Page 79 of Avenged

I was right back to cussing myself out, my change in topic having completely backfired. If she hadn’t danced since prom, I wondered what else she’d stopped doing. Did that mean dating and sex had been out of the picture as well? She’d said she and her boyfriend, Skipadoodle, had done the deed that night. It made me hate him with a vengeance I was surprised at, but I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like she’d chosen him over me. It wasn’t like I had a need to be jealous, but the thought of anyone touching her creamy skin was enough for me to want to upchuck the tacos we’d just eaten.

Even though I’d already kicked myself for leading her thoughts down a sad path, I still couldn’t help myself from asking what I had to know. “What else haven’t you done since that night?”

She didn’t answer me, but she met my gaze before dropping her eyes to my lips, and I had my answer.

The band’s song went from fast to slow. I grabbed our trash, tossed it in a bin nearby, and then came back to the table to pull her from it. I tugged her into the dancing crowd and wrapped her into my arms. She didn’t resist. In fact, she seemed to draw herself closer once our bodies were aligned, resting her cheek on my chest. She barley reached my shoulders when we were together like this. I ran my hand along her back, meaning it to be reassuring, and instead, finding my entire body coming alive when I encountered no bra through the shirt. I swallowed hard, hand stilling where the bra hooks should have been.

“You’re going to kill me,” I said quietly into her hair.

“What?” She looked up, eyes wide, and I just stared into the blue for a long time.

“You’ve been walking around all day without a bra? Jesus, do you know what that does to a male body?”

She didn’t smile, she just stared, eyes darting once more to my lips and then back up to my eyes. Her look was heated, full of desire, making my organs wake and grow in uncomfortable ways.

Her eyes went back to my lips for what felt like the hundredth time that day, and she stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against mine, tentatively, because she was still thinking. Thinking of all the reasons we shouldn’t do it, and all I wanted was to stop those thoughts and continue kissing her. I stopped dancing, causing her body to collide tighter into mine, and when she went to pull away, I put my hand at the back of her head and held our lips together. Mine going from soft and slow to burning with longing instantly.

I couldn’t help myself from pushing my tongue against those sweet lips that smelled and tasted like the tacos and the sweet tea we’d just had and, strangely, the apple cinnamon and vanilla scents that always surrounded her. She didn’t stop me as my tongue pushed open her lips and explored the inside of her. She met my exploration with her own. It was more than tongues and lips and bodies finding each other. It was lives and souls blending. It was sexy and hot and sweet and innocent all at the same time. It was like the kiss we’d had the day I’d taken her to the doctor, and yet, it also felt like more.

That thought entered my brain and slowed me down. The thought of the doctor and her body which had been through so much. The pain she encountered on a daily basis. And I slowly withdrew my mouth from hers.

I looked down, and her eyes were still closed, as if she was holding on to everything we’d just felt and experienced for one moment more before she opened them to reality. When she finally did, I didn’t see the regret which was normally with her when she’d done something she thought she shouldn’t. Instead, I saw yearning. I saw hope. I saw determination.

My heart flipped over, falling to my stomach and then back to the top of my chest, threatening to escape, clogging my throat, and making it impossible to talk.

“Ferris wheel?” she asked.

My one-tracked male brain took a moment to catch up to her words.

“Ferris wheel?”

She smiled her real smile again. The one I treasured every time I got it. All the memories of her smiles were held in a lockbox inside me so I could pull them back out and watch them on repeat someday. Some day when we weren’t together. When life had drawn us apart like was sure to happen.

“We still have all the ride tickets,” she explained.

I groaned. “Fine, Ferris wheel.”

“Wait. Are you afraid of heights?” she asked.

“Afraid of heights? No. Afraid of some tiny metal seat and a single bar being the only thing between me and plummeting to my death? Maybe.”

She shook her head, but her hand found mine as she led us from the dance floor and toward the rides on the pier. She twined her fingers with mine as we waited in the small queue lined up for the death trap. It wasn’t until we had to climb into our rickety seat that she pulled her hand from mine. She sat down first, and when I joined her, it made our chair rock back and forth. My heart stopped.

The man shut the bar, clicked the button next to him, and we swooshed backward while he loaded the next car. Our seat continued to sway, and I gripped the bar.

Jersey laughed next to me, and I turned my head from the ground disappearing beneath us to her. To the beauty that was the pale vision next to me. “This is funny to you?”

“It’s just…you’re this big, bad Coast Guard, all protective He-man action. So, it’s just strange to see you afraid of a simple machine.”

“We aren’t birds. We don’t have wings. If we fall, there will be nothing to save us.”

“We’re not going to fall. Don’t look at the ground, look out.” She took my chin in her hand and drew it up from the ground so I was looking out at the ocean, and I realized, for the first time, that the skies weren’t blue, and the sun wasn’t shining. I hadn’t really noticed it when I was spending time with someone who was as bright as the sun. And Jersey was exactly that when she let herself come out from behind her shield.

The ocean was rough, and the wind whipping around us was more from the ominous clouds than the ride. The air was hot and humid, but it was also charged with energy, and I regretted ever stepping foot on the ride.

“What the hell are we doing on this thing in a storm?” I croaked out.

She laughed again. “It’s beautiful, right?”

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