Page 19 of Summertime Hexy
“She’s reckless.”
“She cares.”
“She throws glitter.”
“She holds the younger kids' hands when they cry and doesn’t make a big deal out of it.”
I grit my teeth. “You’re eight.”
“I’m observant.”
Milo sets the jar down gently. The fireflies inside buzz and swirl like tiny orbiting stars.
“I’ve seen you watching her,” he says. “You get all weird. Not, like, creepy weird. Just… tense. Like you’re about to run or growl or maybe dramatically declare you have no emotions even though we both know that’s a lie.”
“I don’t growl,” I say.
He snorts. “Youdogrowl. You also do that thing with your voice when you talk to her. Low and rumbly. Like you’re in a supernatural romance podcast and about to kiss someone against a bookshelf.”
I stare at him, horrified.
“Anyway,” he continues, blithely unaware of my internal implosion. “You should kiss her already.”
I don’t respond.
Mostly because my entire brain has short-circuited.
“She’d kiss you back, you know,” he adds, scooping his jar back up. “Even if you’re ancient and weird.”
Then he trots off like he hasn’t just detonated a verbal bomb directly over my chest.
I stand there for another minute.
Two.
Maybe five.
I shouldn’t care what a kid thinks. I shouldn’t care whatanyonethinks. But something about the certainty in Milo’s voice cuts deeper than Thorn’s lectures or Hazel’s accidental spells ever could.
Because he’s not wrong.
Idowatch her. Constantly. Obsessively.
Not because I want to.
Because I can’tnot.
My eyes drag back to her again before I can stop them.
She’s laughing again—head thrown back, arms flailing slightly as she tells another story. The wind picks up, and a few strands of hair escape the braid she never finishes. They catch in the sun. She’s not trying to be anything right now. Not clever. Not flirtatious. Not brave.
She’s justher.
And something inside me aches.
It’s not want.
Not the sharp, hungry kind that makes my skin itch.
