Page 23 of Our Hearts Knew Better

My hands wrapped around the lit up screen that was ready for my contact information, right under my name.Summer.

I tapped in the numbers without either of us taking our eyes off each other. His were searching again, and I wondered what he was looking for, when he seemed to find it and gave me a smile that sent a thrill through my heart.

I handed over the phone, then inhaled a little gasp as I yanked it back. “Wait.” I had to double check that I got my number right since my mind was lost in Levi.His mind was lost in me too.

His grin widened as I released his phone before his lips pressed back together with a softer stare.

Levi slipped the device that was going to keep us connected in the daylight into the pocket of his shorts as we started forward again. When we reached his bike, I paused while he kicked up the stand, then walked on, my body too psyched to be stilled.

He walked with me, wheeling the bike around so there wasn’t any space between us.

“How’d you know you could ride the handlebars? I didn’t even know that.” He sounded impressed and it wasn’t just his height that had my head held high in my glance at him.

“I read it in a book once.”

“Which book?”

I told him all about my books. That detail of my psyche not even Adam knew yet. Some of my favorites. I told him how books and television were my survival manuals. How I’d learned a lot from reading and observing the hundreds of fictional people I had in my life. A few hundred more than the only real one who taught me next to nothing useful.

At one point, when we were nearing the street to my house, another night coming to an end, it was like the world wanted to lift the sudden sinking feeling in my chest.

A breeze blew strands of my hair across my face, making me realize the pile of frizzy curls was most definitely a rat’s nest from the bike ride.

My fingers were attempting their reflexive taming when Levi leaned into me and murmured, “You look great.”

My hands froze as my cheeks warmed, strands tangled around my knuckles, those words flashing me back to the night we met. I lowered my arms and looked at him with a shaky smile that steadied the moment a streetlight we passed under helped me spy some warmth in his cheeks too.

I hadn’t imagined those words that night. And I didn’t have to imagine them tonight. I didn’t have to imagine them at all.

Iknewthat was what he said, and this time, he made sure I heard him.

Would You Run With Me?

Adam was different the next night I saw him. His gaze was kind of glossed over—when he climbed my trellis and I had to hiss at him to get down again—and all he told me as he ran for the street, without waiting for me, was to grab a swimsuit.

His rush was another rush through me, but there was also a twisting feeling in my stomach as I kept glancing toward my window, where he appeared in one second and vanished the next.

I didn’t own a swimsuit, but Adam left me with no time to think, only do, as I raced around my room on tiptoes to collect a tank top and a pair of old girls’ boxer shorts. They had gotten tight on me, but they were stretchy so still comfortable.

In the car, Adam was extra hurried and unusually quiet. The roads were deserted and we were still between the lines, but he was pushing over the limit. And as my pulse increased with the speedometer, I realized this was another day where he was feeling too much.

I asked him if he wanted Levi instead, not thinking he would answer me, but he said no, easing his foot off the gas like my voice snapped him from his spell.

He needed me.

You’re just what I needed.

When he slid his hand down to the bottom of the wheel, I wrapped mine around his wrist and squeezed. A big sigh released the tension from his body and he slowed his speed some more with a soft crease in his cheek as he glanced at me.

I guessed he’d want to go back to the train, but he passed that area by and pulled up and over near a different grouping of trees.

With my tank top and boxer shorts balled in my hands, and a couple towels clutched in his, I followed him through the mini forest to the beach part of the bay. A gasp parted my lips as I took in its expansive full-frontal beauty in front of me. And it wasnight. So I could only imagine how breathtaking the bay looked under the sun from this viewpoint.

And now I was stirred to find out.

This town loved its lights—like wanderers in the dark were expected here, though Adam and Levi were the only two I’d run into—so a soft glow was draped over this spot, too, showing me the rising cliffs and the rippling water and then the blackness beyond.

The lighthouse was towering from down here, up this close.

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