Page 47 of Meet Me in Aveline

He shook his head. “No, not twenty. I really haven’t kept count. Why? How many haveyoukissed?”

I lowered my head and felt my cheeks flush. “Just you,” I admitted.

“Oh,” he replied quietly. “I was your first kiss?”

I swallowed hard and looked up. “Yep.”

When he didn’t say anything, I slapped my hands on my thighs. “Pretty embarrassing, am I right?”

“No, not at all.”

“Really?” I asked. My thoughts were whirling, and the need to explain myself sat across my chest like an elephant. “I’m not a prude or anything. I’ve just never met anyone I wanted to kiss. And I would do even more, you know, than just kiss. Some time. If it were the right person.”

Tuck pulled his lips in, obviously trying not to smile at my inexperience.

“I would!” I exclaimed.

He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You don’t owe anything to me.”

“I know.” I picked at my fingers, lowering my voice. “I would though…” I peered at him through my eyelashes, a smile spreading across my face.

“Got it,” he replied.

I lay down and pulled out my book, my head resting in his lap as he played with my hair.

“By the way, Lettie?” he said, my name lilting up like a question.

“Yeah?” I looked up.

“It doesn’t matter who I’ve kissed before, because not one of them was anywhere near as good as you.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

TUCK

Lettieand I had been hanging out in our room at Green Gables for the past month when we’d needed something to do other than swimming or baking or walking around town. There was no way I was going to take her to my place, and Evelyn at the Inn said we could use a room as long as we left the door open. Evelyn was a bit old-fashioned, and considering Lettie and I hadn’t done anything more than kiss, it was a little dramatic, but we obliged. It was either her rules or no movie nights, so we would keep the door open and laugh to each other every time she’d clear her throat before walking down the hall.

We would get interrupted a few times by Millie, Evelyn’s granddaughter who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, but it didn’t seem to bother Lettie. We would play card games together or Millie would bring in Life or Clue, and sometimes she would tell us about which boy she had a crush on from town. I watched as Lettie braided her hair and listened when she talked, giving her advice. When Millie would leave, Lettie would say how much she had always wanted a little sister.

I was, without a doubt, falling for her in the most devastating way. I was making a mental note of every little thing she did. The way her hair fell against her back, so soft that it was like silk, and the way she talked and talked without ever taking a breath. When I wasn’t with her, I was thinking of her, and when I was in her presence, I needed to soak up every single bit of her. I knew I was falling in love, but the prospect of it scared me. It was happening so quickly, and I had never cared for anyone the way that I cared for her.

I knew she probably thought it was weird that I wouldn’t just take her to my house to watch movies or play games, but she never asked. I felt like she may have already figured out that where I came from was nothing like the picture she had painted in that first letter she wrote to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to show her.

Here, in the Avonlea Room at Green Gables Inn, though, we were just two people. We weren’t rich or poor, we were just… us.

Lettie and Tuck.

I was lying on the bed with Lettie’s head in my lap as I tried to pay attention to what was going on in a book about Noah and Allie, but the truth was, she could have been reading from the phone book and I would have been in complete and utter bliss. I played with her hair, twirling it around my fingers, wondering how the universe had aligned so perfectly to bring her to Aveline.

Tome.

Lettie closed the book. “So, what do you think?” She looked up at me and I pretended to ponder over her question. “Oh, come on,” she turned over on her stomach. “It’s so good.”

“Yeah, I agree. I think it’s really good.” I nodded and twisted her hair around my finger.

She gasped. “You hate it, don’t you?”

“No! I don’t. I think it’s a great story.”

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