Sometimes Moments (Sometimes Moments, #1)(36)

Then she let out a sigh and picked up the plate of untouched food. “I have to go check on the hotel and make sure the storm damage isn’t too bad.”

“Can I come with you?” he asked.

Peyton walked out of her room and into the kitchen. She was surprised when she saw that it was clean. From the noise he’d made, she’d been sure she would have been standing in the middle of a bombsite. The kitchen was immaculate, more so than when she had gone to bed. She set the plate on the counter and faced him.

“I’m just going to survey the hotel and then pick up some paperwork that I left behind. I have to get everything ready for when the staff return on Monday. Sure you want to come?” Peyton asked, reaching for an apple in the fruit bowl. She shined it against her tank top and took a big bite, staring at him.

“I’d love to,” he said. Then he winked.

Peyton rolled her eyes. “Well, I guess I can show you my plans for Oscar and Marissa’s wedding.”

“Sounds good. Meet you here in fifteen? I’ll just go back to my parents’ place and shower. That’s enough time for you?”

Peyton took another bite and shook her head, placing the apple on the bench. She raised three fingers of her left hand and formed an ‘O’ with her right.

“Thirty?”

She swallowed and nodded. “Thirty.”



Peyton hugged the towel as she opened her bedroom door. She hummed along to the song that played through the speakers of her phone. It was June’s song. One that had been Peyton’s favourite. She remembered June singing it by the lake, strumming her guitar. Peyton had been on her way to town when June had called her over. The moment she’d heard it, Peyton had felt like it had been written about her. But what heartbreaking song wasn’t?

She walked to her bed and stared at the Polaroids that sat on the covers. Then she picked up the picture of them sitting on the pier. Callum looked happy, and that’s what was so deceiving about him. He looked happy to be with her, but she wasn’t sure if he really had been. Staring at her former self, Peyton could see the differences from then and now. Seventeen-year-old Peyton had had a twinkle in her eye and a smile that twenty-one-year-old Peyton had forgotten how to make. The teenager had looked carefree and happy and…in love. Present Peyton didn’t know how to be any of those. Slowly, one by one, all of those things had disappeared. Death had become her.

What she missed most was the glow on her face. That was something she’d lacked since Callum had left.

After placing the Polaroid back down with the others, Peyton took a deep breath and walked to the wardrobe. When she set her fingers on the knob, she stared at the promise ring that Graham had given her. She knew deep down that it was a promise they’d break, but in that moment, she wanted the possibility of being someone’s future. But Peyton knew the truth; one woman would make Graham fall desperately in love. It was just a matter of time.

Turning around, she leant on the wooden wardrobe and looked at the diamond. It was beautiful. If she weren’t a backup plan, she’d love it more than she did. She lifted her left hand up and ran the thumb of her right hand over it. Then she stopped her movements and held her breath. She always knew the day would come when she’d take it off, but she hadn’t thought it would be for a long time to come. It was constantly in the back of her mind, but today, it felt right to do so.

A knock on the bedroom door didn’t distract her from the way the ring glittered in the light.

“Peyton, it’s been thirty minutes,” Callum said from the other side of the door.

“Callum,” she called out, her eyes still on the diamond.

“Yeah, Peyton?” The hint of uncertainty in his voice made her heart tense. It was Callum’s being back in town that made her unsure of the decisions she had made since she’d last seen him.

“I’m Graham’s backup plan,” she announced.

Silence.

Peyton counted the seconds that ticked by. When Callum said nothing, she turned her attention away from the ring and looked at her bedroom door. A small intake of air had been taken before she walked towards it. Her footsteps echoed and she had no doubt that Callum could hear them, too. Once she got to the door, she turned around and placed her back against it. The faint sounds of his breathing reached her ears.

“Then he’s an idiot,” Callum said.

Forty-three seconds.

The sadness in his voice made her tense, and she stared at the bedroom window she used to sneak out of.

The neediness in her heart nagged her, wanting to know what kind of choice she was to him. Peyton leant her head back and glared at the ceiling before she turned her head to the side.

“If circumstances were different. If I made you happy and if you loved me back, would I have been your first choice?” she asked into the wood of the door.

There was a slight thump against the door and a sharp inhale of oxygen. “You would have been my only choice, Peyton.”

Peyton shut her eyes and softly said, “If only.”

“If only,” Callum agreed, and that’s when a tear ran down her face. Because those were the two words she had continuously wondered for the last four years. “I’ll wait by the couch for you.”

The sound of retreating footsteps made her heart clench harder. Tears continued to skim down her face, and she wiped them away as quickly as they fell.