Page 60 of Dallas

The thunder rolls overhead, ominous. I don’t need to be in a fucking swimming hole during a thunderstorm. That’s asking for trouble.

But then, that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? Asking for trouble.

I grit my teeth and I swim toward the shore. I get out, and I collect my clothes. Strip my underwear off, put my jeans on. My skin is slightly soggy, and it’s not the most comfortable thing. But I grimace and pull on my T-shirt. I need to go get dinner. I made the excuse that I couldn’t stick around at my uncle’s place because of dinner, but my head is just so full of so many things, that I didn’t even do that.

I feel like I’m spinning out. Everything I did with her yesterday was wrong.

I don’t know how everything with her can feel so right in so many ways, and I can still be so wrong. I don’t know how I can want to protect her and then also say the kinds of things I said to her yesterday. I don’t understand what she does to me.

When we were kids, our relationship was fraught and intense, yes, but I felt like that was because of the world around us.

Maybe we’re just shaped into fraught and feral things.

Maybe there is no coming back from it. No changing it. Maybe it’s too late for us to become anything better. Maybe it’s too late for us to become anything healthier. Maybe between the two of us, it will always be bad patterns.

But then, I think about us watching Lord of the Rings. Then, I think about the two of us together, at my parents’ dinner table, and when we’re alone, and I think maybe we can’t be entirely broken.

How can anything that feels that good be broken?

I suck in a sharp breath and walk back down the road toward the cabin. The sky opens up, water drops landing on my neck, my shoulder, rolling down my back. The air isthick with heat, and now the smell of rain, the scent of the pine trees soaking in all that much-needed moisture.

I put my head down and let the rain pour over me.

By the time I get back to the cabin, I’m soaked to the bone.

I need to go inside and change, then I need to drive down and get us a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket, or something. But before I reach the porch steps, the door opens, and Sarah comes out.

I stop right where I am, looking up at her, the rain rolling down my face. I see a fire in her eyes. Something determined. Something intense. I see her make a decision. And then she flies down the stairs and up against my body. I catch her, on instinct, wrapping my arms around her waist.

Then she stretches up on her toes, and she kisses me.

Deep and long and slick in the rain. This isn’t a kiss between friends.

She’s changed the rules.

She’s changed everything.

She’s changed me.

Chapter Sixteen

Sarah

My heart is pounding in my ears so loudly that I can’t even hear the rain anymore. I’m dizzy. It’s something that I have only ever experienced when I was terrified before. But I’m not terrified now.

I’mkissinghim.

When I made the decision to do this, about five whole seconds ago, I thought that it would be a relief to finally kiss someone.

But now that it’s happening, I realize that it isn’t about kissing someone at all.

I’m kissing Dallas. That’s what matters.

Dallas. His mouth is on me, his hands holding me steady, his body rock hard in front of me. I put my hands on his cheeks, his skin slick as I slide my thumbs across his cheekbones, bring my hands back around behind his head, and push them through his wet hair. I tilt my head, part mylips, and he growls, pushing his tongue into my mouth, the sweet, slick friction making me tremble.

I’m not a stranger to sexual desire, divorced from others.

I have a vibrator, and I know how to use it. I’ve done a lot of personal reclamation of my body. I spent a lot of time learning to love it, care for it, not be resentful of it, and figure out ways to make it feel good.

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