"Why are we both here?" he returns the question. I shrug because I don't know what he’s getting at. I finally gave in to my parents’ plea, and he's trying to make money by setting up a stage, or so it appears. "Have you been avoiding me?" Meaning, have I avoided my window during the mornings he mows our lawn.
"Yes," I answer truthfully.
He releases his hand from around my arm and takes a step back. "I won't keep you from your friends, then."
"They aren't my friends," I remind him.
A soft breeze sweeps between us, carrying the scent of rain along with it. "I might be out of line…" Raine says.
As if a foreshadowing for whatever he might say or do next, the clouds scatter over the starlit sky, darkening the space we're standing in. I can make out the look on his face, but not much else. "How so?"
"I don't know. I guess I want to spend time with you. I want to know who you are. Why you are…I might want another day at the lake."
I laugh silently as small droplets of water fall one by one, and I see a flash of lightning, followed by the rumble of thunder. "I'm the mayor's daughter, remember? I'm nothing but trouble. Aren't those the exact words you said to me that day?"
His fingertips trace up the sides of my arms so gently it hurts, but the ache is covered by the warmth of his rough hands. "I did say that, and it's true, but I saw something in your eyes at that moment in the water that told me you were as desperate to be needed as I am."
"What do you want from me, Raine?" A chill moves through the air, carrying heavier pelts of rain, soaking us more quickly by the minute as the storm moves closer.
"Tomorrow is Saturday," he reminds me. "Your house is the last of my stops for the morning, provided this storm has passed." Raine's arms loop around my back as he pulls me into his wet t-shirt, which feels glued to his hard and defined chest. His chin rests on the top of my head, and my body turns weaker with every passing second. "Come to the lake with me tomorrow." I feel my head shaking, dismissing the idea, even though the very thought has crossed my mind more times than I'd ever admit to.
"We can't be friends, Raine," I tell him truthfully. No one wants much to do with me, and I understand why. I refuse to pretend like that reason doesn't exist. I'll only end up hurt. However, despite the pain in my chest as I tell him this for the second time, part of me would rather put myself through impending heartache just to see what might be.
"Then don't be my friend," he replies with haste.
A nervous and breathless laugh escapes my lungs. "What would we be then?" I'm not sure he heard me over the sound of the heavy rain now hitting the leaves above our heads, but by the look on his face, I don’t think anything I could say would matter much right now.
"You're killing me, Haven," he mutters into my ear. “You just have no idea why I’ve tried so hard to stay away from you.”
I peer up at him, squinting through the rain. With my vision blurred, the proximity of his warm lips doesn't alert me until there isn't a second to process what's happening. His hands slide down my sides, scooping me up, so my legs wrap around his waist, eliminating the foot of height difference between us. With my wet hair draped around us, my lips unfreeze from the icy lock they had been in, and I cup my hands around his face, succumbing to the momentum between his mouth and mine. My heart is aching—pounding inside of my chest, making it hard to breathe. Raine takes a couple of steps backward until he falters against a tree. Our lips part and he's breathing heavily against my mouth, causing unspoken thoughts to bubble within me. I tighten my arms around his neck and drop my forehead to his shoulder. "You aren't scared of me anymore?"
"I'm even more scared of you now," he says. "Attraction is a powerful force, but the pull I feel inside to know every single detail about you is like some kind of internal Armageddon." If words could cause the same sensation as lips against lips, I just heard them—I just felt them. "Loneliness is a drought, Haven, and my life doesn't feel so parched when I'm with you." I feel the meaning of that too.
I curl my fingers around his ear, staring into the depths of his kind eyes. "How could you be so lonely when you have freedom?" I ask, hearing my words come out hoarse through the tightness of my throat and missing breaths I have endured. Why is it that I have been jealous of his life when he seems so envious of mine?
"Freedom? My freedom, Haven, is like standing on a white platform with no walls and no horizon, yet every second longer I live with this freedom, I feel as empty as being contained in a room with enclosure. Space doesn't define our confinement or lack thereof. It just means there is an abundance of loneliness—”
"Haven!" Maryanne is yelling for me, and there's worry in her voice. "Haven, where did you go? Your parents have every single person looking for you! There's a flood warning. We have to get out of here." I knew this was going to happen when I heard the storm made landfall as a Category II hurricane, no matter what the weather forecast said.
Frantically, Raine places me back down on my feet. "Go, now. Get out of here." He gently shoves me away from him. "Please, just go!"
"Where do you live?" I ask him.
He hisses a slur of words, but I only make out, "Don't worry about it. Just go."
I jog backward toward the sound of Maryanne's voice, watching Raine walk deeper into the woods, wondering where's going.
When I come to the end of the trees, Maryanne's ice cold hand grabs mine as she pulls me under an umbrella. "What the hell are you doing in here? Who was that guy?"
"Who?" I ask, playing dumb.
"You're going to get yourself in trouble, girlie. Let's go before your parents call a freaking rescue search to find you."
I turn back as Maryanne continues to pull me away from the trees, just in time to catch a glimpse of Raine sliding down against a tall, thick stump as he runs his hands over his face.
