Page 93 of Head Under Water

In the silence, we just look at each other, bodies bathed in the moonlight pouring in through the windows. Just under my skin, I buzz with anticipation.

This isn’t the barn. It isn’t a stolen kiss under the guise of anonymity. It isn’t almost.

It’s deliberate. A choice.

“You’re sure?” he asks, and all signs of teasing are gone now. Maybe not entirely—I still see a spark of something playful in his eyes—but it’s threaded with something steady.

It scares me, how much it feels like home. How much he feels like home.

I cup his face, kissing him in answer. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so terrified, so unsure.

“Are you sure?” I ask in return. I’m desperate for his certainty to rub off on me. His confidence that we aren’t about to ruin whatever semblance of a friendship we’ve managed to build recently.

His lips tilt, and there’s an honesty in the depths of his expression that I feel down to my toes. He releases a heavy breath, warm on my lips. “I’ve dreamed of this. So many times. But I need to know you want it. That you’re ready. I need to know this isn’t just me. We can go slow. We can walk away. We can just…go to bed. To sleep.” The words send a lightning bolt of panic down my chest. That’s the last thing I want.

And like that, I know.

I trace a finger up the hard line of his neck, over the shell of his ear. “Somehow, I never pegged the boy who once threw a rock at my window at two in the morning as someone so dead set on doing the right thing.”

“I was aiming for the tree.”

“You’re that bad with your hands? Noted.”

He growls, hooking his fingers through my belt loops and tugging me against him in one swift motion.

“It’s a one-story house. And you cracked the glass,” I remind him, twirling my finger in his dark hair.

His lips twist with a wry grin. “Your mom made me pay for it.” He kisses me again. “Fine, I was aiming for your window.” His fingers tighten around my hips. The pressure is just enough. Just right. “And, for the record, I’m very good with my hands. And happy to prove it.”

Heat pools lower in my stomach, then between my legs. My skin is on fire. I want him so badly it consumes me. So badly it hurts.

I need to keep my head. My words are breathless. Unsteady. “What did…my poor window ever do to you?” I ask, because this is the Will I want.

I need him to keep teasing me, to keep me on my toes.

His thumb brushes hair from my eyes, then returns to my hip. “The girl on the other side of it called me a swamp creature in front of the entire eighth grade.”

A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. I’d almost forgotten about that. My eyes narrow at him, his features cast in the shadows. We really have lived every part of our lives together, haven’t we? There’s so much history in the space between his heart and mine. “How did you remember that?”

He studies my face like I’m a piece of art or a book he doesn’t quite understand. “I remember…”

He swallows, then steps into me, pushing us past the island and against the wall. His hands come to rest next to my head, arms boxing me in.

“Everything about you.” His mouth brushes mine, his words sending sparks through me.

“Oh, yeah?” I tease, lifting my chin as he presses another quick kiss to my lips, my jaw. The curve of my neck. “Like what?”

He hums a laugh, brushing his tongue next to my ear. “Well, back then? How you were bossy and mean and…so goddamn infuriating. How you wore those stupid little belts under your boobs.”

He grins right before I smack his chest, knowing it’s coming. “Those belts were in style.”

“You looked like Santa.”

“And yet you were thinking about my boobs.”

His hand lifts, cupping his palm around my breast. Slowly, his thumb swipes across me. I feel the movement deep in my core. Heat laps at my stomach.

I hook my fingers behind his neck, pulling him close.