Chapter 29

Marie's POV

His thumb keeps moving along my palm, and neither of us says a single thing about it. The sky's started doing something pale and gray at the edges by now. We walked and talked the whole night, somehow, without either of us noticing the hours actually passing.

"We should head back," I say, picking at a blade of grass with my free hand. "Mom wanted to do — centerpieces today. Or napkins. Something."

Dean turns my hand over and presses his mouth to my palm.

"Mm," is all he says.

"There's a seating thing too." My voice comes out less steady than I mean it to. "Cousins. Can't sit near — other cousins."

"Mm-hm."

He kisses my wrist next, unhurried, and I lose the thread completely for a second, staring at nothing.

"And flowers. Peonies. Mom wants — she wants peonies, and I keep saying, that season, it's going to—"

His mouth