His voice seemed to have dipped lower.
“So that’s just it, huh? You’re going in. Goodbye.”
“Well, yeah, you just…said…You have to go.”
“Man, I can see I’m gonna have to give you as much of an education in how to be in a relationship as I am in all the crazy sex stuff. But that’s cool. That’s okay. We can start here.”
“Start where?”
She looked up at him as she asked, expecting to see that laughter in his eyes. The faint smile on his lips.
And that was when he kissed her. Right in the middle of those lingering memories and still-present doubts, right when she was at her most vulnerable. He just leaned right down and took her face in his two hands, lips pressing so sweetly to hers you would never know what they’d just done. It was almost chaste, that kiss. It was the kind of thing two teenage sweethearts might try at first.
But that made the loveliest sense to her.
Theywereteenage sweethearts.
They just hadn’t known it at the time.
They hadn’t understood what this would be like: all bright and burning and brilliant. He barely did anything beyond that one tender push of his mouth against hers, yet somehow it set her heart pounding in her teeth. Her lips were tingling in all the places where he made contact, and they continued to long after he had pulled away. As though he had tattooed her there with his feelings, she thought, then had to fight to stop herself saying something stupid and gushing and amazed.
Not that it would have mattered if she had. His first word was not a word at all.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.”
“That…”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you…feel that?”
“I felt that.”
He seemed to sag when she admitted it.
With relief, she thought, then wanted to cry.
Doubly so, when he spoke again.
“I think maybe I changed my mind about coming in.”
“That’s probably for the best. I need you to carry me the three feet to my bed.”
“Well I’m screwed then, because I was going to askyouto carryme. You mighthaveto carry me. Feels like my knees just dissolved and ran right down my legs.”
“I want to mock you for being a romantic cliché, but I can’t because the butterflies in my stomach are trying to eat me alive and my heart is about five seconds away from exploding. Seriously, I might need a paramedic. You should call 911. Tell them I’m dying of feelings for someone.”
“Oh, say that again. Say it again only slower, way slower, super, super slow.”
He leaned as he said this, but that only made it harder to do.
Impossible, in fact. All she could do was blush and give excuses.
“I can’t. I’m embarrassed now.”
“That just makes it better. That means you mean it, right? You mean that you have feelings for me.”
