Page 20 of Never Landing

I grinned. “Maybe it’s the magic. It helped you forget. Helped me forget a whole lot more than a pair of ears.”

The sound of his laugh was warm and homey. “Fair point.”

He dropped his hand in his lap, but I wasn’t done yet. I wiggled closer to him, my legs folded on the couch between us.

When I reached out, he didn’t pull away, so I pushed his dark hair back. It wasn’t too long, but it curled at the ends and hid the tops of his ears. They were round and just like normal.

“I didn’t forget you though,” I promised. I wanted him to know it always, that even if he’d come back and hadn’t found me, I’d never stopped missing him.

“I know. I’m really sorry, Peter.”

I shook my head. “Stop saying that.”

“Okay, but I am, so whenever you need to hear it?—”

I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want tothinkabout losing him. “Just don’t leave me behind again?”

He gripped my hands, even as I traced his silly ears. “I won’t.”

I don’t know what came over me then, except that bubbly magic pizza feeling, and how nice it was to hold his hands and have him close and know that I wasn’t too lost and too alone, at least for Everett.

I just—I wanted a piece of that joy I’d felt the night we watched a movie on the floor and ate Cracker Jacks. I wanted a piece of all the years I’d missed out on.

So I kissed him, quick and soft, my face burning hot when I leaned back. “Good,” I said, and I let him go, but only for a very good reason. “Do you want another slice of pizza?”

13

Everett

Kissing.

We’d done it when we were both fourteen, of course. Or maybe I’d been fourteen and he’d been a hundred and fifty. And now he was still...okay, no, he wasn’t still fourteen. But still, something about kissing him felt odd.

I’d had the opportunity, even if I hadn’t really taken it, to kiss dozens, even hundreds of other people. College, especially with art students, was practically one long opportunity to kiss people. And drink. And do various illicit substances.

Peter? He just had me. Clearly the other kids in the woods weren’t big into kissing—and the kids in the woods were something Peter and I were going to have to discuss at some point, since, well...kids didn’t belong in the woods.

Fuck, I was a boring, responsible grownup.

And that was part of the problem, I realized, as I grabbed more pizza for both of us. We’d completely finished one of them, and were working on the second, stuffing ourselves beyond capacity and loving every moment of it.

But the children.

Until Peter understood that children being lured into the woods away from their families was a bad thing, it was going to be hard for me to see him as an adult.

I pressed a finger to my lips, considering him kissing me. It had been chaste and innocent, just like our first kiss, so many years ago.

I hoped it wasn’t me creepily grooming a teenager in an adult’s body.

We were going to have to have a discussion about it, I realized, as much as that was going to be awkward and terrible.

Peter came bouncing into the kitchen after me, DVD in hand, holding it out to me. “Can we watch this one?”

One of my grandmother’s extensive romcom collection. Was he interested in the bright colored cover, or had something else drawn him to it? Well, there was no reason to say no. It was a cute enough movie, and frankly, I was going to have a hard time saying no to anything Peter wanted for a while.

Possibly ever.

No, I hadn’t abandoned him on purpose. I never would have done that. I didn’t bear fault in the situation. If anyone did, and I wasn’t sure anyone did, it was my parents, for forcing me to leave even when I wanted to stay and my grandmother offered to let me.

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