I couldn't remember the last time silence had been uncomfortable between Peyton and me, but it was that night, at least for me. Peyton's composure and command over himself was nothing short of extraordinary, so while he looked at ease, I wouldn't really know what he was really thinking unless he told me.

But sitting shotgun while he drove, I couldn't shake the feeling that he saw through my lies and knew all about Jake. I should've known better, Peyton was the smartest person I knew. I could no more fool him than I could flap my arms and fly to the moon.

But so what if he knew?

I wasn't doing anything wrong. Peyton and I weren't a couple, never were, and you can't cheat on someone you're not in a relationship with. It was a two way street though, I couldn't be mad at him if he was dating Alice either.

What was wrong was me lying to him about my whereabouts for the last three days. And now he was going to apologize. How was I going to make it through this farce?

My hopes that Sonic would be too busy and loud for a proper conversation were dashed quickly as it was all but deserted. One other car idled in the carport, Casey Flores' old Dodge. Miranda was probably in there with him and... yup. Our eyes met through the windshields as we drove passed them. She looked away.

Peyton went to order so I went to the patio and mulled over the seating options.

Right or wrong, if Peyton told me that Alice was his girlfriend, I was going to flip my shit. I always tried to be on my best behavior around him, but I was a southern girl, born and bred. You could only push me so far before my mama's mouth and temper took over. And unlike Peyton, my self-discipline wasn't exactly anything to write home about.

He usually sat right beside me when we ate, but I didn't want to sit next to him that night. I wanted some space so I hopped onto the table. Peyton Bishop would never sit on a table. Then, I waited.

Peyton hesitated when he approached, then took the seat on the bench, right beside my leg. Minutes later, a carhop delivered our food. She was a matronly woman with a super friendly face, frizzy brown hair, and milky white skin that seemed to glow. There was a smudge of mustard on her uniform, right under her name tag that read: Tammy.

"Lord Almighty." She set the food down on the table and smiled big, her eyes crinkling softly at the corners. "Y'all are so beautiful I don't know where to put my eyes!"

Tammy must've been new in town because people who recognized Peyton were intimated by his wealth and didn't like to talk to him. It had always saddened me to see him treated differently.

Peyton smiled politely and Tammy continued to stare at us well beyond a socially appropriate time frame.

"I'll be damned. Y'all look like you walked right off them ads for that store, watchamacallit..." Tammy frowned and snapped her fingers rapidly. "Aycaramba and Fitch. That's it."

I bit down hard on my lip and averted my gaze. Peyton shot me a warning look, then smiled again and thanked Tammy for our food.

She beamed and got in one more long stare before wishing us a good night. "Beautiful couple, just stunning."

Thanks for that, Tammy. Because this wasn't awkward enough.

Peyton ate, but I wasn't hungry at all so I picked at my food until he was done.

"How much longer are you going to make me suffer?" he asked finally.

Layla-before-Jake would've made a snide comment and made him suffer for as long as she'd felt like it. Layla-after-Jake? Not so much.

I'd been so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I had no idea he was reading my silence as anger. So I opened my mouth immediately and told him about the beauty pageant. Peyton seemed a little caught off guard by my subject of choice, but went along with it, asking relevant questions when appropriate.

"You don't think I should do it, do you?"

"You should do it if it's because you want the world to know you're the prettiest girl in Canyon, but I know you're doing it for the money, and you know where I stand on that."

I picked at my cuticles. I didn't want to have that conversation again right now, and I guess he didn't either because he dropped it.

"Don't be angry with me, Layla," he said instead.

"I'm not angry."

He smiled. "You're the worst liar in the world."

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

"About Alice-"

"Peyton," I said, interrupting him. "You don't have to explain her to me, you don't have to explain anything to me."

"Let me."

I shifted uneasily and licked my lip, feeling really uncomfortable. "Okay," I mumbled reluctantly.

"First of all, she's just a friend," he said.

So am I though, aren't I?

"Peyton-"

"Layla, listen."

I sighed.

"She was having family problems and she showed up unannounced. She called me at the airport after she landed and I had to pick her up, I would've done it for any one of my friends. She's nothing more than that to me. I wish I could tell you all the details, but that wouldn't be right. You understand that don't you? But if you want to know, you can ask her yourself. She'll tell you, Alice is..." Peyton wrinkled his nose just a little bit. "Well, she'd tell you, one way or another."

He looked up at me, his handsome face creased with worry that I wouldn't believe him. I did, I think, but that wasn't the point.

I kissed Jake, Peyton.

Looking into Peyton's eyes, it made me want to cry.

"You're still angry," he said softly. "Forgive me. Tell me what I can do to make it better."

He reached out and wrapped his hand around my ankle, rubbing his thumb soothingly across my skin. It worked, it always did, and I felt better.

"There's nothing to forgive, I'm your friend too. I understand."

"Are we?" he asked softly after a long pause.

"Are we what?"

He looked at me, dead on, making my heart skip a beat, then the next one.

"Just friends?" he asked.

My heart thundered back from its break, beating so fast and so hard that it made the neon world around me spin.

Really? Are we finally going to have this conversation? What do you want me to say?

Out of nowhere, I wondered how many girls he's kissed before, and when, and where, and how, and why. Then I wondered what it would be like to kiss Peyton.

He'd kissed me that one time years ago when we first met. But that was a glitch in time, an almost-mirage seeing as how he didn't even remember it. I meant kissing him when he was in his right mind, when he wasn't incapacitated by a near-drowning.

My palms began to sweat.

Quit staring at his mouth.

I grabbed my chili cheese dog and took a giant bite to try and diffuse the static and inject some normalcy back into the situation. Peyton turned his head and looked off into the parking lot.

At that very moment, a sudden gust of wind came up from behind me, whipping my hair into a wild frenzy, picking it up from my back and splaying it all over his golden cheeks. Peyton squinted and blinked, strands of my hair catching on his eyelashes.

I stopped chewing. I meant to apologize and pull my hair off his face, but something in his expression held me arrested, unable to move. Instead of moving away, Peyton parted his lips and allowed the wind to blow my hair into his mouth.

And it was the single most erotic moment of my life.

He loved me. Whether he knew it or not, Peyton Bishop loved me.

And I loved him back, always have, my Peyton, my hopeless dream.

Kiss me right now, and I'm yours.

I meant it, and I was stupid enough to follow through with it. I would apologize to Jake for leading him on, explain everything and beg his forgiveness. And I wouldn't care what Peyton wanted, I would give it to him. If he wanted me to wait forever, I would wait until the day I died. And even dead, long after my bones turned to dust, my soul would wait for him.

Still staring into the empty lot, he absently moved his hand up my leg again, but this time, my skin burned where he touched it, my awareness of him spreading like wildfire all over my body.

You really are something else, you know that Peyton Bishop? How can you turn it on and off like this in the blink of an eye, Master of your universe and everything in it?

He trailed his palm up my calves, up the back of my thighs, then way higher, slipping his fingers beneath my shorts, brushing the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, and all the way up to the juncture where my thighs met... other things.

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?

I still don't know how my eyeballs managed to stay in their sockets. I fully expected them to pop right out, tumble onto the floor, and roll away until they came to rest beside one of the many errant French Fries on the concrete.

My blood pressure sky rocketed, the rushing sound of a bloody ocean deafening in my ears. My heart gave up the good fight and listlessly flip flopped around like a goldfish that'd jumped its bowl.

I was floored. That moment, that look on his face. His hand. My reaction.

If he'd have wanted it, I would've let him have me right there on Sonic's ketchup stained plastic table with Miranda and Casey recording it on their phones for posterity.

Because I tasted desire, his, the true depth of it that night.

He would drown me. Swallow me whole. I would lose myself in him and never be able to find my way out, burn to ashes and scatter into the wind until I simply vanished. And it wasn't because I was younger and less experienced, or because I was poor and he was rich, or any other nonsense like that. It was because I was me, and he was him.

And you knew that, even then, didn't you Peyton?

Finally, the wind blew off and took the moment along with it. Peyton removed his hand from me, and calmly pulled my hair out of his mouth, untangling the fine wisps from his tongue and releasing it.

By then, the chili cheese dog had turned into a disgusting lump of warm, gooey, saliva-soaked mush in my mouth, making my stomach rebel violently against the idea of swallowing it.

"I would've kissed you, you know, if you didn't have your mouth full."

I pushed the glop to the right pocket of my cheek and stared at him.

He squinted up at me, all blue eyes and golden lashes. "It's always bad timing with us isn't it Layla?"

What are you saying Peyton? Because it sounds an awful lot like you're giving me permission to move on.

When I didn't answer, he grinned, annihilating the last of the moment. He held out a napkin, and when he spoke next, he was his usual self, as if none of that ever happened. "Just spit it out, it's disgusting."

I stared him down but he met my gaze evenly, mildly.

Are we sweeping all of it, all of this under the rug like we always do? Go back to how we were like none of it ever happened?

Yes, his eyes told me.

Because I'm on a precipice Peyton, and if I fall, nothing might ever be the same again.

He knew that too. But he turned his face away anyway.

You should've kissed me then, Peyton. You sure would've saved us all a whole lot of heartache.

A/N: VOTE COMMENT SHARE! ^_^