Page 51 of Home Sweet Home

“What are you doing?” she said, her voice a whisper.

A slow smile spread across West’s face. “Checking for bruises.”

They were inches apart, and Evie couldn’t breathe. Not just from the sprinting, but from the fear that if she let out even one breath, he would move. But when she couldn’t hold it any longer, she exhaled all the air she’d been storing in her lungs.

He did move, but it was toward her, his face bending down and closing the space between them. When his lips pressed against hers, the baseball field wasn’t just an acre of land in the middle of the park. It was the entire world, the two of them its only inhabitants. The kiss was light, a brush with a dab of paint testing out its stroke on the canvas. His tongue pressed her lips open with the smallest bit of pressure. His hands explored her arms, from her shoulders to her wrists. His fingers circled them, his thumbs caressing the soft skin. She trailed her hand across the broad span of his back, like marble underneath her fingers. She’d imagined touching him this way so many times.Is this what I was missing out on all these years?

When she pulled away to catch her breath, it was like tugging out a reluctant tooth. His hand tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, and he touched the tip of his finger to the bridge of her nose before trailing it lightly over the constellation of freckles there. She wondered if he was close enough to count them now.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?” he asked, his voice soft, his eyes hungry.

As Evie looked up at West, this man who had once been a boy she’d maybe loved, as much as she was capable of knowing what love was when she was fifteen, she knew there were a million reasons she should stop it right there, but they were hazy and intangible, slipping through her fingers like sand.

“Well then, shut up and do it again,” Evie said, already leaning back in.

And out on the field, under the stars and the lights, he did.

* * *

The alarm clockblared in Evie’s ears and her eyes blinked open. For once, she wasn’t annoyed by the clanging noise that meant she needed to drag her sleepy ass out of bed and to work. Her kiss with West had rejuvenated her more than sleep or Kayla’s coffee ever could. Sheer bliss filled every corner of her. She remembered his lips pressing against hers, his chest rising and falling with each erratic breath as his fingers trailed a light path down the sides of her arms before landing on the small of her back, pulling her as close to him as she could get.

The bliss was followed by panic that it had been a dream. But with enough focus, she could conjure up the heat of his breath on her neck as he stood behind her and hear the clang of the metal connecting with the ball.

“Morning,” Evie said as she walked into Joe’s.

Kayla was already at the counter, brewing coffee, and before Evie slid onto a stool, Kayla had filled a mug and pushed it across the countertop. She narrowed her eyes at Evie. “You’re smiling.”

Evie took a sip of coffee. “You’re… looking at me with deep skepticism. Is this our new thing? Narrating observations about each other?”

“No. But that sounds fun. You almost never smile. Definitely not before noon.” Her eyes widened. “Something happened.”

“How? How do you always know?”

Of course Kayla knew. Evie had woken up feeling like a new person. It was almost like the years of sleepless nights had been the actual dream, like being out on the field with West was the first real thing to happen to her in her whole life.

Kayla leaned on the counter. “It’s my superpower. Tell me everything.”

She told Kayla about how he’d brought her to the baseball field and how he’d kissed her. She only held back the visit to Robert Martin and what West had told her about his dad. She could trust Kayla, but that wasn’t her secret to tell.

“He held my hand when he walked me home,” Evie said, warmth spreading through her as she remembered their lazy ambling down the back road on the edge of town, neither of them in a particular hurry for the magic of the night to end. At one point West had reached for her hand, and when she’d laced her fingers into the crooks between his knuckles, it felt so comfortable, like they’d been molded just for her.

“Wow, holding hands,” Kayla said. “Did he ask you to prom afterwards?” At the look Evie gave Kayla, she added, “I’m kidding.”

“We passed by Rock Pond on the way home.”

Rock Pond was an empty lot on the edge of town, nothing but a bed of gravel and a twenty-foot cabin-cruiser boat that Patty Sullivan owned, for reasons that had always been unclear to Evie. It was “docked” on the “pond” of gravel because the creek that was Creek Water’s namesake had actually dried up decades before, and there wasn’t another natural body of water in Jade County. So the boat just sat there, unused and, according to local legend, unlocked and usually stocked with a handle of booze.

“God, I haven’t gone in there in years,” Kayla said. “There’s a fifty-percent chance Ryleigh was conceived in there.” Kayla’s jaw dropped slightly, an impish gleam in her eye. “Wait. Did he bring you there on purpose?”

The boat on Rock Pond had a reputation, and though Evie had never been inside it, in high school, she’d heard stories, which had proven to be true when Evie had spotted a torn condom wrapper poking up through the gravel. So when West had had walked her in that particular direction, Evie had wondered the same thing as Kayla, her stomach fluttering with each step toward the boat. But he didn’t so much as glance at it, just kept walking down the back road until it disappeared from view.

“Just a coincidence,” Evie said, color rising on her cheeks, hoping Kayla couldn’t see the disappointment she’d felt when she realized West hadn’t intended to drag her in there and tear all their clothes off, making up for lost time. It was good to take things slow and that West was a gentleman. But then again, since he’d showed up in town, she couldn’t stop imagining him touching her, and it was driving her crazy.

Kayla pulled Evie in for a hug, arms tight around her.

“Ow,” Evie managed to eke out. “Can’t. Breathe.”

“Oh shit, sorry,” Kayla said, pulling away. “It’s just a nice fucking change, seeing you happy.”

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