Kiss and Break Up (Magnolia Cove, #1)(77)

Peggy stilled, a hair elastic dangling from her fingers.

Her face was clean, bare of any makeup, and my chest clenched. With her curls framing her freckle dusted face, she looked like my Peggy once again. “You’re fucking stunning, Freckles.”

Her shoulders drooped, her determined gray eyes softening. “You still need to go.”

“I’m not going until we’ve talked this shit out.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, tying her hair atop her head. “Maybe, eventually, we can go back to being friends. But today’s not that day, okay?”

My heart was about to collapse. “Pegs.”

“No.” She sighed, then bit her lip as her gaze shuttered. “It’s … I don’t want to. I’m sorry.”

“What about this morning?” I sat up, confused and growing angry.

“What about it? You hook up with girls all the time and walk away. This should be no different.”

My heart caved in, and a weightless laugh flew past my dry lips. “Okay, sure.”

Getting up, I snatched my shirt and boots, pulling them on as she watched me.

“I didn’t mean—”

“You did mean it, and it’s true, but you’re forgetting something important here,” I said into her face as I crowded her against the desk.

Her hands flung out, searching for stability among the mess that cluttered the white surface. Her eyes begged, pleaded for me to keep my mouth shut. But I’d kept my mouth shut for far too fucking long when it came to her.

“You’re forgetting that I could never walk away from you. So yeah,” I said, pressing my forehead to hers as I let my fingers find the curves of her hips. “I’ll go. But I love you, and I know you love me too, which means there’s no walking away from this.”

I kissed her nose, felt her trembling exhale on my mouth and inhaled it, then took it with me as I grabbed my jacket, unlocked the door, and left her room.

Peony was in the shower, for which I was grateful, because each step I took drained every reserve I had. There was no way I could manage facing her too.





I’d just walked in the door when my phone beeped. Dad rounded the corner, clad in sweatpants and a gray wifebeater, coffee and phone in hand. “Where’ve you been? You’re grounded.”

“Peggy got wasted and needed rescuing.”

Dad’s brows met, creases furrowing his forehead. “What happened?”

I looked at a text from Jackson.



Emergency skate park meet.



Locking the screen, I slipped my phone away. “Like I said, she got drunk.”

“That’s not like her.” He slurped his coffee, and I tried not to cringe.

“Tell me about it.” I went to move by him. “Hopefully, there won’t be another repeat unless I’m with her.”

I made it halfway down the hall before he spoke again. “You’re still grounded.”

“There’s another emergency.”

“With whom?”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “I don’t know. All I know is it’s an emergency.”

“If you come home stinking of weed, I’ll confiscate your Xbox and phone.”

Church came prancing down the hall, his folded ears twitching as he met my leg and started curling himself around it. “Not to sound like I don’t like having you here and all—”

Dad snorted. “Let’s not waste time with lies.”

“Fine. Why are you home so much all of a sudden?”

At that moment, Mom’s heels clapped down the stairs, heading this way.

Dad actually smiled at her as she used our hallway like her own personal runway. I looked back at her and found a mirrored smile. A real one. Teeth and all.

Ew.

“Okay, so this is fun, but I have places to be.”

“You’re grounded,” Mom said, breezing by me to latch her arm around Dad’s waist.

“What is this? Gang warfare?”

Mom rolled her eyes, then inspected her nails. “So dramatic.”

Dad hummed, taking another sip of coffee. “Wonder where he gets that from?”

Mom and I both glared at him.

He chuckled, then jerked his head. “Go on then. Be home by four. We’re going to dinner.”

“Okay.” I stopped. “Say what?”

Mom’s red lips pursed as she fiddled with the waist of Dad’s sweatpants. “You heard him. Dinner. Where we eat food. Together.”

I blinked, then started backing away before they suggested a trip to Disneyland.

I’d been before, but it was Peggy’s mom and dad who’d taken us, not long before they’d split.

“Four, Dash,” Dad reiterated.

I waved over my head. “What-the fuck-ever.”





Raven and Lars were already there, Raven’s remote-control car doing three sixties in the bowl.

“Didn’t know it was an official car date,” Raven said.

I grunted, sliding under the railing with my own. “Couldn’t be fucked to ride.”

“What’s with the dazed look?”

“My parents.”