Page 109

My mom’s face pales, a perfect contrasting shade to the red one that blooms over Josie’s. Sisi, on the other hand, well, she’s enjoying my misery, as always, almost falling out of her seat from laughing so hard. Meanwhile, I want to crawl into a hole so this fucking nightmare ends.

“Necking?” Sisi barks out. “Dad, you’re like sixty-something, not ninety.”

I rub my temples because I was wrong. This conversation can’t end soon enough. Thankfully, Josie must sense my familial discomfort and squeezes my elbow before changing the topic.

“Do you want me to get some sodas, or coffees, or something? I can let you all catch up.”

Her eyes sparkle up at me, and it’s enough to make me forget that she’s going to leave again soon, even if she doesn’t have plans on where she’s headed next. I’m glad she’s here right now because I don’t know if I would have made it through the door of the hospital today without her.

“Thanks, Josie. Root beer for me,” Dad says, raising a hand.

I bob my head. “Yeah, I think I saw some red cream sodas in the vending machine in the lobby. Can you get me one?”

She quirks a brow. “You always said you hated my red cream sodas.”

I lean in, and unlike her, whisper quietly enough that only she can hear. “What can I say? When you were gone, it was the only way I could remember what your lips tasted like.”

She pulls away, but not before she flashes a smile that melts my damn heart for the thousandth time.

Yeah, I’m fucked.

If I lose her again, there’s no coming back this time.

CHAPTER 48

JOSIE

What Do You Want?

“Come on,” I groan. “You have got to be kidding me.”

The crumpled-up dollar bill emerges from the slot, once again rejected by my new nemesis, the ancient hospital vending machine. Maybe this is the true sign of a small town, a vending machine that still only accepts cold, hard cash. A town knows they’ve truly arrived when their vending machines accept credit cards or tap to pay.

“I guess you aren’t kidding,” I joke to my inanimate foe, before trying one last time to insert a bill and buy a root beer for Eddie. “Just take the damn money and give me the bottle.”

The machine spits the bill back at me, and I sigh in defeat. At this point, I’ve already written off the two red cream sodas because this was the least wrinkled bill I have after all of my cash got sweaty and gross at the festival over the weekend.

This is not how I envisioned this night going. While I love the Sterlings, I knew dinner was going to be a string of questions about me and Sly, and the status of our relationship. Considering our relationship is still very undefined, I didn’t want to have to deal with that line of questioning yet.

Thanks to Eddie, I’ve been spared an hour or more of interrogation in the confines of a diner booth. Of course, that’s because we’re here in the hospital. I can only hope that when I get back to the room, they’ve moved on from the topic of the hood of his car and that night.

That’s if I could get this damn soda and get back to watch the Sterling family show, of course.

I snatch my apparently worthless money from the machine.

“Here, let me try.” A masculine voice at my side startles me, coming from a man already pulling a crisp five-dollar bill from his wallet. “This machine’s a bit finicky.”

I watch, only slightly annoyed when my new enemy graciously accepts the bill from my old enemy, Mr. Stein. I don’t know how to react or what to say because I’ve been able to avoid him during my time in Sterling Springs, until now.

“What were you trying to get?” he asks.

I hum awkwardly. “What?”

He tips his head to the machine. “What were you buying?”

“Oh,” I nearly whisper. “Root beer and a couple red cream sodas.”

He nods and presses the button. Seconds later, I hear a thud as a bottle hits the bottom of the machine. He bends down, grabs it, and hands the root beer to me.