Page 54 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

“Come on.” He bends slightly, lowering his mouth so I can smell the mint gum he’s been chewing. “You need to get out.”

“You guys go. I’m good, really.”

“Sure?”

“Totally.”

He eyes me for a second then turns over his shoulder to his friends. “I’ll meet you there.”

They nod, waving at us before it clicks in my head. He’s staying with me. “You don’t have to do this.”

He takes the garbage bag out of my fingers. “You don’t either.”

“Well, I kind of do,” I say with my arms up to demonstrate the almost-empty field.

“You really don’t, Cass.” When I shrug, he continues to throw trash into the bag. “You know when you fly in a plane and the attendants say to put on your oxygen mask before helping someone else do it?”

“Sure.”

He stops with a paper plate in his hand to stare meaningfully at me. I don’t understand, and he lets out a low sigh. “You’ve got to put on your own oxygen mask.”

He’s only trying to help. However, what he doesn’t understand is that if the plane is going down, an oxygen mask isn’t going to help. “I never knew you were so metaphorical.”

“I’m being serious.”

His words set me back, and I’m too embarrassed to look him in the eyes. Gracie rests a few feet away, and I focus on her instead. She doesn’t make me confront things I’m not ready to. “I know you are. And I appreciate it.”

“But…?” he intones, guessing correctly.

“But it’s complicated.”

“Then explain it to me.”

I take a breath and pick up a few pieces of trash. “I didn’t want to do this, but I didn’t want anyone else but me doing it either.”

“I don’t get it,” he says, tying up the bag and setting it aside so we can gather up all the leftover T-shirts and supplies.

“I guess…” I’m not sure I have the words to describe the devotion I have for my brother, and I search the sky until I find it. “I’m protective. Like, you can’t make fun of my brother, only I can…except opposite. You can’t properly talk about my brother or raise money in his name or bury him or…” I glance over to Vince with tears in my eyes.

He immediately puts down the pallet of water and gathers me up in his arms, whispering “sweetheart” against my temple.

I’m becoming dependent on Vince’s soft words and comforting hugs, and I don’t have the will to pull away from him. When I tip my chin up to him, a few inches separate us in height, but it’s easy to rise up and kiss the corner of his mouth. Only a peck, nothing really.

Except, it’s not. It’s everything.

It’s comfort and tenderness and everything sweet.

He blinks at me, as if to collect his bearings, then leans down for another kiss. I accept his mouth fully against mine, not hurried or pushing for more. We’re simply together. There is nowhere else for us to go, nothing else for us to do. The tip of his tongue finds my bottom lip as his hands sink into my hair and twist into my T-shirt, pressing against my back. His feet bracket mine, every part of my body cradled by him.

When I open my mouth, accepting his searching tongue against mine, he lets out a barely audible groan, but it still sends goose bumps up my arms as I wrap them around his neck, forcing both of his hands to my waist, the tips of his fingers rounding over my backside, digging in ever so slightly. Like he holds on to my neck. Like he knows I need something to keep me moored to the earth. To him.

Because I do. I need it.

I need him.

And that’s when I realize what I’m doing, instantly regretting it.

I can’t act like this with him. I can’t accept his kisses and touches when I know what he’ll expect in return. Vince deserves someone who is whole and ready to offer him everything they have.

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