Page 82 of The Kiss Countdown

“It gives me perspective. The moon was here when Earth was still forming. She is billions of years old and still there. She can be testy sometimes, and why not? She’s been hit with blow after blow. But she still rises. Still stands strong. She’s truly beautiful, in all her phases.”

His gaze is on me, I feel warm from my head to my toes, and like a miracle, all the fear and doubts are pushed to the back of my mind. While watching Gina try on wedding dresses, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in one, marrying Vincent. It’s so wild. Before, all I wanted to do was throttle him whenever we crossed paths. Now I see—recognize—that it wasn’t annoyance that set me on edge around him. At least, not all annoyance. It always caught me off guard theway my body went into hypervigilance mode when I saw him. No man has ever caused that reaction, and I didn’t know what to do with myself but push him away. Erecting a border around my heart made the most sense, but as I’ve gotten to know him more, it’s dissolved as easily as the walls of a sandcastle under the force of the tide.

I don’t just want these three months with you. I want forever, he said.

And nowIwant forever.

“I want to introduce you to my parents,” I say.

“You do?”

I nod. Before forever can begin, Vincent needs to meet the most important people in my life, and I want to share with them one of the best things to happen to me in a long time.

“I do. That is, if you want to meet them.”

Vincent cradles my cheek in his hand before bending down to kiss my lips. He nuzzles the crook of my neck and inhales like he’s breathing me in. “I’d love to meet your parents.”

I exhale a relieved breath, and my happiness swells so much I can taste it as I run my hand over his shoulder. “Good. They’ll be in town next week.”

“Good.” We kiss again until he pulls back and looks up to the moon. “Did you want to see the Copernicus crater?”

I almost laugh, but for the sake of his ego, I manage to hold myself in check. As much as I’ve been enjoying his teachings, I have my limits. I bunch up his shirt until his abs are bare. “I’m tired of these lessons. It’s time for recess, don’t you think?”

His nostrils flare as my hands travel lower. “Now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure I heard the dismissal bell.”

He picks me up by the waist and strides inside, straight for the bedroom.

I’ve come up with a simple plan. My parents will be in town for a week to check on their house and go to Mom’s doctor’s appointments. I’m meeting with them for lunch first to come clean about everything: That Derrick and I have broken up. That I was fired from Jacob and Johnson after giving them some of the best creative years of my life. They’ll be concerned, but I imagine they’ll also be proud that I’m making a way for myself in the business. And when I tell them about Vincent, whew boy!

Mom and Dad will get an absolute kick out of the fact their daughter, who always had a hate-hate relationship with science in school, is in love with an astronaut.

There I go again.Love.

A giddy smile fights to break loose. It’s like each time I think of him, my brain forges little connections between the wordsVincentandlove, growing stronger and faster each day, where previously the wordlovehas been associated only with Mom, Dad, and Gina.

No doubt, Mom will be dying to meet Vincent, and Dad will have all the questions about Vincent’s favorite football team, so we’re already prepared to have them come to the house for dinner.

While I sit at a table within viewing distance of the door, waiting for them to arrive, a waitress comes up. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“I’ll just have water for now. I’m waiting for two more people to join me.”

She walks away, and my heart pounds with anticipation and trepidation. I haven’t been this nervous to tellthem something since that time in high school I hit Sheldon Miller’s truck while leaving for lunch. At least this confession won’t have me scrubbing every surface in the house for two months, down to the window blinds. But what will my parents’ reaction be once they realize I’ve been lying for so long?

I turn my attention to the door, where a family of four walks in. A man, woman, and two bouncing kids holding electronic tablets. The man looks back, then rushes outside to hold the door open as a tall, lean man pushes a woman seated in a wheelchair through.

Once the door is closed and the sun no longer throws everyone into shadow, I stop breathing. That’smydad pushingmymom in a wheelchair.

Dad spots me right away and makes his way to the table. Running on autopilot, in a near out-of-body trance, I stand up and greet them. I lean in as Dad embraces me, then bend down to hug my mom.

“It’s so good to see you, Mimi,” Mom says as Dad moves one of the chairs to an empty table to make room for her. “Your hair looks beautiful. You’ll have to show me which products you used to get it to curl like that.”

I swallow as I look her over. The media would have you believe that every woman blessed with melanin ages like fine wine. However, no one will ever mistake my mom for anything but her age. She’s always had the strongest spirit I’ve seen, but there’s something almost frail about the way her collarbones stand out. Her skin, the same almond brown as mine, remains a tad dull no matter how much water she drinks. She does, however, have beautiful hair. When stretched, her tight coils reach the middle of her back, though they have more gray than black these days.

The only time she doesn’t tend to her hair is when she’sin a crisis and it’s too painful to move. I’ve always been impatient with my own head, but while I was growing up, it was during those times when I had to help her that I learned how to do hair. Mom would let me give her two-strand twists or gently untangle the mass so it wouldn’t loc while she was unable to care for it.

Is today’s low-maintenance style—a high ponytail wrapped in a scarf—for pure aesthetics, or did she not have the energy to do anything else?

As soon as everyone is situated at the table, the waitress comes back to take drink orders, and I use the time to re-center myself. I’ve seen Mom in a wheelchair before. When she gets discharged from the hospital, for instance. Dad always pushes her down the long corridors since he and the nurses don’t allow her to walk to the car, which Mom hates.

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