Page 99 of No One But Us

He walks out the front door, slamming it so hard the windowsshake.

Ginny turns to us in shock. “What the hell is wrong with him? Heneveracts likethat.”

I remember the time James practically ran out of the kitchen after we first kissed, and I find myself smiling the same way Max did all summer every time James lost hisshit.

“Yes,” I reply. “Isn’t thatinteresting?”

Chapter 60

JAMES

I told Ginny,after that phone call with my father weeks ago, that my suspicions about him and Kelly Evans were correct. I’d rather not have told her, except I know my sister. It wasn’t the kind of thing she was going to let go of without knowing for certain. She was angry, but she came to her senses eventually and recognized who should be heldresponsible.

I wish to God I could say the same of my mother. She blamed Elle the night I went to Connecticut, and she continues to blame her to this day. I’m pretty sure she’s going to land herself in the hospital again. And when it happens, I’m going to feel terrible, but I’m not losing Elle because of the people my parents have become. They got to make their own choices at my age, and I deserve that muchtoo.

“What I don’t understand,” muses Elle one day, “is why you had to agree to law school in order for your parents to help me. You said yourself it was easy forthem.”

This is the point where I should tell her. If we stay together, and I’m 99.9 percent certain we will, I’ll eventually have to. But right now, with her eyes glittering in the sun and her wide mouth about to stretch into a smile, I cannot. She’s had so few truly carefree moments this summer. I want to give her just a few more, for as long as Ican.

Chapter 61

ELLE

Our last fewdays together are bittersweet. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been, as long as I can stave off the pressing sadness of leaving James. In spite of the fact that he’s deferred the FBI, he’s happy too. I’ve never seen him sorelaxed.

I feel it coming, though, our impending separation. It pops into our conversations with increasing frequency. And as much as the distance bothers him, James is far more troubled by the fact that Ryan will be at Cornell with me all year, while he isnot.

“You know he’s going to be writing you songs and shit,” James grouses one day, looking even more glum than his wordsindicate.

“You act like he’s some kind of drug I can’t resist,” I tell him, plopping down onto his lap and kissing his neck. I press my thumb to the lines in his furrowed brow. “We’ll only be four hours apart. Besides, I have more to worry about with Allison than you do withRyan.”

“WithAllison?” he says with a laugh. “Now you’re just making shitup.”

“She’s evil,” I insist. “Like, soap-opera evil. I can totally see her drugging you and getting herself knocked up to trap you intomarriage.”

“Never,” he says. “I’m going to suffer through the next year and stay a million miles fromher—”

“And all other girls,” Iinterrupt.

“And all other girls,” he continues. “And next summer we’ll come back here and laugh about the agony you put me through allsummer.”

“Agony I putyouthrough?” I laugh. “What about my agony, Mr. ‘Elle is tooyoung’?”

He continues as if I haven’t spoken. “And since we’ll have the whole house to ourselves, you can spend months and months making it up tome.”

He kisses me, and I think of all of my imagined futures, and his. The days and months and years each of us has spent working toward things that may no longer happen. But when James describes our future together, it doesn’t have the same ephemeral quality my other dreams had. It’s real, as solid as the memory of something I’ve already lived through, as palpable as the thing that’s tied me to him since I waschild.

“We’ll have to invite Max and Ginny,” I tease. “They’ll definitely be a couple bythen.”

He shudders. “You’re destroying myfantasy.”

“I think maybe they’d be perfect together,” Iargue.

“I really need you to stop talking,” heinsists.

“But seriously, James, don’t youthink—”

His mouth closes over mine as he stands, scooping me up as he heads for hisroom.

I grin. “What are youdoing?”

“Shutting you up before I require years of therapy,” he says. “You forced myhand.”

“I’d apologize…” I sigh happily as the door shuts behind us. “But I’m not reallysorry.”

“Yes,” he says as he throws me on the bed and whips off his shirt. “I didn’t figure youwere.”

THEEND