Kissing Scarlett was like sending electric currents through my body. Kissing her left me feeling far too happy, and a strange wave of content washed over me.

She took my hand and pulled me inside as her anxious fingers found the keyhole. We pulled off our shoes, and Scarlett kindly poured us both some water.

In the middle of Scarlett asking me what we should do, I hear rustling, and a door slam before Jordyn appears. "Okay, tell me-" she pauses as her gaze finds mine. "Zayn! Hello again,"

Scarlett and Jordyn share a look. Clearly, Jordyn was under the impression that I wasn't here and they'd be able to have "girl talk," or whatever.

I chuckle softly. "Hi, Jordyn,"

"Your mom went to her hotel but asked if you wanted to get lunch with her tomorrow," Jordyn informs Scarlett, grabbing a snack from their pantry.

"Thanks," Scarlett says, pulling out her phone, presumably texting her mother.

"Riley and I are watching a movie if you'd like to join." She says, throwing popcorn into the microwave.

Scarlett and I look at one another, her eyes questioning me. "What are you guys watching?" I ask.

"Some Star Wars movie, I don't know." She shrugs.

Scarlett subtly shakes her head, and I bite my lip to hold a laugh, nodding in agreement. "I think we'll pass," Scarlett says kindly. Her voice is like velvet, soft and hypnotizing.

We make small talk while Jordyn waits for her popcorn. When Scarlett goes to change, Jordyn sits beside me. "So, do you like her?" She questions me, a dangerously serious look on her face.

I scrunch my brows. "Of course. How could I not?"

She rolls her eyes. "She needs someone that's not going to ditch her, okay? I'm only telling you this because she won't. If you're not serious about her, don't give her hope just to leave."

"I have no intention of leaving her any time soon," I say confidently. I almost feel offended. Why is everyone prepared for me to fuck this up somehow?

"Good. Then my work here is done," she smiles, seemingly satisfied. She hops off the bench, grabs her bowl of popcorn, and heads for her bedroom. "Oh, and this conversation didn't happen."

Jordyn disappeared into the hallway, a door slamming shortly after. I wait for a minute, sipping on my water. I have far too much time to think about Scarlett's lips on mine, and it's getting harder to ignore my growing bulge.

I fix myself in my pants when I hear Scarlett walking out. I turn to look at her. She's changed into an oversized t-shirt and some shorts, showing off her toned legs. Her brunette hair is now tied into a messy bun on the top of her head, random strands falling out and framing her face. She's gorgeous—everything about her.

I notice she's holding her leather journal, with our list inside, and she throws it on the counter in front of me.

"We should do number seven," she says softly.

I flip to the page with the list and glance at number seven. Finish a thousand-piece puzzle in one night.

Easy. "Let's do it," I say, getting up from my seat.

"I have a puzzle in the living room. I've been putting it off for weeks because there are so many pieces." She explains, guiding me to her living room. I recognize the couch I drunkenly crashed on.

I move the flower centerpiece to the ground so we can use the large table. Scarlett searches around in a few cabinets before finding the puzzle with a happy cheer. I smile.

"Found it?"

"Yup!" She exclaims. "It's a thousand-piece puzzle of the universe,"

She places the puzzle down on the table, and we glance at the artwork on the packaging, showing us what we'll be putting together. It looks complicated, but definitely not impossible. Our entire solar system is on it, with thousands of stars and details in the background.

"This might take a while," she sighs and pats my shoulder. "I'll go make some coffee."

I peel off the coat of my suit and unbutton the top buttons in an attempt to make myself more comfortable. Luckily my pants aren't too uncomfortable. I take a seat on the couch and start to unpack the puzzle pieces and lay them out.

Three years ago, I would've been drunk with my "friends" in some random frat house. I'm not proud of my younger years, especially the way I treated others. Now I'm sitting here, setting up a fucking puzzle, something I haven't done since I was a child.

Something about her makes me want to be good. Dependable, even. I've never once felt like that in my life. I've always been the slacker; someone people wouldn't rely on for anything. I was always disconnected from others, only ever trusting my brother, but now I feel like that's changing.

I want to be someone Scarlett can trust, and I want her to trust me.

Scarlett walks in with two mugs, both large and steaming aggressively. "You like yours black, right?"

I nod and accept the coffee. "Thanks, beautiful,"

She tries to hide her smile and pink-tinted cheeks, but I catch it and choose not to tease her on it. "We should get started," I say.

"I brought scissors," she waves them at me before cutting open the packages of puzzle pieces. We lay them out across the table, so they're all facing upward. We look for the edge pieces first so we can build the frame.

We put Cartoon Network on in the background and make small talk, but we're both heavily focused on the puzzle. I sneak a look at her every once in a while like a fucking creep, but I can't help it.

She's so immersed with the task at hand that she doesn't even notice, allowing me to analyze the way she bites her lip when she's focusing. The way she leans back to stare at the whole picture when she gets stumped and can't find a piece.

Like I said the first day I met her, everything about her is so goddamn intriguing.

"You know, if you keep staring at me, we won't finish this before sunrise," she jokes, looking at me with flirtatious eyes. Well, this is a side I don't see very often. She's usually so shy with me.

I look at her with challenging eyes. "It's not my fault. You're distracting,"

"Well, get over it. We've got work to do," she says sassily. She turns her attention back to the puzzle, and I laugh evilly.

I don't even think about it. I can't help it. She's too beautiful to resist. I grab the back of her neck and softly pull her back, kissing her softly. Her response is immediate, her soft hands playing with my overgrown curls.

Just as she's about to move into my lap, Jordyn and Riley emerge from the back, loudly laughing about something. We pull apart.

"That's not getting over it," she scolds, rubbing her thumb over her bruised lip. Does she even know what she's doing to me?

"Hey," Jordyn greets. Riley waves while holding Jordyn's hand in the other. "What're you doing?"

"Thousand piece puzzle," Scarlett mumbles, her concentration never breaking.

"We're trying to finish it in one night," I elaborate. She looks at me with a smirk. Have I blown her focus? I'm honored.

"Can we help? I love this crap," Jordyn says enthusiastically. Riley scolds her and whines about wanting to watch another movie. She just yells at him and tells him to sit.

"More the merrier," Scarlett says, but I can tell she's not thrilled about the company.

Riley accepts defeat and stares at the puzzle. "This looks complicated as fuck."

I laugh, shaking my head. "It kind of is. She's going most of it," I point to Scarlett. She's ignoring us, her and Jordyn working together now.

Riley and I just go off into a conversation about cryptocurrency while the girls jumped in to mention how boring we are. Riley just responds with, "you're doing a puzzle at 2 in the morning," and we'd all laugh.

It's weird. I'm a bit older than them, but I feel like I fit right in like a puzzle, and the irony is smacking me in the face.

Eventually, Jordyn got frustrated, and they went back to watch their movie. Somehow Scarlett had found herself fitting perfectly in the crook of my arm, the both of us leaning against the couch. We weren't really working on the puzzle anymore. An episode of Family Guy and another cup of coffee kept us occupied.

Scarlett nudged me every once in a while to make sure I was awake, a smirk finding her lips every time I grunted in pain. Every time she let out a soft laugh, I felt like she was hypnotizing me.

Her head eventually fell onto my shoulder, her hands relaxing in her lap and her eyelids closing. I made sure to stay awake and wake her up in a few minutes—no harm in letting her get a quick nap in.

I tried to keep my eyes on the damn cartoons, but her soft breathing in my ears and the way her small frame fits perfectly in my arms was so fucking distracting. Her strong lavender scent was consuming me, and everything was Scarlett.

What the fuck is happening to me?

I waited ten more minutes before I slowly started to wake her. "Scarlett, c'mon. We gotta finish."

Her eyelids flutter, and she sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes. "What time is it?"

I yawn and stretch my arms. "Nearly four,"

"Crap," she huffs. She yawns too as she faces the puzzle. "We can finish this."

"We only have half of it done, Scarlett," I inform.

She looks at me. "Are you saying I can't finish it before sunrise?"

I raise my brows. "I might be saying that. So what?"

She smirks. "If I finish the puzzle before sunrise, I win."

"And what exactly do you win?" I question, looking into her chocolate eyes.

"Hmm," she pats her lip with her finger, looking around the room. "You tell me a secret."

I just stare at her. Well, fuck. I wasn't expecting her to say that. "What kind of secret, beautiful?"

"Um. I dunno, a good one?" She says shyly.

"Fine, but if I win, you tell me a secret. Deal?" I put my hand out, and she nods, shaking it.

"Deal. Will you at least help with the puzzle?" She frowns.

I roll my eyes. "Fine."

For the next forty minutes, Scarlett was completely silent. Her hands were moving fast, and she was ignoring every word that came out of my mouth. I started working on the older side to stay out of her way.

"I only have a third left, now." She says, cockily smirking as she looks at me.

"Sunrises at 5:45 AM," we both glanced at the clock, seeing the second hand hit 4:43 AM. "An hour left."

"Boom!" Scarlett shouts, her high-pitched celebration knocking me awake. "Done with twenty minutes to spare!"

I watch her do an adorable party dance and then look at the table, seeing the finished puzzle in front of me. "Wow,"

She smiles. "I know, right? I'm amazing. Now, how about that secret?"

We look at one another with challenging eyes. I sigh. "What do you want to know?"

"Anything you want to tell me," she says softly, grabbing my hand and playing with my fingers.

I look down, trying to think of something to tell her. She knows about my father, and I want her to know me, so I think I can tell her about my mother.

"I told you about my Dad, how his arrest basically ruined my family?" I ask, watching her face for a reaction.

She keeps her face still. "Yes," she says, her voice just above a whisper.

"After he was arrested, our family was in the papers and the news for weeks. Everyone was following his trial and everyone knew our family. We lived in a smaller town at the time, too, so it made everything worse." I start explaining.

I pause to look at her. To look at how she'll handle this information. It's a lot to throw on someone. I'm not even entirely sure why I'm telling her.

"My mom already struggled with her mental health, but after this, it all got awful. Rocky was older, so he tried to take care of her, but I was still a kid. I was playing with toys trying to avoid feeling the pain.

"It was the last day of school when I got home and found her passed out in the bathtub with four empty pill bottles next to her. Rocky wasn't home, and my father was in prison, so I frantically tried to wake her. In the end, all my pushing and shouting was useless because the ambulance came, took her away, and she died at the hospital an hour later."

Scarlett's face was pale, and her eyes were wide open. I knew she didn't know what to say, and I didn't expect her to say anything. Being able to open up to someone felt nice. I've never told anyone the truth about my mother's death. Until her.

"I didn't know it then, but she left me a note. She wrote a separate one for Rocky and me, telling us that she made sure we'd be taken care of once she... you know, and that she couldn't take the life of being a criminal's wife anymore. I know that's not completely why, though. She was depressed her entire adult life, but we helped with that. Until we didn't."

Scarlett clenches my hand and moves closer to me, her hand soothingly rubbing my back. "Regardless of what she ended up doing, she loved you guys, and taking her life does not take away from that."

I give her a small smile, avoiding the onslaught of thoughts coming back to me. I don't want sympathy or to see that sad look in her eyes. "Yeah. Well, you got your secret." I laugh.

She smiles, too, but it's a sad smile, and it's one I don't want to see caused by me. "Thank you for trusting me."

We find ourselves wrapped up on her couch in seconds, the exhaustion of the night finally hitting us as we both fall asleep. Her legs are tangled with mine. Her arms wrapped tightly around my torso and her head on my chest. I've never felt so comfortable on a damn couch in my life. That fact alone is enough to help me drift to sleep.