Chapter 194
Summer's POV
"You wanted me to explain it a few more times?" His smile widened, genuine amusement chasing the exhaustion off his face. He looked younger when he smiled like that—more like the boy I'd fallen for and less like the one carrying the whole world on his shoulders.
I bit my lip. "Maybe."
He laughed—low and warm and surprised, the kind of laugh I hadn't heard since before the fight.
"Next time you want me to stay longer," he said, leaning in until his breath brushed my cheek, "just say so. You're a terrible actress."
"Excuse me, I'm an excellent actress. You believed me for at least thirty seconds."
"I believed you for zero seconds." He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers grazing my jaw. "You got problem three right in under a minute. Then suddenly forgot what velocity means."
I couldn't help the grin. "Maybe velocity is just really confusing."
"Mm-hm." His eyes held mine, dark and soft and full of something that felt like forgiveness.
From her corner of the room, Lily was watching us with a knowing smile, her small fingers adjusting the thin beige tube of her hearing aid where it curved behind her ear. The motion was automatic, habitual—she did it whenever she wanted to make sure she caught everything. The spell between Kieran and me broke gently as he glanced over at his sister, and his hand found mine under the table like it always did, his thumb tracing a slow circle on my knuckle before he let go.
We spent the next hour actually working through problems. He caught me faking confusion twice more, calling me out each time with that same half-exasperated, half-fond look that made me want to kiss the annoyance right off his face. By noon, my physics homework was done, my hand was cramping, and the distance between us felt smaller than it had in weeks.
"Lunch?" I closed my textbook, then reached over and tapped Lily's shoulder gently to get her attention before speaking. She looked up from her drawing, and I made sure she could see my face clearly. "My treat. There's a Shake Shack two blocks down, and before you say no—" I held up a hand toward Kieran. "Lily looks like she's about to eat her own crayon."
Lily's eyes widened indignantly as she read my lips. "I was not!" she protested, her voice carrying that slight flatness that came from not being able to monitor her own volume perfectly. "But also—can we? Please, Kieran?"
He looked between us, and I watched the refusal form and die on his lips. We'd been doing this dance since everything happened—him resisting anything that felt like someone spending money on him, me pretending I didn't notice. The tutoring arrangement had given him some breathing room, but I knew that money was earmarked for Lily's cochlear implant deposit, untouchable as a sacred fund.
"Fine," he said. "But I'm paying."
"We'll see," I said, already gathering my things.
Outside, the July sun bore down without mercy. The asphalt radiated heat in visible waves, and the air was thick enough to chew. I could feel my hair frizzing the second we stepped out. Kieran glanced down at me, then pulled my hand out of where I'd been fanning myself and laced his fingers through mine. His palm was damp and hot against mine—we'd both be sweating through this in about thirty seconds—but I didn't care. I squeezed. He squeezed back.
Lily walked on his other side, staying close to Kieran's left where she could see his face when he spoke. She chattered about a kid in her art class who ate glue, occasionally tugging Kieran's sleeve to point at a dog sprawled flat on the shaded concrete or a popsicle cart on the corner. He bent down to hear her each time, patient and serious, turning to face her so she could read his lips, like her observations deserved the same attention as a physics lecture.
"You're doing it again," he said, not looking at me.
"Doing what?"
"The look."
"I don't have a look."
"You absolutely have a look." He cut his eyes at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. "It's the same look you give the dessert case at Levain."
"Wow. Comparing yourself to a cookie. That's bold."
"Am I wrong?"
I bumped his shoulder. "You're insufferable is what you are."
He brought our joined hands up and pressed a quick kiss to my knuckles—casual, automatic, like he'd done it a thousand times.
My heart did something stupid. I let it.