Twice Shy

by Sarah Hogle

  “Maybe Sasquatch took it,” I suggest, enjoying myself. “You said he lives in Appalachia, right?”

  Wesley shakes his head. “Not even going to respond to that.”

  “You just did.” I try to sprint away before he can get the last word in. “Last one home has to clean out the gutters!” This is a terrible threat. The gutters have saplings and who knows what else growing in them.

  “Have fun with that. I’ll just be over here, then.” He juts a thumb. “Going the right way. See you in a week.”

  I veer left. Check his expression. I veer right. He laughs, dispelling some of my unease about waking up to business as usual. This isn’t anything like last night, but it also isn’t anything like any other morning. We’re off the map.

  “Ready to see what the fifth treasure is?” he inquires when I circle back.

  The brown envelope weighs heavily in my pack, waiting to be opened, but I’m still not ready for this to end. “When we get back. It’ll be our reward for not getting eaten by bears.”

  “Bears are solitary creatures. If we meet one, we’ll outnumber it. Meaning no bears will be running after me when I outstrip you.”

  “Hey!”

  “You snooze, you lose.”

  “I can see why they didn’t like you at camp.”

  Wesley laughs again—I’ve got to start counting them, comparing numbers to yesterday’s best score. “No, they didn’t like me at camp because I wouldn’t do this.” He stops short in front of me and leans backward.

  “No!” I cry, but it’s too late, he’s already tipping back. My arms reflexively snake around his middle as if I have a prayer of holding this enormous specimen up, but he’s stopped tipping. Wesley locks his arms over mine, holding me to him. He turns so that I can see his grinning profile.

  “Gotcha.”

  “Thank goodness,” I sigh. “You’re too much man for me.”

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he replies, releasing his hold after another beat. I can’t tell if he’s wistful or joking.

  This is the trouble with crushes. You begin to doubt whether they’re reciprocated, even if on paper the signs are all there. If I ever get married, I think I’ll be wondering all the way down the aisle if the wedding’s an elaborate prank and the groom will say Gotcha! at the end. I can’t trust my own judgment here.

  The hike home flies by much faster than the hike out, since we’re not stopping to hunt for treasure, and we’re making good enough time that I don’t think the lunch I packed for today will be necessary. We stop mostly for my benefit, my poor legs and back aching. Wesley makes me reapply that minty green goop every two hours.

  I can’t resist. “You missed a spot,” I say, dabbing more on his nose.

  Wesley smiles, eyes crinkling. “So did you. Here, I’ll help you out.” He presses my forehead, leaving a green handprint.

  “Thank you so much.”

  He winks. “No problem.”

  Tree canopies blocking the sunlight throw off our sense of time, and when we saunter into a clearing the sky looks more like late evening than noon. Dark clouds gather ahead, rolling our way.

  “That doesn’t bode well,” I mutter.

  Wesley grabs my pack from me, leaving our shovel behind. “We’ve gotta hurry.”

  “I am physically incapable of going any faster. My shoulders are still angry that they didn’t get a mattress last night.”

  “I’m kind of used to the sleeping bag by now,” he replies, calling to mind the image of his sleeping bag in the loft, and the colored-pencil Maybell I discovered there. “You need me to carry you?”

  Is he serious?

  He is. Of course he is.

  Wesley’s offering a fantasy and doesn’t know it. If I say yes, forcing this poor man to carry a fully grown adult on top of everything else he’s already carrying, I truly will go to hell.

  I spend a handful of seconds considering it anyway. “You’re strong,” I sigh, relinquishing this opportunity, “but not invincible. That’d kill you.”

  “I’m not that strong at all,” he replies modestly, head ducking, “but for you, I can be strong enough.”

  He quickens, shooting forward so that I can’t see his face. I’m so glad he can’t see mine, either. It’s of paramount importance that we get back as fast as possible so we can get away from each other. If I’m in Wesley’s company for another hour, I’m going to irreparably embarrass myself.

  I have feelings for you, I hear myself hypothetically gushing. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. They snuck up on me. Wesley’s hypothetical shock, followed by mortification, is bad enough to hasten my pace. The detail that my muscles are melting marshmallows is irrelevant—self-preservation demands sacrifice sometimes. It’s growing increasingly clear that I need a week of no contact to salvage my wits. I can’t be trusted anymore.

  Wesley doesn’t get the memo. He does horribly destructive things like passing me his canteen to make sure I get the last drink and pointing out which animals the angry clouds resemble. He touches my wrist gingerly between two fingers; I grind to a halt at once, and my soul twirls up out of my body when he kneels to retie one of my shoelaces.

  I can’t watch. I clench my teeth, staring resolutely at the approaching rain clouds, but he’s ruined clouds for me, too. I’ll never be able to look at one again without thinking, Hey, it’s a floppy-eared bunny, in his deep, pleasant rumble.

  Head bowed at my waist, one of his knees digging in the mud without so much as a flinch, a second thought, Wesley’s long, callused fingers that paint sea monsters on ballroom walls and make things grow from the earth are delicately handling my dirty shoestrings. He murmurs, “Over, under, cross the bridge, make a loop and right on through.” A mnemonic device about tying shoes cannot be what sends me over the edge. I forbid it.

  “We’re getting pretty close, right?” I ask when we take off again, more than a little desperate.

  Wesley throws me a sidelong glance. “You getting sick of me?” His tone is playful, but I detect apprehension.

  “Listen, I’m just trying to protect you from the rain.” I return his smile with a wobbly one of my own. “Lest you forget, you’re wearing a white T-shirt.”

  He barks a laugh. “So?”

  “So, people in wet white T-shirts are distracting. Don’t look at me like that, this is a thing. Everybody knows.”

  His brown eyes glint, then glide down my tank top and jeans. “Your shirt is white.”

  I have to do a double take. So it is.

  His eyes are darker when they meet mine again. I’m hanging from this cliff by one finger. A cold raindrop taps one shoulder, then the opposite one when I turn to look. Wesley squints at the sky. “Here we go.”

  We crest a hill, Wesley’s truck materializing in a field a hundred yards off like a mirage.

  Tap, tap, tap becomes a downpour, slicking my hair to my face and neck, clothes sealing to skin. Wesley’s hair darkens, curling, dripping over his cheeks, spiking his eyelashes.

  “It’s cold it’s cold it’s cold it’s cold!” I squeal, running as fast as I can. Wesley flies alongside, and even with the burden he’s carrying all by himself, I think he’s putting a damper on his endurance. He’d be at the truck already if he weren’t matching my speed.

  The heel of his palm meets the base of my spine, jolting me forward even faster. We’re fifty yards down. “Should have stayed in the tent,” I sputter. “For another night. We’d be dry right now.” Relatively, anyway.

  “I didn’t know that was an option,” he responds, fingers curling into my waist and gripping harder. I’m not sure he’s aware of it.

  “I guess”—I’m out of breath, panting—“that we couldn’t, after all. Not enough food.”

  “I’d find some berries.”

  “You can’t subsist on berries. I’ve seen how much
you eat. You’d need bushels.”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  It’s a strange thing to say. I turn to study him, but we’ve made it to the truck at last and he’s yanking my door open for me. Small lakes are collecting around all four tires, but before I can try to hop over one to get inside Wesley picks me up handily by the waist and deposits me on the seat. He then flings our equipment into the back and darts around to the other side. When Wesley slams his door shut behind him, safe and soaked, we take a moment to slide down in our seats. Eyes closed, breathing heavily. Rain pummels metal and windows, so much louder in here than outside.

  When I open my eyes again, he’s watching me. Sure enough, his shirt’s so wet that it’s nearly see-through, molding to every contour. My focus drops to his chest, which is rising and falling deeply—I try to correct the impulse, quickly raking my eyes upward, but it’s too late. My thoughts are too obvious to need words. Wesley’s eyes flash moments before the lightning strikes. A frisson of heat shoots through me as I peer into their depths, and if you were to look on at us from above I think you’d spy smoke undulating against the windows, two people inside a crystal ball with their fate sealed.

  He reaches for me with both hands and slowly, carefully slides my glasses off my face. I stare as he peels up the hem of his shirt, exposing an inch of golden skin, and uses it to wipe the spots of rain off my lenses. He hands them back, skin warm against my freezing fingers.

  I don’t know what compels me to do it, but I reach out, too. I touch a thumb to a raindrop sliding over the arc of his cheek, following it with my finger all the way down to his lower lip. He watches me from beneath lashes at half-mast, beautiful wide eyes going liquid black. There are dark shadows beneath them, easier to discern in the dimness of the car.

  A crack of thunder splits the air; we swivel to face the windshield. Wesley swallows hard as he puts the truck in gear.

  We drive.

  I can feel every particle of air moving against my skin. The heavens are swirling purple and green, lifted from an illustration in a storybook, all the colors so impossibly and exaggeratedly saturated. Long grasses are blown flat by rain, a forever stretch from here to Falling Stars. Here in the enclosed cab of Wesley’s truck, dry heat gusting out of the vents, it could be the end of the world.

  Wesley nudges the brakes, slowing down even though we’re nowhere near the house yet. Then we stop entirely. The look on his face drowns out all sound, din pushed beyond our bubble by magic. “That’s a lie,” he says quietly.

  Blood drains from my extremities, rushing to my brain. “What’s a lie?”

  He stares straight ahead, deathly pale save the bright red blooms on his cheekbones, ruddy blotches under a stubbly beard. I follow his line of sight, trying to see whatever it is that he’s seeing. Wesley’s elbow bends, white-knuckled fist easing the gearshift into park.

  “Is something—?” I begin to ask, when Wesley unbuckles his seat belt without warning and gets out of the car. He’s going to run.

  Oh no, he’s going to run.

  But he doesn’t. He rounds the hood of the car, stride powerful, coming right for me. All of my attention telescopes down to that minute flex in his arm as he throws open the passenger door.

  My jaw drops, another question forming.

  He cradles my face in his hands, ever so gentle. I slacken in the fierce hold of his stare, his pupils hungry stains drinking up the iris. He is himself, endearing and unsure, but he’s also under siege by something new: steely determination. Wesley’s mentioned he often has trouble expressing himself, but mouths can speak in more ways than one. For this, all he needs is a kiss.

  He answers my question with shuttering eyelids, no room to wonder anymore because this isn’t an I like you, maybe or an I’m into you, a little kiss. It’s a force that cuts me off at the knees, stealing the breath from my throat like pulling rope, both of us tangled and tethered to each other as we pitch over the cliff’s edge.

  He jams the button on my seat belt to release me, bringing me to him. I snatch him closer, too, greedy. My arms slide around his neck as though they belong there, slick with rain. I smile dreamily against his mouth, face upturned, mist in my hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he pants when we break. “I had to . . . I had to—”

  I don’t let him finish, not done falling yet.

  I drag him back for more. Wesley goes rigid, then every part of him loosens, a small sigh escaping like a candle blown out. He wants and I want, no chance of miscommunication. Kissing him, I feel powerful. In command, even as I fumble and paw. There’s no such thing as a missed mark, only shifting ones.

  At long last, I get to do what I’ve so badly wanted for weeks, plunging my fingers into his hair. Thanks to rain, the strands are more slippery than supple, fresh water lifting the strong scent of his shampoo. His mouth is pure satin everywhere except a crescent of tougher skin where his top teeth have dug into his bottom lip for years. Anxiety. Nerves. Self-punishing, but so painfully sweet with me.

  We break to readjust, trying out new rhythms. While I sense his self-consciousness, perhaps comparing this kiss to what he thinks it should be, I wish he could know how much I love what it is. It doesn’t matter how much pressure he applies, what angles we meet each other at, or his level of confidence. It matters that he gives himself at all.

  I want everything, I want all of him, I want to familiarize myself down to every freckle and fine line.

  His kiss is the Fourth of July, a Southern summer night. Cicadas and the tongues of smoke off a burning firework—hiss, pop. Hot. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple and oh, he’s good with his hands. Firm, reverent hands, one sliding along my scalp to cup the back of my head, the other undecided between jaw, waist, hip. He feels better than I ever dreamed, and I’ve done quite a lot of dreaming.

  He leans back slightly, brows drawn together in mingled desire and trepidation, still not quite sure if he’s doing the right thing. “More,” I murmur into his ear. Wesley shivers, but that crease between his eyes disappears and he switches our positions, him on the seat, pulling me onto his lap. I have to tilt my head so that I don’t bump the roof of the car. There isn’t enough room for us to sit like this comfortably with the door shut, so we leave it hanging open, cold rain streaming in.

  My hand lingers at his throat, and the close touch seems to steal something from him. He lets his head fall back, Adam’s apple bobbing up the arched column. I kiss that, too. His breathing comes shallower, shallower. The red blooms on his cheeks are roses, his eyes hooded and glassy.

  I like it here, his hand decides, spanning broad fingers across my hip, pressing into a sensitive divot where muscles join. I make a soft sound in his mouth, involuntary; his palm flattens, pressing more, more. I move against him just right, feeling a hard ridge in his jeans. My skin sears even as goose bumps radiate, awareness never this heightened, and I feel the full vibrancy of it as I burn and burn and burn.

  “I’m rusty,” he admits, clearing his throat. “I’ve never slept with anyone, but I’ve kissed. It’s been a long time, though.”

  “You’re perfect,” I tell him. He doesn’t kiss like an expert, like a Casanova who’s smooth and sure of his every practiced move. He kisses like Wesley. That’s the new standard.

  We kiss and touch and taste, until the rain abates, until my mouth feels bruised and my body is dying for more. But we taper to a natural close, both somehow knowing that this is a kiss, only a kiss. Whether he wants a dynamic with me in which we’ll ever go further than this, I can only guess. As for me, I’m still trying to remember why this was a bad idea. Right now, it feels like there are no bad ideas.

  Eventually, I slide off his lap and we emerge in a different world from the one we last stood in, both a little disoriented. When he’s back in the driver’s seat, he sits up straighter than usual. His gaze flicks to the upper-right corner of the windshield, to some
thing in the sky that’s caught his attention, but I can’t remove mine from his face. He looks utterly wrecked in the most wonderful way.

  I am under Wesley Koehler’s skin. I don’t know how deep, but I’m there, and I am not imagining it.

  Chapter 16

  MY FLIMSY, DESPERATE PLAN to hide out from Wesley until my feelings for him have ceased to exist has a toolbox full of wrenches in it. For one, it’s hard to do what’s best for you when what you want isn’t what’s best for you. And what I want is to make out with Wesley again. If we’re going to coexist as platonic pals for the foreseeable ever, putting our tongues in each other’s mouths is not the way to achieve that. I need distance. I need space. I need to eat oversized bowls of tasteless, hearty moral fiber for breakfast.

  Once we’re inside the house, I croak that I need a shower, to which he responds that he does as well, leading my mind down a sordid path. A path with cozy alcoves where lovers can rip each other’s clothes off. Falling Stars has such alcoves in abundance. I start dreaming of Wesley under a waterfall resembling the one in our mural; I don’t know what he looks like in the nude, so I conjure up Michelangelo’s David for a baseline, southern region hidden by a grape cluster of bath bubbles popping one by one. I smack face-first into a closed door before the last bubble pops, smarting my nose.

  It’s all on him now. I’m counting on Wesley to shut down and be all brooding and tight-lipped again. It wouldn’t hurt for him to be a little bit awful, too. Maybe he’ll insult something I dearly love, like the plastic flowers I’ve stuck into every crack and crevice, and I’ll stop spending my unconscious hours from midnight through eight a.m. in the red-light district of my brain, lying on a chaise longue as he paints me like one of his French girls. We’ve got to vaporize our attraction. It’s the only way to save this relationship.

  Wesley has no regard for crafting a professional relationship or successfully living together in harmony. He’s ruthless sabotage, strolling into the living room just as I’m stretching out with hot chocolate and the remote, The Great British Bake Off queued up to be my date for the evening. He’s designed to test my restraint in a cream cable-knit cardigan and charcoal wool trousers that I doubt he’s worn more than once. Freshly shaven. Faint traces of cologne, which he never wears, waft toward me. He’s taken special care to smooth his hair, too. I’m dressed in a hot-pink romper and a sparkly wrap like the fun nanny who’s going to entertain his two children while he goes on a sophisticated date with the governor of Vermont.