He pulls me in again, just before we reach the entrance. His kiss tastes like everything I want. Devotion and yearning, love and lust. The gotta-have-it-or-I’ll-die feeling I read about in romance novels. And magic. Before Noah, I didn’t realize magic had a taste. But now I know it does. It tastes like longing. Fascination. Magnetism. A blend where flavor meets feeling, swirling and mixing until they combine into one powerful experience.
7
Noah
“Arewe ever going to meet this secret girlfriend of yours?” My mom gives me a look.
“Wait, what?” Brody pauses, a bowl of sautéed green beans held in mid-air. I swipe them and add some to the empty spot next to my roasted chicken.
“You have a girlfriend?” Brody roughly grabs for the dish, and a few green beans fly onto the table. “Didn’t you and Kelsey break up two seconds ago?”
“We broke up three weeks ago, but you’d know that if you came around more.”
Brody tucks into his plate instead of responding. I know he’s irritated I haven’t filled him in, but I’ve been spending every minute with Ember that I possibly can. It has been two very glorious weeks since we went on our first date.
“Well, Noah?” Mom has her dark eyes zeroed in on me.
It’s not that I don’t want my family to get to know Ember. It’s more that Ember is important and all-consuming. She has absorbed every part of me. With her quiet understanding and infectious personality, she slipped into my soul. I’ve seen her every night since our first date. Even on the nights she works. Those nights might be my favorite, because she only has fifteen minutes between her shift ending and when her mom wants her home. On those nights, she kisses me with something she calledreckless abandon. I laughed when she said it, and she told me the phrase is cliché, but she finally understood what it felt like.
In a short time, Ember has become my world. I’ve been keeping her to myself because I don’t want to share her. It’s that simple.
“Soon,” I mutter, looking down at my plate.Never, I want to say, even though I know that’s impossible.
“This weekend.” My mom gives me a pointed look. “Saturday dinner. Got it?”
I nod. My stomach knots. My mother loved Kelsey, but she might not feel that way if she knew Kelsey cheated.
Ember and Kelsey couldn’t be more different. Which pretty much guarantees my mom won’t like her.
Fuck.
I lean over my plate and eat quickly, then leave the table as soon as I can manage. I need some air.
I should have known Brody would head straight for me. So much for being alone.
“What are you doing out here?” His voice reaches me before he does. I’m glad it did, too, otherwise I might have pissed myself.
It’s quiet out here, and dark. I’m only a quarter mile from the house, but it’s far enough that the outside lights don’t penetrate the space. The vineyards are in the distance. The grass is overdue for a cut, and the wind makes faint whistling sounds as it zooms through it. On the right side of the property is a line of massive trees, their bare branches outlined in the moonlight. In the light of day I can see the trees have new green leaves that haven’t fully unfurled. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time out here at night, and I’ve never been sure whether to call it eery or peaceful.
Brody slides besides me onto the top of the picnic table.
“Kind of creepy out here at night.” He surveys the scene as he leans sideways and digs into his jacket pocket. After pulling out two beers, he hands one to me. “What’s up, little brother?”
For a moment the only noise is the sound of tops popping.
I shrug and take a drink. My dad’s beer is way better than the crap my friends have at house parties.
“I’m not Mom.” Brody nudges me. “You can talk to me about your girl.”
My mind swirls with thoughts, but none of them make it into a coherent sentence and out of my mouth. How am I supposed to tell my big brother that it’s taken me only two and a half weeks to fall harder for Ember than I ever did for Kelsey? He said it himself at dinner.Didn’t you and Kelsey break up two seconds ago?
“Okay, I’ll talk instead.” Brody sets his can down between us and props his elbows on his knees. Chin resting on an open palm, he looks out at the dark vastness before us. “I met someone too. Alyssa.”
I look at him, surprised. Brody doesn’t do serious. He never has. And I mean never, even though plenty determined girls have tried to change his mind. I’ll never forget the day he stood in my room and told me the cardinal rule of girls: Tell them what they want to hear. He followed it up with: And always please them first. My fourteen-year-old brain wanted to explode.
“Do you like her?” It’s a stupid question, but I’m not sure what to say.
“I love her.”
