There was a lot he wasn’t sharing, but I let it drop. “I don’t know. My favorite part of winter is the first snowfall. I… love the way autumn smells. I’ve never seen a shooting star.”

“Really?” He sounded surprised. “I haven’t, either.”

I smiled a little. “I’ve always looked, but I’ve never seen one.”

“I’ve never had a pet,” he admitted with a low laugh. “Not even a goldfish.”

“Goldfish don’t count, anyway.”

He laughed again and time slipped away from us. Only a pale slice of moonlight fell across the bed. At some point, while we talked, I forgot that he could see the scars and I actually felt normal. But every so often, he’d stop talking and would look at me, and I knew what he wanted to do.

“It’s late,” Hayden announced after dragging his gaze from me. “Do you want to leave?”

I thought about it. “No. I’m not tired yet.”

“You wanted to leave earlier.”

“I also wanted to punch you earlier,” I pointed out. “You don’t want to do either of them now?”

“No.”

“Good. I have an idea,” he said. “You game?”

A strange, intense feeling coiled in my stomach. “Sure,” I breathed.

“Don’t move.” He sat up. “Don’t punch me, either.”

“No promises.” Punching him wasn’t what I had in mind.

“Just don’t freak out, all right?” Hayden shifted down, and then I felt his hand slide through my hair. “Come over here.”

At first I didn’t get where “here” was, but it quickly became obvious. Somehow Hayden got me to put my head on his chest. Not that I needed a lot of urging.

On my side, my cheek lay against the soft material of his sweater and when he rested his hand against my lower back, I thought I’d die. This was almost as good as what’d happened earlier. Maybe it was even better, just lying there, concentrating on the steady thrumming of his heart and the wild fluttering of mine.

“Are you comfortable?” he murmured.

“Yeah,” I whispered, closing my eyes. Truth was I enjoyed this way too much, but I refused to let myself dwell on it. Thinking was overrated. So was reality. In the dark, anything seemed possible. This was possible.

“Good idea, huh?”

I smiled sleepily against his sweater. “Yeah, it was.”

He chuckled softly. The sound rumbled through me, curling my toes. Silence enveloped us and I started to drift off, content to just be this close to someone, to him.

Something jolted me straight up in bed. In the dark, I could make out the steady rise and fall of Hayden’s chest. For a moment, I didn’t know what bothered me.

Then it struck me.

Something in the memory of the accident Parker had resurfaced was really, super important. I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.