Henry and me, kissing on the beach.
He releases my hands to skim his palms up my arms, across my shoulders, under my hair. I shiver despite the heat surging through me. He’s very good at this. Attentive, with an underlying urgency that makes me want to crawl into his lap.
Instead, I revel in a rare release of control.
I believe he’ll do right by me.
He draws back, eyes closed, forehead touching mine.
“That was better than last time,” I whisper, basking in the afterglow.
He opens his eyes, mouth stretching into a smile. “I hope so.”
“Had a lot of practice since then?”
“Enough. You?”
“Enough.”
The truth is, I’ve had plenty of practice—throwaway, just-for-fun practice. I’ve kissed both Jayden and Hudson while bombedat parties, along with plenty of other Sugar Bay High boys who aren’t worth remembering. And then there were the tourist kisses, spring break boys and summer boys, which have been some of the best because expectations—theirs and mine—were zilch.
After Henry disappeared three years ago, I quit assuming boys would stick around. I stopped presuming they owed me anything or that they ever wanted more than a few minutes of pleasure. I learned that real boys were nothing like book boys and convinced myself that if I expected disappointment, I would only feel a pinprick of hurt when it inevitably came.
I’ve been fooling myself.
Henry moves in again, and I meet him, rising to my knees, tugging him up with me. He loops his arms around my waist, pulling me against his chest. I spend half a second feeling caged, and like he has a sixth sense, he loosens his hold, dancing his fingertips up my spine. He seems to understand, somehow, how challenging it is for me to give myself over, how tough it is for me to relax. But then I’m melting into him, raking my hands through his hair, running my fingers over the slight scruff of his jaw. He groans, a low rumble in his throat.
I’ve trusted a scant few people in my seventeen years: my mom and dad, Tati sometimes, and Gabi, before.
Now Henry.
Eventually, we do the hard work of pulling apart. We’re both winded and flushed.
“So, second base, then?” he asks, and I laugh.
“Maybe not out here.”
He glances up at the Towers, gridded with windows through which anyone could look down on us. “You think my dad and your sister are still out?”
I check the time. “It’s early. It’d be a bad sign if they weren’t.”
“You want to putt-putt again? Or go swimming?”
“We could go upstairs,” I suggest. “Watch a movie. Or something.”
He grins, catching on to what I mean byor something.
“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s do that.”
Henry
We go to her place. Tati’s not there, thank god.
Piper pulls Netflix up on the living room TV, which is tinycompared to the monstrosity Davis has mounted in his living room, and flanked by loaded bookshelves. She picks a sitcom I’ve never seen, then gives me a questioning look.
I shrug—who gives a fuck?
She hits play, and then we ignore the first two episodes in favor of making out on the couch. It’s possible I’ve died and ascended—being with her is that good.
