She tasted of the spearmint gum she had been chewing and something else, something sweet, maybe her chapstick, and I was drunk on it. On her. If I had been standing, I probably would’ve passed out. My knees would’ve given out the moment her lips touched mine.
I feel like I could bust at the seams as we get ready to leave our hotel the next morning. Neither of us brings it up, and I mean, why would we? She thinks it was a practice run, just a friend helping a friend, but it’s all I could think about. On replay in my poor brain. I want to kiss her over and over and over again. I think I could die happily like that.
Yeah, I want that to be the way I go.
I’m so antsy that I can’t even sit still in the hotel room, waiting for Maeve to finish cleaning up before we hit the road, so I sneak down to the lobby to get us some coffee. To clear my head a little bit, so I don’t look like a nutcase. I just need that tugging feeling in my stomach to go away, that yearning to feel her lips on mine again.
After taking my time making her usual, I head back up to the room, coffees in hand. Except I don’t even take the elevator, I walk four floors up the steps as an added measure. Cardio reduces stress levels because it reduces cortisol and releases endorphins, so by the time I get to our floor, I’m already feeling a little bit lighter about the whole situation.
Except when I enter the room, Maeve is stepping out of the bathroom, wrapped in only a towel, one that seems to be a little smaller than the average-sized towel. It barely brushes her mid-thighs, and I find myself gulping loudly as my mouth dries at the sight. Whereas I feel a tightness in my chest, on the precipice of a heart attack, she appears to be unfazed.
“B-Brought you some coffee,” I say, squeezing the cups like they’re a lifeline, and maybe they are. Is it hot in here?
“Ugh.” She hurries over in her towel, her dark eyes lighting up like they normally do when they see coffee. “Iloveyou.”
Can she see the goosebumps that travel down my arms as she says those words? Even though I logically know she doesn’t mean them like that, I can’t stop my body from reacting to it. I shudder lightly once she takes her latte, but I try to cover it up by reaching up to fix my glasses. I watch as she takes a long sip, the lines next to her mouth deepening as she smiles.
“Sorry, I’m not ready,” she says. “I didn’t want to get out of bed.”
“Didn’t sleep good?”
She shakes her head, and from the faraway look that takes over her gaze, I know exactly why she didn’t sleep last night. I’d seen that look almost a million times in my reflection most mornings when I was growing up.
“Nightmares?” I ask quietly.
She nods. “I get them sometimes.”
It’s been nearly eight years since I’ve lived with my mother, and even I still get nightmares from time to time. Trauma does that to a person; sometimes it leaves them with PTSD without them even realizing that’s what they’re experiencing.
“Wake me up next time,” I offer, bringing my coffee up to my lips before adding, “I don’t mind.”
“You need to rest.” She laughs, stepping into the bathroom and leaving the door cracked behind her so we can still talk to each other. “You’ve been driving this whole way.”
“I’m okay.”
“And besides,” her voice echoes through the crack, “it’s not a big deal, seriously.”
Serious enough to keep her up at night, but I don’t say that. Instead, I just perch on the bed, sipping at my coffee quietly as I wait for her to finish getting dressed. The scent of her lotion and perfume hits me when she opens the door again; vanilla and shea butter with a hint of something sweet. She’s wearing a matching set of cozy sweats and a hoodie, and her dark hair is still a little damp at the ends, her face bare of any makeup. She’s so beautiful this way, in her natural state. I mean, she’s beautiful all the time, but there’s something about herthisway that… I don’t know. It makes my stomach do a little flip when I look at her.
“How are you feeling?” she asks me as she slides her sock-covered feet into a pair of slippers, putting in her tiny gold earrings. “You know…after I took your first kiss virginity.”
An airy laugh leaves my lips. “My… Uh, I’m good. Yeah. A-are you?”
“I didn’t have my first kiss virginity taken, Tate,” she teases. “You did. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am,” I nod, “really.”
I am a liar.
I’m not okay, but not in the sense that what happened was a bad thing, at least, not to me. I’m not okay because now that I know what her mouth tastes like, what her lips feel like, I won’t be able to kiss anyone else without thinking about her.
Now that I know her, everything has changed. Every part of me has been altered by her very existence. I could never go back to the guy I was before I met her, nor do I want to.
We’re loaded up and ready to head to San Diego twenty minutes later, only a few hours away from our end destination that is her hometown.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous to meet her family; I was so nervous that my hands got clammy just thinking about it. It was a lot of new people to meet at once, and I’d never been any good at talking to a group of people. I had a hard enough time talking to one person. But I was also excited because I’d never really experienced what Christmas is like when you have a normal family to spend it with.
“Tell me about your family,” I say, ending the comfortable silence that we started our drive with as I glance over at her in the passenger seat, sifting through our road trip snacks we picked up from a gas station.
