God, now I felt super creepy, parked uninvited outside Hannah's house.
But she wanted to meet me. And she missed me. And she did say they have an open door policy, which hopefully didn't expire after midnight.
Only then did it occur to me that Hannah might be asleep. The house was dark. So were most of the other homes on the street. Plus, she'd had a long day.
I thought about Hannah in her bed. Hannah stretched out on her back, sleeping in a cami and thong, her beautiful breasts heaving slowly and her legs crooked apart. Or Hannah on her stomach, her heart-shaped rump in the air.
I could climb over her, wake her with a kiss. Brush my body along hers.
I felt a throb between my legs. I glared down at my cock.
"Hold your fucking horses," I muttered.
God, fuck... was this seriously my life? Stalking a girl I'd met online, parked outside her house at midnight, speaking to my dick?
I flipped down the visor and checked myself in the mirror. I laughed at what I saw.
Though I was freaking out on the inside, on the outside I looked typical: bored, annoyed, and severely impatient. And one hundred percent asshole.
I smirked at my reflection.
"Right," I said. "Got it."
I pulled out my phone and sent Hannah a text.
CHAPTER 8
Hannah
_____
I COULDN'T SLEEP.
I was tired and wired.
How does that work?
I got up at the butt-crack of dawn, took out Wyoming in a marathon drive, and capped the night with a super strong Long Island Iced Tea. I should have been asleep before my head hit the pillow.
But Matt wasn't answering my calls. And then there was the weird encounter outside of the bar. Call me crazy, but as I tossed and turned in bed I began to feel like I had broken my Matt spell with that intense jolt of attraction.
Like I said, call me crazy.
Still, it kept bothering me. There were plenty of good-looking guys at the bar, some of them eyeing me, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I wanted to dance and think about Matt. Matt watching me, Matt touching me, Matt whispering in my ear.
Fuck.
No one ever made me shiver with desire the way Matt did with his voice alone—until a stranger outside a bar made me feel the exact same thing.
So it wasn't something special about Matt. It wasn't Matt and I together, insane chemistry. It was just me being horny. God, I couldn't stand to cheapen that feeling... that feeling I got when Matt's voice faltered with need...
I have to. I can't help it. Hannah... god, do it. Come with me.
I sat up in bed and checked my email. Nothing. I opened Safari. What was that weird phrase Matt said on the phone? Optima... something. He said it was Latin.
I Googled "optima latin phrases."
There it was. Optima dies. Optima dies, prima fugit. The best days are the first to flee.
My eyes began to sting.
Why would he say that? Was it some kind of hint? Had he intended all along to drop me like a bad habit when I reached Colorado? The best days... the first to flee.
Matt said he was scared to have me close. He told me not to make plans. Suddenly, I knew it was over. Whatever it was—our silly flirtation—was over.
I looked at the webpage again. The quote was from Virgil, popularized as an epigraph in My ántonia by Willa Cather.
Huh. Cather. Why did that name sound familiar?
After racking my brain for a few minutes, I Googled "M. Pierce epigraphs."
I knew it. The epigraph to The Silver Cord was a Willa Cather quote: "Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past." And it was from the novel My ántonia. What a weird coincidence.
Did Matt read Virgil or Willa Cather? Or both? He obviously read quite a bit. And given our collaborative story, I knew he liked to write.
My phone chimed and I jumped.
Who the fuck was texting me at 1:00 a.m.?
That was my first thought.
My second thought: please let it be Matt.
Come outside.