She pulls out of my arms, and I feel her looking at me in the darkness, but I can’t make out her features. We’re supposed to be sleeping, but I should’ve known I couldn’t sleep with her naked next to me and insisted we keep the lights on. I want to see her. All of her. “It’s okay,” she says. “If this is, like, something we only do once. I can understand that.”

I take her face in my hand, skimming my fingers over her soft cheek. “You know what I’ve been asking myself since we got here?”

“What?”

“If there’s a way I can have you without being the reason you give up your dreams.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you even want me, Easton?”

“Because you’re Shay.”

She laughs. “That’s not actually an answer.”

“Well, why do you want me?”

She scoffs. “Because my heart beats faster every time you’re close. Because any time I know I get to see you or talk to you . . . any time I’m even expecting a text message from you makes me feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. Because when I have your attention I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”

“Yeah.” My voice shakes, as unsteady as this feeling in my chest. This is all so tenuous, and I’m fucking terrified I’m going to screw it up somehow. “It’s pretty much the same for me.”

“You feel like the luckiest girl in the world?”

I release her hands and grab her sides. I trap her with a knee on either side of her waist and tickle her. She squirms with laughter under me. Then her back arches and our bodies are flush again and we’re not laughing anymore.

I lower my mouth to hers as I slide my hand up to cup her breast. “Come see me this summer,” I say against her lips. “Come visit me in L.A. before training camp. I know you can’t stay—you need to finish your degree—but visit, sleep with me, and be there when I get home every night.” I swallow hard. I don’t know what I’ll do if she says no. I’ve never wanted anything more. “Everything after that we can just take a week at a time.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll be there.”

I grin. “Does that mean Shayleigh Jackson’s going to be my girlfriend?”

“I don’t know. I’m so convinced I’m going to wake up from this crazy dream any minute now.”

I nuzzle my face in the crook of her neck and pinch her nipple. “Then let me prove you’re not dreaming.”

Shay

Paris with Easton is nothing short of a dream. I can’t imagine a life in which this day doesn’t remain one of my favorite memories.