Every part of my body is on fire at the sound of his words. I want to swoon right now, but if I value my life at all, and perhaps my dignity, I have to keep treading water. I want to kiss him more than anything else, but this isn’t the right setting. We are skinny dipping in the deeper part of the lake for crying out loud! Instead of doing either of those things, I find myself frozen.
He likes me!How long has he felt this way? How long have we felt this way for each other and stepped around the issue because we were scared to ruin our friendship? How long would it have taken us to finally find this out if I hadn’t said something to him just now?
“Em? Say something, please,” Andrew implores.
I swallow. Even with him laying his feelings out like that, it’s still hard to cross that threshold. It won’t be easy to go back to the way things were once I do. I suppose it already won’t be after Andrew’s confession. I inhale and exhale. Here goes nothing.
“I feel the same way.” I watch the wild smile spreadacross his face. Suddenly, the words I have left to say become easy. “I’ve felt this way about you for as long as I can remember, you idiot.” I laugh. “You are this ray of sunshine in my life. I feel comfortable just being myself around you, but there’s also something about being with you that makes me want to do everything I can to become an even better person. Somehow you make that so easy to do. I don’t know where we go from here, but I hope there’s some place for us to go because after all this time—” I stop, unsure what else to say, breathless from the combination of the last five minutes and still treading water.
“I think we can start by getting out of this water and getting our clothes back on because all I want to do right now is kiss you, but I need to get these groceries back to my mom. She’s already going to whoop my ass for taking so long.” He chuckles. “Besides, I’m still a gentleman.” He nods toward my naked body.
A smile cracks across my face as I scootch away from him a little bit. “Who’s getting out first?”
“You can go, and I’ll watch from here.”
My jaw drops. “What? Absolutely not! What happened to being a gentleman?”
He bursts into laughter. “I’m a gentleman, but I’m not blind. Seeing you in a bathing suitkillsme.” At the instant coloring of my cheeks, he quickly adds, “You can still go first, but I promise I will turn away.”
My pounding heart settles as he promptly turns away from the shore. I find my clothes and get dressed.
Getting back to the road was no easy feat. We didn’t talk much, too preoccupied with our thoughts and our attempt to make it back to the truck in one piece.
Now sitting in the passenger seat, I debate breaking the silence between us. “After both hiding our feelings for so long, Idon’t know what to do once they’re out there. Now what?” I try to make it sound like I’m teasing, but underneath my façade, I’m panicking a little.
He peers over at me for a moment before returning his eyes to the road. “Listen, we can’t let things be weird between us now. Nothing has changed because we both had the same feelings for each other before we shared them out loud.”
I shake my head, agreeing. He’s right. There’s no reason for anything to feel different. My courage comes back. “Can I play ‘Porch Swing Angel’for us again? I have it on Spotify if I can connect to your truck.”
“I’d like that.” He clicks a few buttons on the screen in the center of his truck. “It should be ready to connect to your Bluetooth.”
I play the song, and it takes on a whole new meaning. I’m not listening to the same parts as before quite so much because I’m no longer burying my feelings for Andrew. Now, I’m hearing the parts that unravel the love story.
This song is poetry. I catch Andrew humming along, reveling in the moment as much as I am. I can’t help the smile that blooms on my face at the sight of it.
The song ends, and I put on some random song from my playlist to get us through the rest of the drive. Andrew immediately twists the dial to turn the volume down.
“Hey! I was listening to that.”
He smirks. “One of us needs to get a porch swing. It sounds romantic as hell.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “You’re such a dork.”
“I’m serious,” he insists. “Then we will be the perfect embodiment of that song. It can be our song.”
My lips curve at the thought of us having a song together, even if it feels a little cheesy. Andrew interrupts my thoughts. “I have something to talk with you about.”
I give him aweary look. “Okay.”
He grabs my hand, resting on the center console. “Relax. It’s nothing bad.” He squeezes my hand. I realize this is a completely normal action from him, but it feels immensely different now that we have professed our feelings for one another. His hand lingers longer than normal, not letting go as he continues. “I want to take you on a date. I know we went to the bookstore and got ice cream a week ago, but I want to take you out to do something we haven’t done before and be able to call it a date.”
I feel the squeeze of giddiness in my chest that gradually bubbles up and shows in my face as I grin like a total idiot. “Yes…Yes, let’s do that! I’d like that.”
He returns my lame grin with a goofy smile of his own, as if he can’t contain his joy either. He collects himself and responds. “How about tomorrow night? I’d do it tonight, but I have to be at the dinner my parents are hosting tonight. I can pick you up at five tomorrow.”
“That sounds great. What’d you have in mind?”
We pull into the Martins’ driveway, and he pulls out his key after killing the engine. “That, sweet Em, is for me to figure out.”
