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And now my heart’s raced right into my throat.

“My dad—” I swallow.
Get back in my chest
. “His car accident. He drove off the bridge on purpose,” I tell her. “And I don’t know why. I don’t know if he was depressed or if something else was going on. I’ll never know, obviously.”

Her eyes widen. Her mouth drops open. “Austin, I—”

“I hated him for a long time,” I continue, looking at the grass. She keeps her hand on mine, squeezing it a little tighter. “Mostly because I didn’t understand why, I guess? I hated him for leaving us. And he left us this letter.” My voice cracks. I study the grass, counting the sharp blades. I get to twenty-three before I’m positive I won’t lose it in front of anyone who happens to look our way. “There was this thing he used to say all the time: ‘All my love, all my promises, all my swears.’ It was his way of telling us that we meant everything to him. And I’ll never know why the hell he made those his last words to us when he knew he was leaving.”

Leaving. It sounds so temporary. It doesn’t even brush the surface of someone being flat-out
gone
. Forever.

“Can I take a shot at it?” Marisa asks carefully. I shrug, signaling for her to go on. “It may have been his way of saying that, even in those final moments,
even though he was in the darkest of dark places, he was thinking of you. That he loved you guys more than anything. That you still meant everything to him. He wanted you to remember that.”

That sounds good. It sounds like a nice, sugar-coated explanation, one that Momma would’ve given me if I were, say, five. But it doesn’t make sense. “If he loved us so much,” I say, “wouldn’t he have fought for that? Isn’t that worth fighting for?”

Her face falls. And now I’m a total asshole, but years of pent-up confusion is bubbling in my stomach. I’m doing the best I can here.

“Do you win every fight you get into, Austin?” she finally says. “Do you win every game?”

My shoulders drop. She smiles, a sad smile. “For years, I’ve fought a war in my head, so I may be a little biased here,” she continues. “It’s hard to bring people into that war, even if they’re willing allies who want to help. And when you fight alone, sometimes…” She pauses. “It’s hard to win a battle you’re fighting alone.”

Thinking back to the days before Dad died, I can’t remember a single time when he seemed anything less than happy. He always had a grin on his face. He never missed a game. He kissed Momma like the sun shined just for her. He patted me on the back after every loss, stayed up with me every night I wanted to talk stats and teams and colleges. Never once did he ask for help. Never once did I ever think he was less than perfect. If he was depressed, if he needed to talk, I wish he’d known Momma and I were
right there
, ready to listen.

I look back to Marisa, giving her a shaky smile. “I’m gonna say this, and then I think we need to change the subject before I start cryin’ in front of half the town. We don’t ‘put up’ with the people we care about, Marisa. We don’t ‘deal’ with them. We’re just there because we lo—” I clear my throat. “Because we care.
I
care. I’ve got your back, girl. So for the love of all that’s holy, promise me you won’t try fighting alone.”

She swallows audibly, gripping my hand even tighter. It’s unimaginable that two weeks ago, she looked at me with more disdain than I could have fathomed. It broke my damn heart. Now, she’s looking at me with the same gaze as her first day working in the shop. She’s looking at me like I’m everything and the only thing that matters, which is fine because right now, she’s
my
everything.

“I’ll promise if you make me a deal,” she says. “When I say that I’m okay, I want you to look in my eyes, really look. And if you know I’m lying, tell me. Don’t let me lie to you again.”

I nod. “You’ve got a deal.”

And she kisses me. I close my eyes, letting go of her hand to wrap my arm around her shoulders. As she pulls away, my lips tingle, already missing her. She stares at me for a while, like she’s searching for something. She must find what she’s looking for because she smiles.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “It’s crazy. You’ll think I’m downright certifiable.”

She kisses me again, moving onto my lap and straddling me. Not entirely sure where that came from, but there are some things you just don’t question. My pulse pounds as I hold her close. And when she pulls away this time, her smile’s still in place, still as perfect, still as gorgeous.

As she rests her forehead against mine, I grab onto her hips loosely. “Thank you,” she whispers. “For being here. For being terrified and for not running away for good.”

It’s my turn to smile. “Part of being your boyfriend is being a friend. It’s kind of key. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

“I know that now.” Her lips ghost mine, sending shocks to every nerve in my body. “Should we get out of the grass? I’m sure we’ve got an audience by now. Baptist News Network and all that.”

No damn way. Tightening my arms around her, I shake my head. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, remember?”

I don’t care if they’re watching. Nothing else matters but the way my heart is about to crash through my chest and the fact that I’m going to combust if I go one more second without kissing this girl. So I do, because I’m not a fan of combustion.

Screw the Baptist News Network.

Someone behind us clears his throat. Marisa’s lips disappear, and I turn, ready to lay into whoever’s interrupting my reunion, dang it.

But it’s her dad. And her momma. And my momma. Two of the three are smiling. One’s doing the exact opposite, and his daughter’s still sitting in my lap.

I grin. “Hey, Dr. Marlowe.”

He flashes the most effective “you’re so screwed” smirk I’ve ever seen. “Hey, Austin.”

Please don’t kill me
.

Momma just shakes her head, still smiling. “I invited the Marlowes to our house for an early dinner.”

Okay.

She lifts her eyebrows. “So,” she drawls, “you might want to get out of the grass.”

“Getting my daughter off your lap would be a good start, too,” Dr. Marlowe adds.

Dear God, he’s going to kill me.

Marisa chokes back a laugh, but stands. I should probably look away from her dad. Actually, I really should, but I’m pretty sure he’s hypnotizing me with that stare.

Marisa grabs my hand and yanks me to my feet. “I’ll ride with Austin,” she says, tugging me toward the lot. “See you there!”

At least one of us has some sense. I stumble after her, waving to our parents.

The parking lot’s nearly empty as we head to my truck. She swings our hands between us, not letting go for a second. I really, really like having her back already.

I open her door for her. “Tell me more about Maryland. Or was it all Orioles games and flowers?”

“Mostly Orioles games and flowers.” She leans back against the truck, her lips twisting into a tiny smirk. “But there
was
a pretty interesting grocery store visit.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She nods. “I ran into a couple of my old softball buddies.”

Oh. That sucks. I lean against the truck, too, just to be next to her. “I’m guessing they said somethin’?”

Instead of faltering, her smirk grows into a grin. “They cornered me in the ice cream aisle. First of all, major foul for blocking my ice cream. That was their biggest mistake. But then they thought they were being cute by saying, ‘Welcome home, runaway.’ Who even says that?”

My eyebrows scrunch together. Their trash talk is about as bad as Bastard Pitcher’s from today. “Really? That was their best line?”

I toss my keys, which she swipes mid-air. “Right?” she says. “I just said, ‘Bless your hearts,’ grabbed my ice cream, and walked away. I wanted to dump the ice cream on their heads, but, you know, maturity and all that.”

I snort. “You do know ‘bless your heart’ is basically Southern girl code for ‘screw you,’ right?”

“Um, yeah. Which is exactly why I said it.” She tosses the keys back to me. “Hanging out with Hannah and Bri at your games has its perks.”

This girl would make Hannah proud. Heck,
I’m
proud. I move aside, giving her room to climb up. But
instead of closing the door, all I can do is stare, unable to rip my gaze from her. For a while, I was terrified she would never even talk to me again. But now she’s here, and she’s smiling at me, and she’s looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind, which I kind of have. But I’m okay with that.

“I’m glad you’re home,” I tell her.

Her smile widens. “So am I.”

chapter twenty-four

I’ve never been much of a whiner. At least, I don’t think I have, but if I have to hear one more thing about acids and bases, my brain will explode. I don’t care if I have a test tomorrow, and I don’t care if Marisa’s voice is my absolute favorite sound in the world. One more word, and I’m talking brain guts splattered all over her room.

She’s sitting on the foot of her bed, her legs crisscrossed with my Chemistry book in her lap. She pretty much deserves sainthood for all the help she’s given me, but good God, I know this stuff now. I swear. Just make it stop.

I flop back against her pillows and groan.

She clears her throat pointedly. “Strong acids completely transfer their protons to water—”

I roll over and bury my face in one of the pillows. Huh. This smells really good, actually. All citrusy, just like her shampoo.

“—and weak acids only partially dissociate—”

I groan louder.

The book slams closed. “You know, I get the feeling you’re not listening to me,” she says. She kicks me in the ass. Literally. “This test is tomorrow. No time for sleeping breaks.”

I roll onto my back. “I know everything there is to know about acids and bases,” I tell her, propping up on my elbows. She glares. “Babe, your voice is beautiful and angelic and sounds like a heavenly chorus, but if I hear one more word out of that book tonight, I’ll yell.”

She cocks an eyebrow. “Really?” she asks sarcastically. “You know everything?”

I sit up all the way. “Everything. All of it. I know all the things in that there book.”

“You’re so full of crap that I can actually smell it.”

“That’s kind of disgusting.”

She stares at me for a moment with her lips pursed, like she’s trying to decide if I am, in fact, full of crap. Finally, she cracks a smile and says, “All right.” She pulls my study guide sheet from the back of the book. “I’ll quiz you. If you get all my questions right, we’ll stop for the night.”

Fair enough. “And then what?”

“Winner’s choice.”

The girl’s a pro at motivational tactics. I lace my fingers behind my head and lean back against her pillows. Bring it on.

She holds the paper up, shielding her face. “Name three of the most common strong acids,” she says.

Easy. “Hydrochloric acid, hydrobromic acid, sulfuric acid.”

“Next, define a weak base.”

Just as easy. “It’s a chemical base that doesn’t fully ionize in an aqueous solution. Boom.”

She lowers the paper. “Really?”

“I can go all night, Marlowe.”

“Did you forget who you’re talking to?” She crawls up the bed until she’s sitting beside me, then flops back against the pillows and stretches her legs alongside mine. She glances at me out the corner of her eye, her lips twisting into a smirk.

She’s not playing fair. This is distracting, damn it.

“I can go all night, too,” she says. “Plenty of questions on here. Neutral pH is—?”

I drape my arm across her shoulder. “Seven. You could at least try and make it hard.”

She looks back to the paper, and her smirk grows into a grin. She sits up a little straighter. “’Kay. True or false: your tongue is a great indicator as to whether something is an acid or base.”

My jaw drops. “What the hell?”

She bursts out laughing. “I swear, it’s an actual question.”

I snatch the study guide from her and scan the page. Yep. Number eight, talking about tongues and crap. Shaking my head, I hand it back to her. “True. But I know you picked that one to throw me.”

“Well, that’s a gimme since you saw the answer.” She places the guide on her nightstand. “But you passed, you Chemistry genius.” She slides her hand across the back of my neck and pulls me down for a kiss.

Her bedroom door’s wide open. We’re on her bed. And the only light is coming from the lamp on her nightstand. If anyone walked by—

Screw it.

Closing my eyes, I kiss her back, slow and soft and, Lord have mercy, it’s hot in here. She slides down until she’s flat on the bed, giving me room to move on top of her. She tangles her fingers in my hair, holding me to her, not that she really has to.

Footsteps stomp up the stairs. And I’m suddenly on the floor beside the bed.

Ow.

I rub the back of my head, wincing as I sit up. Dr. Marlowe stands in the doorway, his arms crossed as his glare settles on me. “How’s it going in here?”

“Good,” Marisa and I both say, though I’m shocked I’m even conscious.

Her dad flips the light switch, turning on the overhead light. I wince at the sudden brightness. “Interested in that gun collection now, Austin? Because it’d be my pleasure.”

Marisa chucks a pillow across the room. “Bye, Dad.”

He slowly backs into the hallway with his eyes never leaving mine. And only now do I realize my heart’s racing faster than a NASCAR driver.

Rubbing my head again, I look up at Marisa, who’s leaning over the edge of her bed. “You
really
had to throw me off the bed? Really? That was a thing you had to do?”

She holds out her hand. “I’m sorry! I panicked. Are you okay?”

She helps tug me to my feet. I crawl back onto the bed, though that’s probably not the best idea. He didn’t see anything, but her dad’s not stupid. I’m pretty sure he’s cleaning one of those precious shotguns right about now. “This arm’s insured, you know. Coach’ll have your rear for that.”

She shoves me, making me laugh. “So what was winner’s choice?”

It’s a little late for that now. “Well, I
wanted
to drive out to the pond, but now I’m scared of your dad. How painful would my death be if I tried?”