Page 85 of Full Tilt
“The worst Mother Nature has to offer.”
“And the best,” she said. “I mean, there’s not even a window to see the stars. Don’t tents usually have a screen or something?”
“Some do,” I said. “This one doesn’t.”
Kacey climbed out of her bag and rolled it up into a sloppy bundle she tucked under her arm.
“Where are you going?”
“I want the stars.” She stopped at the tent flap and looked over her shoulder at me, a question in her eyes.
Are you coming?
She didn’t wait for an answer but stepped out. To where I had no idea, but if I didn’t follow her, she might get lost in the dark of the forest. At least, that’s what I told myself, as I gathered up my own bag and followed her out.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
The ground was cold and hard under my bare feet as I followed the beacon of Kacey’s pale hair through the woods, away from the clearing of dark tents where my friends slept. She followed the creek and I thought I knew where she was going. The only place she knew to go; the clearing near the edge of the valley, about a hundred yards away from the campsite.
Only a few trees edged the clearing, towering columns in the dark. Below, the valley spread out in rolling hills of deep green that looked almost black in the night, and a canopy of stars wheeled overhead like diamonds. The moon was huge and full, and cast silvery light over everything.
She dropped her sleeping bag on the smoothest flat of ground, cushioned by dried pine needles and soft, long grass. She stood a moment, her back to me, slender and luminous in the moonlight. Her head turned, taking in the view of the valley before her, and then tilted up to the stars above. Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep inhale. The breath filled my own lungs, along with a desperate urge to move behind her, hold her body to mine, fist my hand in her hair and kiss the soft skin of her neck.
Kacey shook out her sleeping bag and climbed inside. I laid mine out beside hers, and together we lay on our backs, lookingup at the stars.
“So incredibly beautiful,” she said. “Amazing all of this is here, in every night sky, but we rarely see it.” She rolled over in her bag to look at me. “You’re awfully quiet tonight. What are you thinking about?”
You. My thoughts are filled with you. Always.
“Can I tell you what I’m thinking about?” she said before I could answer. “I’m thinking right now, we’re lying here with less than a foot between us, but in separate sleeping bags. Because we’re friends. You’re there, and I’m here, and we’re pretending friendship keeps us at a safe distance.”
My heart began to pound. “I know. I shouldn’t have told you to come back to Vegas. And I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“I had to come back,” she said. “I never should’ve left. If I’d moved to some other city, I would’ve been alone and miserable and missing you. We lost twelve days when I left. I want that time back and I don’t want to lose any more.”
“Kacey…”
“I can’t keep going on like this, Jonah,” she said, turning to look at me. “As friends. I know I should try, but I can’t. I can’t…not touch you. I want to be able to kiss you if I feel like it, and I think you want that too. Like our first kiss at the casino. It was everything to me. Everything.”
“It was for me too,” I said. “I want to kiss you again. I want to kiss you so bad I can’t breathe. I want to be with you every second of my life but… God, Kacey, how much time is that? How do I put you through that?”
“And what about you? You continue on, alone?” She shook her head. “You can trust me. Trust me when I say I can take it. You and me. I can take it. Whatever happens.”
“I do trust you. My pushing you away was never about mistrusting you. It was me not wanting to hurt you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, since the first moment I saw you. To protect you. To keep you safe.”
She smiled then, her eyes filled with happiness. And God,somehow, even with all the crazy stuff going on in my life, it all boiled down to whether or not Kacey was happy. I wanted to make her happy any way that I could, because that’s what she did for me. Little by little, day by day, like sunlight seeping through the cracks of an abandoned, boarded-up house, Kacey was invading me. Tearing down the shutters, ripping out the boards and letting the light in.
“Come here,” I said.
She wriggled in her sleeping bag for a moment before climbing out of it. My heart stuttered at bare legs, a flash of pink underwear, and the outline of her breasts under her button-down shirt. I held my bag open and she slid in, her body curving perfectly into mine, as right and perfect as our kiss.
She sighed, her breath fluttering as she put her hands on my face. “I’m sorry I left.”
“I told you to go.”
“I should’ve stayed. I never should’ve left at all. And I promise you, Jonah, I’ll never leave you again. Never again.”
