He held my hand to his lips. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry I was so harsh when you first started coming around. I didn’t know.” Well, I had. But I’d wanted to avoid the messy feelings.
“I knew there was a risk that you would have forgotten me. I was willing to work hard to get you back.”
We dropped another slot. Only three now until we would get off.
“Why? What’s so special about me?”
“Everything. I’ve known it since the day in the disco room.”
“But what is it aboutus?”
He sat back against the wooden seat. “I’m braver and stronger when I’m near you. I plan ahead. I dream again. My condition becomes just a part of me. I think—nothing can be all bad when I’m with Ava.”
Wow. “I guess you’re going to kiss me, then?”
Tucker grinned. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to do that.”
“I’m not sure I know what I’m doing. Obviously, we’ve kissed before. But I don’t exactly remember how.”
“I like getting to be your first kiss all over again.”
“Well, get it over with. I want to catch up.” I’d seen movies. I knew what to do. I closed my eyes and tilted up my chin, waiting.
For a moment, nothing happened. I was about to open my eyes when Tucker released my hand and drew me closer to him.
When his lips met mine, I almost gasped at the rush of emotion that poured forth. Tears sprung to the corners of my eyes. My belly warmed over. And a deep sense of contentment washed over my entire body.
I relaxed against him, and my lips parted. Our kiss went deeper, our mouths remembering each other in waysI couldn’t have predicted. I clutched the collar of his shirt, wanting him closer. A new, unexpected need shot through me like stars bursting into shimmering sparks.
The wheel lurched forward, and a low voice said, “Step to your right!”
We were at the bottom. Tucker’s eyes met mine. “We’re back,” he said.
I didn’t know if he meant back to the bottom, or back together, or back to where we should have been.
I could only say, “Yes, we are.”
CHAPTER 28
Tucker
Life after the carnival felt miraculous compared to the time we spent apart. I brought Ava to meet Gram, something we hadn’t been able to do in the before times.
Afterward, Gram remarked that Ava seemed very different from how I described her a year ago.
“She is,” I told her. “But whether she dresses in long skirts or all in black, and whether she’s easy-going or intense, she still feels like the same person to me.”
Gram nodded. “We all grow and change. Your grandfather was a different man at age sixty than he was at twenty-five, but our love was the same.”
“Exactly.”
I continued to go see Ava outside the diner. On one of those nights, a couple of weeks after the carnival, she suggested we go to her apartment and cook. She was trying to get back into making her own food.
“Just nothing from when I lived at home,” she said. “Something about tasting those things takes me back to that horrible time.”
“Did you have a lot of variety? It might be hard to avoid it all.”
