Page 58 of Begin Again
He deepens the kiss, pulling me closer to him, I wrap my legs around his waist, and he sighs my name against my lips.
It nearly undoes me.
I break away from him, though our foreheads are still touching. “Sam,” I whisper.
“Yes, sunshine?” His voice is deep and raspy.
“I think I’m ready for bed now.”
He nods once, and then he’s pulling away and hopping out of the pool. My heart dips to my belly as I watch him run a towel over his hair. I get out more slowly and he wraps my towel tightly around my shoulders. We don’t talk as we head up to our room.
The door clicks shut behind us and I feel goosebumps cover my skin as the cold air from the AC hits me.
“I’m not ready for more than kissing.” My voice shakes, but not from the cold. I don’t want to disappoint him, but I’m not ready for more. Maybe someday, but I don’t even know if that’s possible. My therapist told me that with the right person, it will be someday. That being with someone who you truly love and care about will feel different than everything did with Mitch, who just took and took and took.
He gives me a look from across the room that is so soft and tender that my heart cracks wide open and I just want to give him the world. “Kissing you is my favorite thing.”
I feel like the words should be sarcastic in some way, because this is Sam, who tends to make a joke out of everything. But he’s serious.
I nod. “I’m going to put dry clothes on.”
“I’ll be here.” He gestures to the room.
My heart pounds in my chest. I don’t know when I last felt this way, if I’ve ever felt this way. I feel nervous but excited. I’m not nervous about being with him or worried that he’ll try something. I’m nervous about what all of this means and where we go from here. But tonight, I want to get out of my head and stop overthinking everything.
I change quickly before heading back out in the main room. He changed while I was in the bathroom and now he’s wearing his gray sweats and a worn T-shirt from Estes Park. I wonder when he went there.
I pause awkwardly halfway between the bathroom and the couch where he is sitting. “Hi.”
“Come here,” he says in a reverent and awed voice as he holds out his hand to me.
I want to run to him, but I force myself to walk. I don’t want to seem overeager. His hand wraps around mine and I fall against him on the couch. My legs go over his lap and he wraps an arm around me and I lay my head on his shoulder.
We’re quiet for a moment as he holds me. The same way he held me that night he found me in the shower.
“I love the way you look at me,” I say, breaking the silence.
“Yeah?” he asks. “And how exactly do I look at you?”
“Like I’m the only person in the world you can see. Like I’m the best thing in your life and you can’t relax until you’ve found me in a room.” Like he loves me.
Sam pulls me a little closer. “If I told you that you are the only person in the world that I want to see, would you believe me?”
I look up at him and our noses brush. Neither of us pull away. “Yes.”
He closes the distance between us again and brushes his lips against mine. “I could spend forever kissing you.”
His confession makes me warm all over as he deepens the kiss, pulling me fully onto his lap. I run my fingers through his long, curly hair and sigh as his fingers move up and down my back, his touch so light I should barely notice them but it’s like he’s set fire to all of my nerve endings.
As I lose myself to his kiss, I can’t help but think that I could probably spend my life kissing him forever too.
At some point, the kissing slows and we fill the quiet with stories from the past six months. I tell him all about Hannah and how she’s the friend I never expected but the one I needed. I tell him how I still haven’t told my mom that I’m back in Colorado, because I don’t know how to talk to her as an adult without her making me feel like I’m somehow used or broken because of what happened with Mitch.
I confess that I haven’t been thrilled about coming to Maui for Noah’s wedding, but that having him here makes it easier for me.
“It’s been so hard to be without you in New York,” he tells me quietly. “I quit YouTube.”
This makes me sit up. “You what?”
