‘You can be whoever you want to be.’
He moves me back, discarding his own uneaten food, so that I’m lying on the smooth rock, and then he’s over me, holding himself up, kissing me. I wrap my legs and my arms around him as he lowers himself on top of me, the two of us as primal as Pan might want us to be.
‘You drive me crazy, Will.’
‘Isn’t that a Britney lyric?’
‘Shut up,’ Sam laughs, his lips brushing mine. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I do.’ I reach for his lips with mine. He tastes sweet, smells like caramel. Feeling his weight on me is like wrapping myself in a blanket after a winter day. ‘And I want you.’
We still haven’t gone official, what with all my drama. We’re unnamed, like his coffee shop.
‘Sam.’
‘Yes.’
He hovers over my neck, where he’d been about to kiss, but now he looks at me, so close I can count the freckles on his face.
‘We should talk.’
‘Oh.’
He moves aside, lying next to me, and I worry I’ve broken the spell.
‘About us.’
‘Right.’
Yikes.
Why can’t I do this?
Icando this.
The new me.
‘I think I want to be your boyfriend.’
I look at him, trying to gauge his reaction. Surely it should be okay after what he said? But that was days ago now. He’s seen the drama I bring to the function. What if he’s over it, over me, already?
He beams, just as the sunlight finds its way into the cave. No wolves. Just Sam and I.
‘You do?’
‘I do,’ I say, trying hard not to think of wedding nuptials. ‘I want to be your boyfriend.’
‘Myactualboyfriend?’
‘Youractualboyfriend. And I know you’re busy with your shop. I know you’ve not had much luck with anyone serious. But know that’s precisely the reason I’m going to stay, because I’m punching, and I’m okay with that if you are.’
He rests his head on my shoulder, his arm wrapping around me.
‘I want to be your boyfriend,’ he says.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, Will,’ Sam says. ‘Really. When I’m with you, my loneliness ain’t killing me no more.’
