Page 20 of Pieces Of You

A quick puff of air leaves her lips before her eyes meet mine. “Is it weird that I’m nervous?”

I shrug.

“It’s just—I know you and I… we’re not anything. But with Dean, I never met his parents…clearly.”

I offer a half-hearted smile that I hope comes out reassuring. “You’re rambling, Regina. It’s fine. Besides, you’ve kind of met my mom already—outside the principal’s office. She’s not like other moms. You’ll be fine.” I start to get out, but she tugs on my arm, bringing me closer.

“Holden, look at me.”

I sigh, doing as she asks.

“Do I have dirt on my face?”

“What? No. You look fine.”

She scrubs the non-existent dirt off her face. “You didn’t even look!”

I want to laugh, but I contain it. “I did.”

“Holden, I know you think this is funny.”

“You’re being a little ridiculous, yeah.”

Her eyes drift shut. Stay that way. Angling her chin to the side, she says, almost in a whisper, “Just… look. Please.”

So I do. And for the first time, I notice the slight freckles across her cheeks. And then her nose. I notice her fuckingnose. Because it’s little and it’s cute, and the tip has a little faded summer-sun peel, and then I notice the other parts of her, like her lips, plump and more red than pink. She has little curls just around her hairline, and she’s tanned—naturally—not from hours and hours in the sun, but likely from her bloodline.

“Anything?” she asks, her eyes fluttering open, unfocused, on mine.

Hazel eyes on green, I shake my head, clearing the fog she’s created. “You’re fine, Taylor.”

I start to get out, and again, she stops me. “Do I smell?”

Turning my entire body toward her, I ask, “You want me tosmellyou now?”

She nods but doesn’t speak, and I try to read her, try to see if she’s just messing with me, but there isn’t a single piece of her that’s even close to kidding. “Just here,” she says, tapping at her collarbone.

I roll my eyes and lean forward, settling my nose in the crook of her neck. And then I breathe her in, and it’s the same scent from the first time she was in my truck. Citrus and flowers, only now it’s heightened, and I don’t know if it’s because we’re this close—so close, I can feel the heat radiating off her, or because my eyes are shut, and the only thing I can seem to focus on is the rapid beating of my heart.

“So?” she asks, and I don’t do what I know I should.

I don’t pull back, don’t move away. I inhale. Again. “You smell…”Like my childhood. Like memories of better days out on an endless green field, when my parents were still together, and my best friend was still my best friend, and we’d laugh and play and didn’t have a single care in the world.

“Ismell?”

I push down the knot in my throat before snapping my eyes open and rearing back. “You smell fine, Florence. Let’s go.”

“Is that you,you little shit? Shouldn’t you be doing that club thing?” Mom calls from somewhere not visible from one step inside the house.

“I’m not alone!” I shout, holding the door open for Jamie.

“Hi, Dean!”

“It’s not Dean!” I respond, closing the door after Jamie. “It’s a girl!”

“Well, shit,” Mom mumbles, and a chair scrapes, doors open and close, and by the time I go through the living room and toward the kitchen table, Mom’s nowhere to be seen.

“Where’d you go?”

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