EIGHTY-ONE | TWILIGHT

Atticus

Lily looked beautiful like this: painted in shades of red and orange and gold by the trembling brush of the firelight, one side of her face cast in navy shadow and the other all the brighter for it. She was smiling at him, and there were no reservations in her eyes.

Atticus froze, losing himself in those irises. They were like autumn, he thought, brown and gold and, right now, lit by heat like the curled ends of a crisp orange leaf. He did not dare dip into the depths of her pupils, wide and honest and glittering like the stars above.

She cupped her mulled cider between both hands and blinked up at him. “So?”

His brows pinched together. “So what?”

Her lips twitched. He never wanted this moment to end – chilled by the night air, warmed by the firelight, with Lily beside him, teasing and smiling and speaking to him like – like she liked him.

“I said, ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ In private,” she added, with a slight quirk of her eyebrows.

Atticus could feel the truth