.”

Just like the moonflower, my heart will die when the thing that awakened it disappears from the sky.

Her head tilts back and she looks at me. “You’d leave for me?”

“Absolutely.”

Chapter Fourteen

Luna

My heart sinks with sudden understanding.

Cole is scared I’m going to take his brother away from him.

He knows Carson better than anyone in the entire world, including me.

Well, now I just feel bad. Not that I would have done anything differently. My mother told me this is where I needed to be. That it was life or death. Even though it’s scary, I have to trust her.

I just wouldn’t have cursed Cole the entire way here.

“I’d never ask you to leave your family, Carson,” I tell him. “I know that if this works, it only works here.”

His expression falls.