Page 46 of Our Moon
“I will never leave you,” I promise.
“Yeah, you will,” she sobs harder.
I try to lift her chin, and she fights me. Using both hands, I pull her face up to mine. “I will never, ever leave you.” I can see in her eyes the moment she believes me, and I exhale in relief, pulling her tight into me. “God, baby girl. Don’t ever doubt the way I feel about you. You damn near tore my heart out just now. I don’t want to see you like that. So upset? It killed me.”
“I thought you were trying to find a way to stop seeing me,” she hiccupped.
“No, I don’t want to stop seeing you. Not at all. I’m just worried about hurting your family is all. I know they mean the world to you, and they mean the world to me, too. I know that hiding this is going to hurt them, and that makes me upset.”
“It makes me upset, too, Chase. But what else can we do? No one would understand.”
“I know. I don’t know what else we can do. But I do know that I don’t want to let you go.”
“I don’t want to let you go either. I… I think I’m falling in love with you,” she whispers the last part.
I lift her chin and kiss her lips. “I’m already so in love with you.”
She smiles and kisses me again. After a few minutes, I pull away and immediately laugh.
“What’s so funny, Baker?” she asks with her hands on her hips.
“You look like one hot mess,” I tell her.
She stands and walks over to the round mirror above her dresser and gasps. Her hair is sticking up in all different directions and her make-up has run all over her face. She screeches and slaps my arms as she runs past me and out her bedroom door, presumably to the bathroom to wash up.
I lay back on her bed and sigh. That was a close call. But I know she’s only that emotional because all this sneaking around is taking as much of a toll on her as it is me. She’s so close with her family, her parents and her brothers. It has to be killing her to not be able to share this with her mom. They’re practically like sisters, they’re so close. We need to come up with a plan.
I try to think of ways of how we can we tell her family, but before I get too deep into thought, Ally returns to her bedroom, struts right up to me, and sits, facing me, straddling my lap.
“We just had our first fight, Chase. Do you know what that means?”
I can’t speak with her sitting on me, so I shake my head back and forth.
She giggles and wriggles her eyebrows, “It means it’s time to make up.” She leans forward, wraps her arms around my neck and fuses her mouth against mine.
What was it I wanted to do? I can’t think about much of anything anymore.
Chapter Twenty
Things are heating up even more between Ally and me. We still haven’t done more than make out, much to her disappointment. The age difference and secrecy clearly bother me more than her, not that she’s completely unperturbed about it. Anytime I say anything that alludes to it, she gets distant. It’s like she wants to stay in our own little bubble when we’re together and forget the outside world exists. It’s all well and good in theory, but not so much in practice.
It’s a Saturday night and we managed to arrange some alone time. The band doesn’t have a gig because the restaurant we normally play at is closed for renovations this week. Ally managed to convince Alex to askout a girl he’s been eyeing at school, Joey picked up a shift at work, and Trevor is hanging out at home. I told him I had a date, which wasn’t a lie, and Ally said she was going out with Lucy.
I’m taking her out to Mountain Island Lake. I packed a picnic-style dinner, complete with a red and white checkered blanket. We lay on the blanket, feeding each other cheese cubes and grapes, talking and laughing.
It never gets old. Every single day is a brand new day with Ally and times like these, when we get to share real dates, it’s even more amazing. I know how cheesy that sounds, but it’s true. We could share the same story over and over again, we’ve done it, and it’s like hearing it for the first time.
She’s talking about graduation, which is only a month away now, and she’s so animated about it. She has the biggest smile on her face, and she’s moving her hands around as she talks. It’s fascinating, and I can’t get enough.
“Stop staring at me like that, you creeper!” she laughs, throwing a grape at me. It bounces off my nose and falls to the blanket between us.
“Hey now, don’t you waste the fruits of my labor,” I tease. I pick up the grape and pop it in my mouth, grinning at her. “And I thought you like it when I look at you.”
“I do, but it was like you were participating in a one-sided staring contest.”
“It’s because you’re so beautiful I can’t get enough of you,” I tell her.
She sighs dreamily and her eyes cloud over. ‘Swoon,’ I believe is the term. “You’re such a romantic.” She leans forward and gives me a quick peck on the lips, but I surprise her by pulling her down onto me and deepening the kiss. I hold back my groan as she moans in response. She pulls back just enough to look in my eyes and say, “I can’t get enough of you either.”
