“This year’s big one, I stayed in a Rajasthani tent inPortugal.Went to the beach, took surfing lessons, sucked at it, but it wasfun.Mostly, I walked around the lake where the tent was, hiked in the woodthere, and hung with the other people staying at the site or chilled outside mytent by myself and read.”
“Hang on a second, you went alone to stay in a tent inPortugal?”
“Yeah,” she said, not like it was an answer to his question,but like she was talking to herself.This would be explained when she finished,“Dad is gonna dig you.”
She wasn’t fifteen.
He had to chill.
Still.
She took over his hand, pressed her thumb in the center ofhis palm and remarked, “They rent Harleys pretty much everywhere, you know.”
He had his other arm resting on her midriff, but when shesaid that, he moved it to wrap it around her upper chest and then used it totuck her closer.
She pressed harder into his palm and said, “I want you tospend the night, but I don’twannafuck.I just wantyou beside me.And I want to wake up next to you.Will you stay?”
“Fuck yes.”
She curled her fingers around his hand and held on.
“What you said about me being your person—” he started.
She cut him off.
“It just is, Jagger, no pressure.Seriously.It just is andyou can just let it be that.It’s cool.”
“No, it’s that…I think you’re my person too.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Being yours feels good.And I know it’s fucked, because itdoesn’t make sense, but I think you being mine freaks me.”
“I get that.”
He was surprised, because he did not.
“You do?”
She adjusted, letting his hand go but wrapping the fingersof both of hers around his forearm at her chest and tipping her head way backto catch his eyes.
He helped by tucking his chin in to catch hers.
“Our disconnect, seeing you around, but you didn’t come tome, and you were mine, you know?That hurt.It hurt a lot.And I didn’t get itat first.I mean, I didn’t even know you.Why did it hurt so much?But it did.And that freaked me too.”
Fuck.
He slid his free hand up her cheekbone, gliding his fingersover her hair at the side of her head.
“Okay, maybe I was being a baby,” he admitted.
“We both were,” she replied.“This is big, and we know it.It makes it scary, and we understand that.You can’t have this and lose it.Youcan’t get it and then fuck it up.So our response was to back away from it atevery opportunity.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, because they for sure did that.
He felt the big breath she took.
And then she said, “I’m glad you quit backing away.”
