He says, “If I move my hand, promise you won’t scream?”
I nod, not sure how to feel. Humiliated, mad, maybe scared.
But mostly I’m just happy and in disbelief that he’s here, that he came. That I’m out in the woods, alone with some hot guy in the middle of the night. Nobody would believe it if I told them. He stands close. Tears of relief well behind my eyes, though I hold them back, tension leaving my body and getting replaced with something else, something I can’t name, but that makes my skin flush and my heart beat hard.
“You’re a feisty one,” he says, grinning as he moves his hand. “I like that.”
“I thought you said to meet on the pier,” I say, trying to catch my breath.
He shrugs, says all nonchalant, “I changed my mind. I got tired of waiting.”
It took me longer than expected to get out of the cottage. I think of Daniel, waiting all that time for me, wondering if I was ever going to show or if I was ghosting him. He would have known where to look because he knows which cottage is ours, because he heard Emily and me the other day on the porch. He would have known where to find me. It doesn’t cross my mind to be weirded out by it. Instead, I’m actually flattered and ecstatic. He came looking for me because he wanted to see me. That never happens.
“Sorry it took so long.”
“It’s alright. I would have stayed out here all night if I had to. Anything to see you.”
Anything to see you.
He steps even closer, standing so close now that I feel his shirt against mine, his breath on my skin as he breathes. There is an urgency to this, which makes me think of when Nolan puts lighter fluid on the grill, how it accelerates the fire, makes the flame flare up and makes everything happen faster. Bigger. This is what that feels like. Like someone has doused us with lighter fluid and struck a match. He reaches out, runs the back of a finger down my cheek. There is an actual gleam in his eye, which makes me simultaneously crush hard and wonder if he’s done this before, if he’s hit on other girls at the resort before and taken them to see whatever it is he wants me to see.
I wonder if it matters.
I wonder if I care.
“How long are you here for?” he asks, and when I tell him, he says, “That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Then we have to make the most of it.”
Around us, crickets chirp. A breeze blows through the trees, moving the leaves.
He leans in and asks, “Where are you from, Reese like the candy?”
He smiles and I melt in it, dissolving completely.
“Chicago.”
“You have a boyfriend back home in Chicago?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“No one thinks of me like that.”
He makes a sound under his breath. “I doubt that.”
“No, it’s true. I haven’t had a boyfriend since like fourth grade.”
I want to die. I can’t believe I just said that. I feel stupid, but before I can take it back—say it’s a lie or that I’m kidding or something, tell him Idohave a boyfriend after all—he says, “Then either those guys are intimidated by you because you’re so beautiful, or they’re a bunch of idiots.”
He touches the ends of my hair and my heart actually stops. No one’s ever called me beautiful before, except for maybe Emily saying something like how Icould beso beautiful, if only I dressed different or wore my hair different or didn’t hide myself under so much makeup.
“What did you want to show me?” I ask, because I don’t know how to respond to that, because I don’t know what I’m supposed to say now that he’s said I’m beautiful.Thanksseems lame.No, I’m notis even more pathetic and self-deprecating than everything I’ve already told him, and I don’t have the nerve to tell him he’s beautiful too, though he is, he’s fucking hot. Like Timothée Chalamet hot. Guys as hot as him don’t ever talk to me unless I’m in their way and they need me to move. Most guys don’t like me, not normal guys anyway, only the weirdgamer and cosplay ones, because I’m niceish to them when no one else is. Unlike everyone else, I don’t tell them to fuck off or to kill themselves.
He lets go of my hair, lowers his hand to his side. “I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable.”
