Ten minutes before Maddie was due to meet Peter for a drink, she was standing in front of the bathroom mirror in Starbucks, staring at her reflection as she examined her face. A spot was budding beneath the delicate skin of her cheek, the typical redness sure to show soon, and she prodded the area though she knew better.

A couple of times when she was younger, she had picked a spot too many times until she had been left with a scar, two little indents on her left temple. She didn't even notice them anymore, though at the time she had hated herself for not having better sense. Throughout secondary school, Peter had teased her mercilessly once he had heard the story behind the scars, but more than once he had expressed some kind of affection for them.

The door handle moved, someone outside their expressing frustration or inability to read the 'engaged' sign, so Maddie tucked her hair behind her ears and left, giving the woman on the other side an apologetic smile. A cursory glance around the coffee shop confirmed that Peter wasn't there yet and not wanting to take a table without having ordered, Maddie stepped outside into the surprisingly warm sunlight.

Closing her eyes, she leant against a lamppost and folded her arms across her chest as she basked in the warmth on her cheeks. She would need to invest in some suncream soon, she thought, if the sun was going to stay out at all for the summer. It wasn't something she ever really needed to wear in England, the sun rarely strong enough to burn her skin. As a breeze pushed its fingers through her hair, she let out a sigh and allowed her shoulders to slump. That morning she had certainly rolled out of bed on the wrong side, finding irritation in the smallest things.

When her watch ticked over to one minute past one, her face fell into a frown as she watched the second hand tick round and Peter had failed to show up on time. He usually warned her if he thought there was a chance he would be late, but her inbox was empty of texts from him, no indication that he didn't plan to show up on time, or at all. As another four minutes passed, Maddie gritted her teeth a little harder and tightened her folded arms. Peter was now five minutes late with no explanation and though she was sure she should've been concerned, she was only annoyed that she was standing out waiting for someone who might not even turn up.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump and she almost lashed out at the person behind her until she realised it was Peter, smiling that crooked smile.

"Jesus Christ," she muttered. "I nearly elbowed you in the face. Don't do that."

Peter raised his hands in surrender and stepped back but his grin never faded. "Woah, woah," he said, raising an eyebrow at Maddie. "Someone's got a bee under their bonnet."

"You just surprised me," Maddie said as she lowered her defences. Peter dropped his hands and wrapped his arms around her, warm hands on her back, and she couldn't resist softening at the comfort of his touch.

"Sorry I'm late," he said into her hair, his breath tickling her ear. "There was traffic and I had no signal."

"It's fine," Maddie said, her anger drifting away as though it has never been there. Peter had that effect on her, diffusing irritation even if he had caused it. "It's only five minutes."

"I know you like timeliness." He stepped to the side to open the door and Maddie swooned at the small gesture of gentlemanly good will, passing through before he followed her into the coffee shop. "How's life?"

Maddie joined the back of the queue and glanced at him over her shoulder. "You're doing it wrong."

"What?"

"You can't ask me that when we're in the queue else we won't have anything to talk about when we sit down."

Peter laughed and then frowned, his hand moving to Maddie's waist to ease her forward as the queue moved. "That's just ridiculous," he said. "When have we ever run out of things to say?"

Maddie leant back slightly, her shoulder against Peter's chest. They really had never run out of things to say: even when months passed between conversations, they were never awkward.

"I mean it though." He raised one hand, curling a lock of Maddie's hair around his finger. "How's life? You ok?"

"Yeah. Why?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know. Just checking. You seem a little frowny."

Maddie put off the question as she ordered for both of them and handed over cash before Peter could make the same protestations he made every time she paid for him. They tended to take it in turns, rarely just paying for themselves. All or nothing. It was a motto Maddie lived by to some degree.

"It's nothing," she said once she had received her change and moved to the end of the counter. Peter gave her the silence she needed without him prompting her any further. After just a few seconds of quiet, Maddie shook her head to herself. "I just woke up on the wrong side of bed I guess."

Peter squeezed her elbow. As far as gestures went, it was nothing impressive but it put a smile on her face, a new perspective on the day.

"It's a weird phrase," Peter said after a moment. "The wrong side of bed. I mean, my bed's against the wall anyway. But what about couples? Surely if there's a wrong side then one of them always wakes up on it? That seems pretty unfair."

Maddie snorted. "I think you might be taking it a little too literally. It's just a saying."

He moved his hand to her shoulder, pulling her back to him a step and draping his arm around her in a way that made her heart flutter a little harder and the day simultaneously got a little better and a little worse. She was in deep with Peter, and she had no clue what he was thinking.

*

Despite being prime time - lunchtime during the summer holidays - the coffee shop was pretty quiet, and they had a choice of several tables. Drink in hand, Maddie dropped herself down onto a deep sofa that enveloped her and rather than taking the seat opposite, Peter sat beside her with his legs spread. He rested his drink on his knee and leant back in his seat as he let out a long sigh as though he had been on his feet for hours.

"What're you thinking?" he asked, turning his head slightly to look at her. Maddie sipped her refreshingly cold iced drink and glanced over.

"Huh?"

"What's going on in there?" He reached over and tapped her head. "Sure you're alright?"

"Mmhmm," she hummed, taking another sip. "Seriously, I'm fine. I mean it."

Peter's eyebrows pulled into the slightest of frowns and he rested his elbows on his knees. "Bad week?" he asked, persistent in his idea that something was up. Maddie snorted and slurped her drink through a straw.

"Not yet," she said, and Peter's triumph at being right showed only in his deepened frown.

"Huh? Why?"

"I have to have dinner at Ryan's on Friday," she said. Saying her cousin's name made her lip curl and that saddened her, but over the past couple of weeks, she had come to despise someone she previously hadn't cared about at all.

"Is that so bad?"

Maddie gave him a sideways glance, though she had never spent much time sharing her feelings about her cousin with Peter. "Let's just say it's not great. He's such an arsehole. Seriously. I don't get it but he's got some kind of problem with me and I don't know why, but I don't want to have to sit across from him for two hours while our parents talk in a language I hardly understand."

"I didn't realise there's such bad blood between you," Peter said, his words slow and measured as though he considered each one before it left his mouth.

"It's been worse recently and I don't know why." Maddie harrumphed and scowled at her drink. For all that she talked to Peter about, especially since they had been a lot closer over the past couple of weeks, she had never really mentioned her cousin. He had always seemed fairly irrelevant to their conversations.

"In what way?"

Maddie shook her head and ran her thumb up and down the side of her condensation-soaked cup. "Every way. He's rude to me; he treats me like crap and I don't get it. He acts like there's some kind of conspiracy I don't know about."

"That sucks," Peter said, before he flashed Maddie an apologetic half smile. "I mean, I don't really know what to say."

"I know," Maddie said with a flap of her hand. "He's always been a twat but now he's downright atrocious."

Peter lifted a shoulder and let it drop in a hopeless gesture. "I guess I don't really know him anymore."

Maddie frowned, her drink limply resting on her knee. "Huh?"

"Since he quit tennis," he explained, and he reached out one arm to stretch around Maddie's shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I mean, it's not, but it will be." She relaxed against Peter's arm and smiled. "Thanks though, Petey."

*

As the day wore on and the heat increased, the two of them found themselves walking towards the park. Water was a must, both craving the river in which they could dip their feet and the stall from which they could buy a couple of ice creams. Maddie bumped alongside Peter as they headed for the stand, her elbow knocking against his. Every now and then, their fingers brushed and it sent a shivering flutter up and down her spine.

"I'd kill for an ice lolly right now," Peter said as they headed through the gate, a cool breeze following them. On the opposite side of the park, children monkeyed around on the playground while tired parents sat in conversational groups, congregating around pushchairs and toddlers on reigns. Maddie watched the children splashing in the poor excuse for a paddling pool - it was no more than six inches of discoloured water that acted as a meeting place for every leaf that fell.

"Not a Mr Whippy?" she asked, half turning her head to face Peter. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

"Not really my thing. I prefer a Callipo." He dug his wallet out of his back pocket and took from it a five pound note between two fingers. "How much are ice creams these days anyway? I can't remember the last time I had one."

"God knows," Maddie muttered, squinting at the sign outside the window. "Is a Flake 99 still ninety-nine pence? I'm so out of the loop."

Peter laughed. "I feel like it's probably not. I mean, I saw a Freddo for thirty pence the other day so a Flake 99 is probably about three pounds by now." He came to a stop in front of the counter. "One fifty. Not too bad."

With one ice cream, one ice lolly and two bottles of water, Maddie and Peter chose a shady spot within a stone's through of the lazily flowing river. The water was incredibly clear for once, the weeds visible beneath the surface as they swayed with the current and children swung their legs to create ripples.

Maddie plumped down beside Peter, taking her ice cream from it and licking the drips before they reached her hand. That, she remembered, was the inconvenience of a Flake 99 - the constant dripping from ice cream that spilled over its cone. Peter rested back on one elbow and squinted at Maddie.

"You good?" he asked, a grin twitching the corners of his lips at the sight of Maddie trying not to get any of her ice cream on her face. There was already a dollop on her nose and the beginnings of a white moustache.

"Much better," she said. There was something about being around Peter that calmed her spirits, whether it was the way he smiled or how he truly cared, or the fact that he looked at her as though she was the light in his dark.

Every moment that they spent together, the urge to ask him how he felt about her grew stronger and harder to avoid. The question plagued her mind, overriding almost every other thought, especially when she met his gaze and his eyes locked onto hers. Every time he looked at her, she was sure that he knew every thought going on in her mind. Maybe the same thoughts whizzed through his own brain, but she doubted that.

Maddie wasn't sure she could remember the last time the weather had been so good. Her cheeks were pleasantly warm without the sweat that usually slicked her forehead when the sun came out. When she rolled onto her front, the grass was still cool against her cheeks. Beside her, Peter lay on his back with his shirt off and shorts rolled up, his hands behind his head, and she could smell the subtle scent of his deodorant. Whether it was his aftershave or his toothpaste, he always smelled good.

Shifting closer, Maddie rested her ear on his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart.

"Hey," he muttered, his voice thick as though he had been sleeping. The past fifteen minutes of mutual silence suggested that he probably had. He raised his head, his chin touching his chest, to look at Maddie. "You ok?"

"Mmhmm," she hummed, testing the waters with her body pressed against Peter's side. He moved one hand from behind his head to her shoulders, a shift so fluid that Maddie didn't even notice until she felt the warmth of his hand on her arm.

Heartstrings thrumming, she pulled herself up and eyes closed, she kissed Peter as though it was the most normal thing in the world. To many couples, it was, but she still had no idea what to call the relationship. Friends with benefits best summed it up, but she hated the connotations.

Then again, she loved it. She had gone from wanting Peter to needing him, needing her hands in his hair and his body against her, within her. At night, he filled her dreams and fantasies. In the day, he filled her inbox.

Peter held her a little closer, his arm cupped around her, until she pulled away and settled back against his chest.

"You taste like orange."

"That might be the Callipo talking," he said with a chuckle, grinning at the sky. Clear blue, not a cloud in sight. The sun peeked through a clump of trees, soft light dappling the two of them.

As summer drew on, Maddie's freckles grew more prominent, transitioning from a smattering across her cheeks to the rest of her face and over her shoulders, dipping down to her cleavage and dotting her bellybutton. In the bright outdoor light, she examined her arm.

"What're you looking at?" Peter asked, cricking his neck to follow her gaze.

"I'm going to be one big freckle soon," she said, though the pinpricks were barely darker than her skin.

"I love your freckles," he said, taking her hand and turning it over in his before he kissed the back.

There was definitely something there. She knew it, and she was sure that he knew it. Something mutual, a feeling that wasn't going to die away any time soon. But until she built up the courage to ask him, she would have to wonder how many more times he would return her kiss, how often thoughts of her crossed his mind.

*

All good things come to an end. Maddie knew that saying too well, and she felt a fraction of its force when Peter pulled up outside her house, saving her the return bus journey that she had already paid for. Every time he left after they had spent some time together, she felt a dull ache in her belly as though her body had come to rely on him.

Outside her front door, behind which no-one was home, Maddie allowed him to envelop her in his arms and she tucked her head beneath his chin.

"Come in?" she asked, easing him closer to the door, but he resisted.

"I can't," he said with an apologetic grimace, and he jangled his car keys. "I have to pick up my brother."

Maddie's face fell. She had come to assume a result of spending time with Peter, expecting him to follow her to her bedroom for what she knew she wanted. But not today.

"Right now?" She pouted without meaning to, eyebrows pulling together in question.

"Sorry." He tucked Maddie's hair behind her ear. "Some other time, yeah?"

"Ok."

"Text me," he added, patting the front right pocket in which he always kept his phone. When Maddie nodded, he grinned at her and with a quick kiss that hardly gave her time to taste his sweet breath, he jogged down the short path to his car.

Once the front door was open, Peter was gone. Maddie let out a groan of discontent and dragged herself into the house, kicking off her flip-flops before she pulled herself up the stairs by the banister.

Her room was uncharacteristically messy. Clothes lay strewn over her chair and the end of her bed, dirty laundry spilling out of the bag, and she added to that when she pulled off the day's clothes. It wasn't yet five o'clock, the sun still blazing high in the sky, but hot and irritable, she itched to strip down to nothing.

*

Peter filled her mind. His laugh flickered in her imagination, his beam skittering across her mind's eye. Flashes of every night she had spent with him raced through like a slideshow rushing at full speed. Every thumping pulse felt a hundred times faster, every touch of him on her a thousand times hotter.

Her skin sizzled at her own touch, fingertips moving from her waist to her hips as she stood in front of the mirror. It had never been her thing, watching herself, but there was something captivating about seeing her body react to itself. The body that Peter had loved; the skin he had touched; the hair he had gripped in his fist.

She didn't reach for her phone. She didn't need it for once, running on the fuel of desire and experience. She knew how Peter felt, the weight of him on her, the breathless headiness of moving with him.

Her hand was Peter's. Her focus slipped from the mirror before too long, engrossed in her own satisfaction. Stumbling back against her bed, she propped up her pillows in just the right way to arch the small of her back and lift her higher, closer to what she craved.

Nothing left the drawer by her bed. She didn't need it, not today. She alone was enough, her hands and her imagination. Eyes closed, biting down on her lip until she almost drew blood. Her hips and heels ground against the bed, edging and retreating as she teased herself the way Peter did. He did it better, differently, with angles she couldn't recreate, but warmth rushed through her all the same. Her back rose from the mattress, writhing on the sheet as she pushed herself a little further each time.

The abyss grew closer, one that she couldn't wait to reach, but not just yet. She told herself to hold off longer but her hand worked on its own agenda, a choked groan rising up as a door slammed somewhere downstairs. Too late to quell now. Her legs uncontrollably shaking as her pelvis twitched and quivered, Maddie let out a cry that she couldn't hold in.

"Mads? You ok?"

Her father's voice carried up the stairs, sudden fear paralysing her. If she didn't answer fast, he would investigate and find her in a naked post-orgasmic daze.

"I just stubbed my toe," she yelled back, still regaining her breath with every full lung. Blood pounding in her head, she sat up too fast and got to her feet, pulling on the clothes she had just changed out of. Her father was still downstairs, so she ducked into the bathroom to fix her hair and wash her hands.

Bad timing. Something of an anti-climax. Rather than relaxed and relieved, she felt dirty and guilty, as though her father knew what she had been doing and judged her for it.

It just wasn't the same without Peter.

+ - + - +

i'm so sorry it's been so long since i last updated 21NS. i still think about these characters every single day, i just managed to lose the planning page and it put off my motivation a little! luckily, i still have the rest of my planning so you've got plenty to look forward to. hopefully the next update will be within the next two weeks rather than two months! how are you enjoying the story so far? i'm afraid i don't yet have a song for this chapter as all i've listened to for the past week is the 'hamilton' soundtrack and i'm not quite sure the soundtrack to an american revolution musical quite fits this story! i hope you liked this chapter, and i am eternally thankful to everyone still reading this book.

- hen