Never Let Me Go (40 page)

“You make it sound like you have experience with this.”

“I don’t. But I love you, and whatever it takes to make this easier on you—Hell, on both of us—I’ll do it.”

Placing my hands on either side of his face, I ran the pad of my thumb across his lower lip and smiled at him. “I love you. I’ll be back.” I leaned forward and kissed him sweetly. “And thank you again for all of this.”

He shrugged, as if to say it wasn’t that big of a deal. But it was. It was a huge deal.

Colin was in the center of the backyard, Nickayla at his side. He only had a small stack of gifts, but I knew that didn’t matter to him, because the greatest gift any of us could ever give him was us being there.

Nickayla handed Colin a small envelope, which was Hayden’s gift to him. Colin raised an eyebrow, slipping his index finger beneath the flap of the envelope and sliding it across. When he pulled out the small slip of paper, he damn near fell out of his chair.

“What is it, little brother?” Keaton asked, leaning over his brother’s shoulder to see what the gift was.

“A voucher to cover the other half of the expenses from the party,” Colin said, and Nickayla squealed. “Jesus, Hayden. You didn’t have to do this.”

Hayden shrugged nonchalantly. “S’nothing, really. I owed your girl, and I figured it was the least I could do.”

Colin turned to look at Nickayla, and she shook her head, giving him the perfect poker face as though she had absolutely no idea what Hayden was going on about.

“Open the next one, babe,” Nic said, handing him my gift. “This one’s from Michie.”

I watched in anticipation while Colin opened my gift. It wasn’t anything special or expensive, but it
was
something personal. He ripped the wrapping paper off and held two picture frames in his hand—one was a 5’ by 7’, and another was a 3’ 5’ for his locker.

“Holy fucking shit,” Colin said.

Back when we first got to Big Springs, Colin had met Nic out back by the pool after I’d gotten out already. He’d had a long day up at his grandfather’s office, and Nickayla knew that he needed to relax. When I came back downstairs to make something for dinner, I found them talking in hushed tones while Nickayla was still in the pool and Colin was sitting on the steps, his tie undone and half of his body submerged in the water as he held his hands on her hips. Nickayla was kneeling between his legs, her hair and face drenched, smiling at him with pure adoration in her gaze, and I couldn’t help but raise my digital camera and take a picture of them.

The way that they looked at each other was absolutely priceless, and at that moment, I snapped the picture and knew it’d be the perfect gift to give him for his birthday.

She’d told him that we could always go home if being in Big Springs was too hard for him emotionally. And in response, he said to her, “I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else but right here with you. This…this is enough for always.”

I’d purchased two silver picture frames, and I’d had the sales person engrave the words, “
this is enough for always”
on each frame.

“Mich, I can’t—I can’t even. Wow.” Colin seemed absolutely speechless, and I knew then that I’d picked the perfect gift. “I didn’t even know you were there!”

“Duh, Westwick. That was kind of the point.” I grinned. “One is for your office when you come back here. And one is for your locker back home. That way you’ll always remember this summer.”

Nickayla peered over his shoulder, and when she caught a glimpse of what he held in his hands, her eyes met mine, glossy and tear-filled. “This is perfect, Mich. I hope you have another copy of this photo, because I need one for my locket.” She fingered the locket that Colin had given her for her seventeenth birthday, and I nodded in acknowledgment.

“Hey, Colin, why don’t you open the back of one of those frames?” Colin glanced up at me for a quick second before he obliged.

“Holy shit, Michele! What the…this is awesome!”

I grinned and gave him a quick curtsy. Besides the photos, I’d also given him a fifty dollar iTunes gift card and two tickets to the Seattle leg of Marianas Trench’s U.S. tour.

“I figure a road trip will do you and Nic some good, once you’ve gone back to Hellhole Harlow.” I paused, putting on my best Sadie-from-Awkward.-face. “You’re welcome.

Colin stood up and hugged me. Once the thanks was over, he opened the remainder of his presents, showing off the keys to a new car from Nana,—which apparently was waiting for him back home—a bunch of gift cards to Barnes and Noble, Fandango, Home Depot, and more from his aunts and cousins, an Amazon gift card from Suze, a check from Carly covering his senior dues, and two season passes to Six Flags from Keaton.

Brody came up behind Nickayla, whispering something in her ear as he handed her a small box, giftwrapped in newspaper.

She handed the box over to Colin wordlessly, and Colin ripped the paper off. When he lifted the lid off the box, all of us were stunned into silence by what he held in his hands.

“Okay, you officially trump Nana,” I murmured.

Even though Nana’s gift was a brand new car—what eighteen-year-old didn’t want a new car?—Brody’s was much more personal than mine ever would be.

In Colin’s hands was a miniature scale model of Nonna’s lake house, where all of our best and worst memories took place.

“This is where the magic happens,” Colin said with a laugh while standing up and putting the model home down. “This is the coolest shit ever, man. Thanks.”

They bro-hugged, and when they were done, Brody stood off to the side, watching as Nickayla handed Colin the final present—hers.

She didn’t bother wrapping it, because she’d already spent a countless number of hours working on it in my room so that he wouldn’t find out what it was. She handed him the blue stained Mason jar with the metal lid, and pressed her hand to his shoulder.

He gazed at her questioningly, twisting the lid off the jar and reaching in. There were hundreds of tiny scraps of paper in the jar, and Colin pulled one out. He opened it and read it to himself, then looked back up to meet Nickayla’s gaze.

“It’s for when we fight, or when we’re apart and you miss me, or when you’re having a bad day, or when you just need to be reminded of why I love you. You can just reach in there and read a scrap of paper, and you’ll know.”

Colin reached for her, and she knelt in front of him. Then he gave her a kiss on the lips. “I love you.”

“I just love you,” she replied with a smile.

I rolled my eyes and laughed. They were so sappy. And I was so happy for them.

…

We’d just tucked an already-sleeping Skylar into bed, and Hayden and I were changing out of our party clothes in his bedroom.

I, of course, tugged on one of Hayden’s t-shirt and wore that with just my underwear, and Hayden stripped right down to his boxers and remained shirtless. He climbed into bed beside me, pulling me flush against his front as he spooned me. He buried his face in my hair, then placed his hand lightly atop my waist. I rested my hand on top of his, intertwining our fingers.

It was finally hitting me that it was the last night that I’d fall asleep in Hayden’s arms, and tomorrow morning would be the last day that I’d spend with him. It would be almost a year until I’d be able to be with him again, and it was almost killing me.

“Michele,” Hayden murmured, his voice low from grogginess and exhaustion. “Everything’s going to be fine. Stop worrying.”

How did he know I was worrying?

“Mmm?” I turned my head lightly to the side so that I could look directly at him.

“You’re thinking so loud that I can’t get to sleep. What’s going on, love?”

I turned around, folding my arm and resting my head against it while I faced him. Even though he looked tired, the expression on his face read that he was wide awake.

“I’m just…I’m not ready to leave yet. I want to be here with you.”

“I know. I wish you could stay, Michie, but you can’t. We both know that.”

I nodded. I sat up, crossing my legs in front of me and pulling Hayden up with me. He sat in front of me, his legs outstretched. I ran my fingers up his inner thigh, and Hayden’s eyes drifted down to where my hands were. He raised an eyebrow but he didn’t say anything, didn’t try to stop me, and didn’t tell me to move my hand. Instead he watched as I continued my slow torture, moving my hand up until my fingers came up to the inner seam of his boxers. I continued my exploration of his body by tracing his happy trail, then the ridges of his rock hard abs and chest.

When I looked up and met his fiery amber gaze, all that I read there was pure lust. He grabbed my hips, lifting them and pulling me so that I was sitting on his lap. I giggled, letting my arms wrap around his neck and grab a lock of his hair.

“Michele Alexandra, what are you thinking?” Hayden asked, his hands moving around to cup my ass.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe we should make our last night one to remember, Hayden Lucas.”

“Sounds like a plan, beautiful.”

Oh! He thinks I’m beautiful!

Hayden grabbed my scrunchie, pulling it down and letting my long blonde locks cascade over my shoulders in a waterfall of silk curls. His hands moved up my sides, pushing his t-shirt up and exposing my bare skin. I raised my arms above my head while Hayden dragged the t-shirt over my arms and over my head. My curls fell down my back and I leaned forward to give Hayden a kiss on the lips. He leaned into my kiss, his tongue moving in perfect sync with mine as I let my hands find their place up against his chest.

His arms encircled me, and both of his hands met at the small of my back as he pulled me closer and deepened our kiss.

I broke away, then lowered my head and planted a kiss to his collarbone. He grabbed a lock of my hair and pulled it backward, causing my head to jerk back so I was looking directly into his eyes. His gaze pierced me and held me in place and I ground my hips against his groin, causing him to groan involuntarily. I caught his groan in my mouth with another kiss, and he reached for the elastic of my panties, pulling them down. I let them go to my knees and then I bent semi-backward and tossed them to the floor.

“Your turn.” I grinned, grabbing the elastic band of his checkered boxers as I pushed him backward onto the bed. I was straddling his hips, and I jerked his boxers down and off, squealing with delight as they joined mine on the floor.

When we were both fully undressed, bearing our hearts, souls, and bodies to one another, I knew that it would be a night that neither of us would ever forget.

“God, Michele, you’re so beautiful,” Hayden moaned as he reached up and cupped my bare breasts. “I love you.”

“I love you so much.” I bent down and kissed him once more, letting my hair graze his chest as I ran my tongue along his lower lip. “I’ll love you always.”

Hayden grabbed my hips, lifting me off of him and tossing me onto the other side of the bed. He was above me within an instant, his lips descending and crashing against mine. “Oh, you better.”

Chapter Twenty Eight

“Hayden, where are we going?” I asked, not for the first time.

He’d woken Skylar and I up at about seven in the morning for breakfast at Van Leer’s. His entire family—with the exception of Asher and his family—and all of his friends and coworkers—and mine—were there to celebrate with us and see me off. We’d had a blast, and Summer had even given me a dozen Heartfelt cupcakes to take to the beach house for Nic, Colin, and Brody.

We’d celebrated for almost three hours, and then we’d taken a trip up to Asher and Jourdan’s for a small get-together where they were going to announce the gender of their baby—and the expectance of the baby to those members of the family who didn’t know yet.

They announced that they were expecting a little boy, finally, and they wanted Hayden to be his godfather.

What’s more is that I finally called my father. It’d gone better than I hoped. We’d talked for over an hour and decided that he’d pick me up from the airport when I got back to Harlow. We were going to spend the rest of the day together and talk and catch up. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when he answered the phone, but I’m happy that I made the deal with Hayden for both of us to reconcile with our fathers.

“It’s a surprise.” He grinned at me, and then sighed. “And I know you hate surprises, but you’re going to love this one.”

“Pfft. I doubt it.”

We drove for nearly an hour before we pulled in to a gravel driveway right outside of town. The grass surrounding us was so tall and overgrown that it came up about halfway to Hayden’s truck. As Hayden continued to drive, an old brick house came into view, paint chipping off all over it, and I could just make out the sight of a beautiful front porch. Two other buildings housing tractors and such could be seen from my perspective, but that wasn’t the most stunning sight of all.

The best part of the old property was the old rundown swing that hung from a tired oak tree, and the soft winds that blew past us had the old thing swaying in the breeze.

I looked over at Hayden, floundering for words.