The Happy List (Better With You, #1)

by Briar Prescott

If I were a photo, I’d be the generic male figure they stuff in photo frames they sell at the mall that people throw away as soon as they get home.

“Gray?” I blink and my gaze flies to Kai, who’s staring at me with raised brows. By the looks of it, he’s called my name more than once. “Did you freeze? Should I reboot you?” he asks with a laugh.

As a proud driver of the crazy train, I’m all committed to moving this thing along.

I check the ohshitometer. Still nothing. It seems we’re good to go.

Never before has nothing felt so significant. That nothing fills every inch of space between us. Nothing makes the air around us vibrate with unarticulated desires. Nothing is everywhere.

“That’s like saying the sunrise is nice. You’ll get the general gist across, but the person who’s never seen the sunrise will never understand how magnificent it is based on that shitty description,” Gray scoffs. “Your hair isn’t just red. It’s a mix of fire and caramel and cherries, and sometimes when you’re standing in the sun, it almost looks golden. It’s beautiful,” he says. I feel warm all over as he keeps playing with my hair.

As long as I understand that nothing between us is permanent, it’s going to be fine. As long as I can keep fooling myself that I’m not in love, I will not end up with my heart in million tiny pieces.

“You smell like me,” he mumbles as he presses his nose into my neck, half-asleep already. I don’t know what it is about those words, but they fill me with something so enormous that it feels like I’m bursting at the seams. Feelings and realizations vibrate through me, shaking me up like an earthquake.

Inside me, another hope shatters like somebody has thrown a rock at a pane of glass.

in his arms. He holds me so tightly that I can hardly breathe, but it doesn’t matter because everything is bright bursts of happiness around me, and I feel so light and ecstatic that Gray is absolutely right to wrap himself around me like this because otherwise I might float away.

It’s not instant perfection and magic and angel choirs singing. First times rarely are, and it doesn’t matter.