Oh.
Okay, so… maybe he wasn’t all bad.
“And then one thing led to another. We got into making YouTube videos together sometimes—I dunno if you’ve ever seen my channel?”
“Just a couple of videos,” I said, which was true.
I’d watched a couple of them a few dozen times, but I always felt guilty doing it, like I was a creep for just wanting to hear Devin’s voice or see him smile when he wasn’t around.
“Right, well… people love the videos we do together,” Devin explained. “So we kept hanging out, and one day he kissed me and I wassoexcited. I’d never kissed a boy before and hewantedme, and it was nice, y’know?”
“I know,” I agreed, grudging. Being wantedwasnice, and it wasn’t as though Devin had been dating Brad to spite me. He didn’t… know. About how I felt.
Because I’d deliberately hidden it.
“In another world we could’ve been best friends,” Devin continued. “Maybe even soulmates.”
“But not in this one?” I double-checked.
Devin shook his head. “Not in this one. You’ve seen how he is. I wish hewasn’t, but… anyway. Doesn’t matter. You’re here to protect me.”
The way Devin said that made happiness roll down my spine like a slinky falling down a flight of stairs.
“Obviously,” I said belatedly. “I think he’s at least alittlescared of me.”
“Hard to imagine anyone being afraid of you,” Devin said. “You’re a sweetheart.”
I swallowed past the lump that sprang up in my throat in response to that, and decided I couldn’t trust myself with a response.
Devin fell silent, the glittery case of his phone sparkling in the sunlight as he played with it. After a few moments he shoved it back in his pocket to watch the scenery go by, the afternoon sun highlighting the pretty angles of his face.
Not that I was looking. I wasdriving. I’d never take my eyes off the road to stare at him.
The sun was just starting to set, and as we crested the hill that led down to the cabin park, with a view over the whole valley beyond and the mountains behind, I couldn’t help slowing the van down.
“Wow,” Devin said quietly as I pulled over to the side of the road, desperate to get a picture of this.
Maybe travel wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.
“The sky was candy luminous,” I murmured, taking the picture I wanted and sending it straight to Aiden.
“What?” Devin asked.
“Uh.” I blinked at him, still caught in the daze of the sunset and the scenery. “It’s, umm. From an E. E. Cummings poem.”
“You read poetry?” Devin asked, voice full of wonder.
Normally, when people asked that, it was with a sneer.
But the wayDevinasked it, like he’d just discovered I could do something incredible, made my heart light up like Christmas.
“Sometimes.” I scratched the back of my neck. If anything, the wonder was more embarrassing than the mocking, but it was agoodkind of embarrassing, the kind that curled up in the pit of my stomach and forced me to bask in the glow of approval.
“I, umm. When I was in college, I took a couple of poetry classes. One was American classics, I got really into Cummings. I like… I like the way he can cut all the bullshit out of language and say something that looks completely nonsensical but you justgetwhat he means. And just now… I got what he meant about the sky.”
Devin looked at me for another second, then looked back at the view ahead.
“I’m not exactly a scholar of classic American poetry,” he said after a moment. “But I thinkIgot what he meant about the sky, too.”
