“It must be because I’m breaking an old rule. No girls in our bedrooms.”

“Your adolescence must’ve been a trial,” I say, leaning up to kiss his neck, sucking gently.

He nudges along my jaw so I’ll tilt my head back, leaving my neck exposed to his warm kisses. “I did a lot of math in my head.”

I laugh softly, my hands lifting to his sides, and for long, delicious minutes we kiss, Reid’s mouth on mine hungry, his hands growing restless, impatient. But when he lowers himself onto me farther, when our hips roll to meet each other’s in the rhythm we’ve perfected together, the bed protests, a squeak so loud it could absolutely wake the dead.

I stiffen immediately. As though I am impersonating the dead.

Game over.

Reid groans again, this time right against the skin of my neck, his body tight with frustration, and I breathe out a quiet laugh, rubbing my hands over his back, trying desperately to ignore—to not rub against—the rock-hard, denim-covered length between his legs that is still resting against a very sensitive place between my own. I’m concentrating on slowing my panting breaths and my quick, aroused heartbeat when he speaks again, his voice low and gruff and desperate.

“Christ, I wish we were home.”

Before I can stop myself, I stiffen again, my hands on Reid’s back stutter-stopping in surprise before I move them again, trying to smooth over the thrill that had gone through me at his words.

I wish we were home.

In the city.

Something in Reid’s body has changed, too, and I know he’s registered the shock of what he’s said. The mistake he’s made, calling New York home. After a second he moves away from me, rolling onto his back so we’re side by side on the bed. The small stretch of space between us feels like miles, like the distance we traveled only this morning, or like the distance Reid will travel—wherever he goes—when this summer is over.

But then he reaches for my hand, linking our fingers together.

We stay that way for a long time.

“What my dad said before,” he says finally, and I turn my face to him, gaze at his profile. “That I should have kept trying.”

“Reid,” I say, keeping my voice quiet to match his. “You were so young.”

“I’m not anymore. I think about it, sometimes. Whether I should try again. When all this—when I finish with everything, at my job. I have money saved. I could afford it, to . . . try.”

“Being a teacher?” I say.

He nods.

“I think you’d be a great teacher. You have the best ideas. You—”