Page 39 of Back for More
“It’s a quote. About Hermia. FromA Midsummer Night’s Dream. You’ve only read your own part, haven’t you? Figures.”
She swiped the folded-up paper from my hand. “You know what—forget it. I don’t know why I came here.”
She turned on her heel, but it was my turn to block the doorway. She walked right into my sweaty T-shirt-covered chest. “I have a pretty good idea of why you’re here.”
“Oh yeah?” she whispered, so quietly I could barely hear her.
“Yeah.”
She lifted her eyes and then her chin up to me, slowly and then suddenly, as if she had silently dared herself to. I cradled her face in both hands and stared down at her parted lips as mine hovered over them. I stroked her jaw with my thumbs before sweeping my fingers up into her silky blonde hair. “If I kiss you,” I said, “it’s going to change everything.”
“Good,” she exhaled, unable to keep her big brown eyes open anymore.
I lowered my head and closed the distance between us, touched my lips to hers, so gently and tentatively at first, the way a bee lands on a petal before drinking a flower’s nectar.
It felt like she was floating up to meet me, until her knees suddenly gave out and I grabbed her under her arms and hoisted her up. She wrapped her legs around my waist, her flip-flops dropping to the ground, and she held on to my head as she opened her mouth wider and welcomed my tongue inside. We both tasted like lemony-sweet iced tea, and I loved how hesitantly she explored with her tongue, because I could tell it was the first time that she’d done it. I had wanted this since the first time I’d seen her, and I knew she had too. But I’d waited for her to come to me, and it didn’t take long for the force of all that waiting to consume both of us.
She was all hands and gasps and tongue, and I kissed her so deeply that neither of us could breathe and neither of us could stop.
“Wesssss,” she hissed when we finally pulled back for air. I kissed her neck, and she wriggled around, and I couldn’t tell if she was trying to break free or wrap herself around me tighter, but I wanted to go harder, faster, deeper, more. She went limp in my arms again as I sucked on her earlobe. “Oh shit,” she whispered. “Wes.”
That was when she finally gathered all her strength and pushed me away. I lowered her down to the floor, even though I was blinded by testosterone and the relentless drive to be inside this other person. She held on to my T-shirt and rested her forehead against my chest and then stared up at me, looking so confused. When she hugged me and felt the bulge against her stomach, she stepped back and covered her mouth. Those heavy-lidded eyes went wider than I’d ever seen them, and she giggled. All of a sudden, she was a girl again and I was a horny teenage guy who needed a long, cold shower more than ever.
“Does that hurt?” she asked, genuinely concerned and maybe a little fascinated.
“Yeah. You should go.”
She blinked, startled by my harsh tone, but I was in no mood to explain why I needed her to disappear right then. She picked up her piece of paper and flip-flops, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I’m going,” she said, her voice restrained and shaky. “I mean, I’m really going. When I’m old enough to leave here, I’ll be gone. So we shouldn’t do that again.”
“No,” I said gruffly. “We shouldn’t. But we will.”
The expression on her face revealed her acknowledgment and relief and resignation and fear of that truth. She nodded and smirked and then ran away. I went to the door to watch her run, until I couldn’t see her anymore.
* * *
I guess I knew on some level that I needed to remember that image of her running away from me, because one day it would be easier to fixate on that than the image of her on her tiptoes, reaching for me with every cell of her being.
It wasn’t my first kiss, but it was the first kiss that mattered. It wasn’t the last time we’d kiss, and it wasn’t the last time we’d swear it would be the last time. Once I’d tasted her sweetness, I knew I didn’t want to live without it as much as I knew I’d have to. It goes against nature to resent the thing that you need to survive—a bee doesn’t resent its favorite flower when it’s not there. But somehow that became our pattern from the very beginning.
“You still here?” My dad’s voice brings me back to the present.
“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head. “Still here.”
And not much has really changed between Lily Barnes and me.
“All I’m saying, and this is the last time you’ll hear about it from me today,” says my dad, his voice appropriately hushed, given that she’s still about thirty yards away over on the patio, “is that you and Lily owe each other a real first love. The first love you both deserve.”
Those words hit me hard, right in the gut and the brain and the heart—everywhere.
“It might not be perfect,” he continues, his voice getting raspier than usual. “It might not last forever. But it’ll be yours. And it’ll be worth it.”
At lunchtime, Vicky brings food out for my dad and me, and we all shoot the shit for a while before I casually ask if Jasper is home. When Vicky tells me he’s out for the day and that I should go to the kitchen to get myself some more of her ice-cold berry lemonade, I ignore my dad’s waggling eyebrows and consider it because I feel bad about being so crusty with Lily earlier. She’s not on the patio anymore, and I’m wondering if she’s having lunch inside by herself.
Just as I’m heading toward the house, I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. My buddy Neal is calling me, which pretty much only happens when he needs me to babysit last-minute. When I answer with a terse, “Carver Babysitting Services,” I get a laugh.
“Am I that predictable?” Neal asks.
“Are you calling about something else?”
