Page 71 of Whirlwind
“Because,” I say, pausing to press a chaste kiss to her lips, “what I feel for you already surpasses anything I’ve felt for another woman before.”
She doesn’t say anything as I watch emotion after emotion flash across her features. She’s confused. I get it—this is all new for me, too. Still, I have much more of a foundation under me than she has. There are things I can look back on for reference.
Kit has no baseline for love. She’s raised herself mostly with its absence.
All I want to do is shower her in it—to fill her up with it the way she fills me up with joy. I’m like those sappy videos all over social media, when the girlfriend films her boyfriend in a crowd and once he sees her, he grins sappily. That’s me when I even think about her.
Kit Ashcroft alters my perspective of all things.
“This is hard for me.” Her voice carries the slightest tremble, and I hold her closer to me, moving my hand higher up her leg. “All of the things I naturally reject are the things you remind me of. I don’t believe in fate or kindred souls. But I can’t deny how at ease I am with you. Things I can’t explain or find answers for frighten me. Then, I put this pressure on myself to not be so wrapped up in it, which only makes me more manic.”
“Maybe you have a spiritual side that you’ve never explored.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re Indigenous,” I say. “In peewee, I played with a kid who was Squamish. I didn’t pay as much attention to what he talked about as I wish I had, now. But I remember he was always sogrounded in nature. Tribes are all different, I know. Maybe your mind and something more inherent inside of you are battling each other instead of working together. I’m just spitballing ideas, here. Have you ever thought about learning more about your heritage?”
She doesn’t talk about her family much, at all, outside of an occasional reference to her grandmother. Other than the first conversation we had about her mother leaving when she was a child, she’s never mentioned her again—or that she’s half Native.
Severan comes back to deliver a plate of two more perfectly crafted small bites. “Chef had one more trick up his sleeve for you,” he says.
“Ooh, thank you,” Kit says, sitting up to grab them. She places the first one in my mouth, her fingers lingering long enough for me to nip at them. Shock briefly shows on her face and her head tilts. “I think I liked that.”
I laugh as she pops her own dessert into her mouth and moans in appreciation. Then, she stands, taking my hand to pull me behind her as she moves to the railing. I perch behind her, an arm on either side, my chin resting on her head as I wait to see if she’ll circle back to our conversation or veer into another topic, which is a habit of Kit’s.
The biggest lesson I have learned being Lottie’s brother, though, is that I can’t force someone else’s timeline—especially a neurodivergent. They’ll get there when they’re ready.
“Do you want to know why I chose Seattle for college? Other than it being so far away from Maine?”
“I want to know everything you want to tell me.”
“Careful what you wish for,” she teases, then points to a spot in the distance. “Over there, you can’t really see it from here, but there’s a big black building. People nicknamed it Darth Vader, though, really, it looks like the Sandcrawler that the Jawa movearound in. I loved that. It felt like a city where I could be my geeky self and fit right in. You do knowStar Wars, right?”
“Of course,” I say, grinning. “I know I’m supposed to say thatEmpire Strikes Backis the best in the franchise, but I happen to think it’sRogue One.And I’ll fight you on that.”
Her chin drops, and I wait for the same argument I hear every time I say this to a fellow fan. I’ve heard them all; the story is superior, it’s better than the first in series, which is nearly impossible for any sequel. You can’t compare a Disney movie to an original Lucasfilms.
“How do you keep getting more perfect?” she asks instead. “Nobody ever says that, and I’m left arguing about how even ESB’s amazing storytelling pales in comparison to the raw tragic drama of R1. Which also happens to keep the light comedy without the hyper-cheesiness. It’s so fucking good.”
That settles it. I’m in love with Kit.
“Glad we agree. I wasn’t prepared to argue with you where you could easily push me overboard,” I tease, wrapping my arms tighter around her. The night air is cooling quickly as the boat slowly makes its way back toward the marina.
“About what you said earlier,” she starts, then turns in my arms to face me. “I’ve never explored that part of me because I don’t want to face what I’ve lost. Or, that I’ve been too afraid to find what’s been lost.”
“I’ll help you. If you decide you want to learn or if you want to find her. You don’t have to face any of it alone.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” she says. Resting her cheek on my chest, she nuzzles in.
“What about with your dad?” For how little she speaks about family, her father gets the least attention, yet the biggest reaction. I’m not sure she’s aware of it, but the couple of times he’s come up in conversation, the tension on her is visible.
“No,” she says adamantly. “Maybe my grandmother.”
“Hey.” I cup her face, pulling her up to me. “Whatever he did, I won’t let him hurt you again. Okay?”
“He also can’t hurt me if I don’t ever talk to him again,” she says.
“Fair enough,” I say, pressing a kiss to her lips. Kit grabs the back of my neck and keeps me there, deepening the kiss. We stay like that for the remainder of the cruise to the marina. Lips locked, her body pressed against mine. When I cup her ass and drag her dress up under her coat, I expect to feel her typical cotton underwear. Tonight, I’m met with something different. Thin, satiny, fragile. I snap the strap against her skin and ask, “What is this, Kit?”
