Would choosing to leave early be the equivalent of signing a death warrant for our relationship? Maybe I was wrong about her inability to hide her feelings, because suddenly, I couldn’t tell what was going through her head.

I raised my eyebrows, trying to read her face. “Unless you don’t want to do that.”

“No.” Bailey shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut for a beat before reopening them. Her hazel eyes focused on me, still unreadable, and her posture was rigid, like she had an invisible wall up. “I just…didn’t know if you would. Long-distance seems difficult.”

“Who else is going to put up with me?” I teased, smoothing my hands up and down her arms. Touching her may have been a mistake, though, because now my mind was going in a different direction. Focus, Carter.

She bit back a smile. “Good point.”

“Jokes aside, I would rather have you than not, no matter what that looks like. Why let a temporary situation ruin what we have? I want to be with you for a lot longer than the nine or ten months we would be apart.”

There I went again, assuming. But she didn’t object, only nodded, so maybe I was on track.

I ducked my head, catching her eye. “We’re endgame. Right?” My parents were crazy in love. I never thought I would find that until I met her. And now that I had, I’d fight for it.

The tension in her body eased, and I finally won a full, genuine smile. “You think?”

“I know it.” I glanced at my watch. “If we’re fast, we might have time to get back in bed for a different reason.”

Minutes later, I had enough food to feed a small army loaded onto my plate. Bailey sat across from me with a more reasonable quantity, but she didn’t judge me for eating the equivalent of three meals in one sitting.

“Still going shopping with Siobhan?”

“Yup.” Bailey speared a strawberry with her fork and topped it with whipped cream. “I have to work on that scholarship application first, though. It’s due Monday. The process is killing me. Essay, references, transcript review, and then if I make it to the final stage, I have to do an interview with an entire panel of people.” She paused, mouth pulling into a tiny frown. “I should stop talking about it. I don’t want to jinx it.”

I bit into a piece of bacon and swallowed. “I think you’ll get it.” If anyone could, it would be her. She was great on paper, great in person, and had the grades. Obviously, I was biased, but even factoring that in, I was confident she would be in the top group of applicants.

She pressed her lips together. “You’re sweet, but you’re not exactly objective.”