Page 202 of Where We Stay

I kissed her, carried her upstairs and told her she could ask me again when she was sober.

She called me annoyingly responsible before getting both feet stuck in the same pajama leg.

I’m still laughing about it.

Blair makes a protesting noise when I try to move.

“No.”

I look down at her, but her eyes remain closed. “No?”

“Stay.” She tightens her arm around me and tries to pull me back down.

“Pen will be getting dropped off soon.”

“Tell her it’s illegal to wake people on Saturdays.”

A laugh slips out of me. “I don’t think she’ll buy that.”

Blair sighs into my chest. “Make it believable.”

I shake my head and carefully slide out from beneath her. The second I’m gone, she steals my pillow and curls her entire body around it.

“Traitor,” she mumbles.

“You won’t even remember this conversation.”

“I remember everything.”

I lean against the doorframe. “You asked me last night if fish get thirsty.”

One eye cracks open. “They might.”

Jesus Christ.

I lean down and kiss her forehead. “Go back to sleep, baby.”

She hums with satisfaction. “Love you.”

It’s quiet, sleepy and barely formed, but it still hits me directly in the fucking chest.

“Love you too.”

I pull the bedroom door mostly closed behind me and head downstairs. I manage to finish half a coffee before someone knocks on the front door.

When I open it, Dad is standing on the porch with Aspen beside him.

“Morning, son,” he says.

“Morning—”

Aspen barrels past me before I can finish, running through the house like she’s part of a buffalo stampede.

“Morning, Daddy!” she yells.

So much for keeping the house quiet.

“Thanks for bringing her home,” I tell Dad.