Page 57 of The Impossible Princess
He lifts his free hand to my face, brushing my jaw. “I love you.”
My heart tightens. The words haven’t been dressed up or disguised. They are as bare as a stone and my nerves ignite.
For a brief second, I fight it. It’s the wrong time to be serious about someone Mama won’t approve of. I search his face, looking for hidden meanings or an asterisk to add to his declaration. There aren’t any.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
“Of me?”
I give a watery laugh. “Of me.”
I love him. The words stick in my throat, but they fill every part of me, the realization cutting through thoughts about Mama’s patronages or St Leofdag’s sweeping lawns—cutting through a mind churning with worries.
Like water flowing down a hill, I begin hunting for a path forward. Maybe I can tell my father and he will help me sway Mama. Maybe we’ll let this thing grow a while longer protected by the secrecy these stone walls have afforded us. Maybe we can make it work.
A smile curves my mouth as I remember. Max doesn’t play around.
“I’m not scared,” he says, sensing my shift. A roguish grin lights his face. Whereas a bow is deferential, the way he hauls me into his arms is proprietary. “Admit you like me a little,” he growls.
“I like you a little,” I say, going up on my toes to kiss him under his ear. My fingers brush his neck. “I like you very much.” The stubble along his jaw rasps my lips as I move along it, trailing light kisses.
He tires of my game and claims my mouth. In that moment, I make a deliberate choice not to think about all the ways things could go wrong. Instead, I focus on how Max’s hand winds through my hair as he kisses me.
26
Strategic Importance
MAX
We have the rest of the day to ourselves. The summer storm passes, and we go down to the lake in the setting sun, swimming until the light fades.
“You should bring a suit next time,” I say, pulling her out of the water, the summer dress clinging to her everywhere. We lay on the warm dock, lake water seeping into a kind of halo.
I expected her to be more tentative, but Clara props herself over me, laughing as I squint up at her. Then she draws near and blots out the sun. She’s not laughing when she kisses me, not rushing away. Now she lingers and we take our time.
Still, we haven’t said everything we need to.
“Come on,” I say, standing. “I want to have a fire.”
Later, after she’s stolen more of my clothes, the fire is made, and on an old wicker loveseat dragged near the flames, she leans up against my chest, fingers brushing along my forearms.
“I thought I’d come over for dinner that first time,” she murmurs, “and find out you wouldn’t be able to talk about anything but the tides and currents, and that would be the end of that.”
“Did you know,” I say, lazily kissing the top of her head, “that the same gravitational pull that causes tides affects dry land, too? The solid Earth changes shape ever so slightly.”
She turns, laughing, and I find her lips.
When she can breathe again, she groans. “I don’t want to be gone for two weeks. It’s too much time.”
I’m silent so long that she leans away. “What is it?”
“It’ll be more than two weeks. I’m deploying at the end of August.”
She sits on her heels, and I watch her reaction. I haven’t had the best track record finding a girl willing to put up with long, inconvenient absences, and I tense. It’s never mattered as much as it does now.
“Is it dangerous? Should I worry about you?”
The pleasure of being worried over is a first. “Much of it’s going to be routine. Nothing too hair-raising.”
