“Always a favorite.”
“Do you know one of the things I remember most about the day we met?” He pulls back to look at me. “I remember how you went riding down that big hill around the corner from our houses. You let go of your handlebars, threw your hands out to the side, and it looked like you were flying. I thought: this girl.”
“But you could ride with no hands, too. A lot of the kids could.”
“It wasn’t what you were doing,” he says. “It was the way you were doing it.” The words are quiet, and his smile fades as his gaze lowers itself to my mouth. He pauses, uncertain.
I wait.
He kisses me, his lips warm and soft and every bit as real as I’ve remembered.
My thirteen-year-old self holds her breath, holds the moment close.
Maybe he still is my Lucas.
Our kiss ends, simple and sweet as our first, and we finish our dance with the candle and the fire casting their light over us. Outside, the storm rages on.
“Are you tired?” he asks, when our steps slow.
“I’m not sure,” I answer, honestly. “Maybe.”
He slips his hand around mine, leads me to my bed. We share a quiet hug, but when he pulls back, my heart races and I can’t look up at him. There’s so much inside me, surfacing all at once—a jumble of thoughts, hopes, doubts—and I’m afraid everything will show in my eyes.
He tips up my chin. “Are you okay?”
I nod, keeping my gaze downcast, and he leans around me to turn down the blankets. I lower myself to sit, my stomach fluttering with nerves, and he bends to kiss me on the forehead. “Happy New Year, Layla.”
He leaves me and I watch him blow out the candle before crossing to his own bed. “’Night, Layls,” he says, glancing back. His smile is genuine in the firelight; it’s absolutely freeing.
When he takes off his shirt and starts undoing his pants, I lie down, turn my face up to stare at the rafters. The butterflies leave my stomach and my brain starts working again. Or maybe it’s my heart. I hear him climb into his bed, and I turn my head on the pillow so I can see him.
“Luke?” This time it’s an invitation, and even though I don’t have the words, he hears them.
He turns over, raising himself onto his elbows, and when I do the same, he leans forward and catches my mouth with his, kissing me across the rift between our beds. I sigh against his lips, and, with one kiss blending into another, he crawls forward from his bed to kneel by mine, his hands coming up to cradle my face.
When our kisses deepen and his tongue slips inside my mouth, OhthisisLuke whispers through my head. The thought fades as his mouth grows hungrier, and I lean back, pulling him into my bed. He gathers me close, covering my body with his.
“Luke,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I’m—I mean I’ve never—”
“We’ll stop whenever you want.” He’s just as breathless as I am.
His lips find mine again, but he hesitates.
I smile. “Don’t stop yet.”
We cross from one year into the next like that: holding each other, kissing endlessly—sometimes soft and slow, sometimes frantic and deep and gasping for breath. We kiss like we never imagined ourselves doing when we were kids.
My younger self would have understood, though, if I could have explained.
Somewhere along the way, I might have stopped wishing for magic, but she always believed.
Twelve
Out of Body
Iwake around dawn the next morning in Luke’s arms, feeling warm and happy and alive and, also, borderline terrified. It’s making me a little queasy, truth be told.
But as soon as his eyes open and meet mine, my worries melt away, one by one. I smile and I don’t feel like stopping, not when he kisses me good morning, not when he wraps his arms closer and I tuck my head against his chest. With his skin warm under my cheek, I hear the beating of his heart, and I can’t imagine there’s a better sound happening anywhere in the world.
We take turns in the bathroom as usual and I opt to go second again. After I’m finished, I start making my way back to Luke: he’s smiling at me, lying in my bed with his arms folded behind his head, and…I just know.
Luke’s smile has meant more to me in my life than almost any other, and we’ve been apart for a long time. Too long.
I halt in the middle of the room, and a frown crosses Luke’s face. He sits up, wordless, and the skin between his eyebrows creases. He has no idea how much I adore that little crinkle of skin.
My hands go to my waist and I hold my breath. I grip the edge of my shirt, and the look on Luke’s face changes, becomes a question. I slip the shirt up, over my head and let it fall to the floor. I take a couple more steps before stopping to slide my pants down over my hips. His eyes absorb every movement, and I have to remind myself to keep breathing.
Another few steps—slow, uncertain—and I stop again. I reach behind me to unhook my bra, feeling like I’m on the verge of an out-of-body experience. This is what I need, though. A decision, like stepping through a doorway. Luke’s half-risen, coming to meet me, but he freezes, his gaze on me as I stop to pull the bra forward, off my skin.
“So beautiful,” he says, the words like air.
My fingertips edge beneath the band of my underwear and my eyes close in a long, long blink as I push the fabric down my skin. I’m back to being terrified, but when I open my eyes, Luke’s gaze is waiting, and it makes me remember how brave I once was. I feel like I’m bicycling, flying downhill with my hands in the air.
He reaches for me when I go to him, pulling me into his lap, into the space where there’s only us. His mouth is warm, melting into mine; his hands slide over me, spreading heat beneath his fingers. They find my hips, and when he pulls me against him, we both groan. Everything goes kind of crazy after that.
Our kisses were enough last night, but they’re not this morning. There’s a starving feeling that isn’t filled by kissing, no matter how deep. There’s a dizziness, too, a growing intoxication, but even while he’s reaching to grab something from the pocket of his crumpled-up jeans, while he’s pushing his underwear down, out of the way, sliding the condom on and pulling me close again, he’s checking on me. “Layla, are you sure?” he asks, his voice ragged and rough. “We don’t have to.”
“It’s you,” I say. “I’m sure.”
And I mean it.
At least I do until Luke rolls us over together and his weight is on me, his body moving to fit with mine.
“Ow,” I say, in a gush of breath.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine, just…go slow, okay?”
“Okay. …Wait, are you holding your breath?”
“Maybe.”
He stops, looks into my eyes. “Layla?”
“Luke, just keep going, I mean it…unless I say stop.”
He nods, kisses me until I relax, until I remember I wanted this. The pain is there again, but it’s not as strong as the sensation that I need this closeness with Luke, every bit of it.
Time stands still, it stretches on while we’re together, and when we lie still afterward, our bodies and kisses still blending one into the other, memories are already playing through my mind: the sweet and tender moments, the fast ones, the feverish, the way Luke looked at me during each. His sweat has mixed with mine and when we’ve caught our breath and he lifts himself off me, the skin of our stomachs sticks together, peels apart. We laugh, and it makes everything feel more normal, this new version of us. But when he settles beside me, his gaze going over my body, his fingers tracing the skin above my heart, I can’t help lowering my eyes.
“You’re not looking at me,” he says. “What are you thinking about?”
My gaze flicks to his, but refuses to stay. “I’m holding onto the moment. Savoring.”
“What else? I know you, remember? If something’s wrong, I wish you would tell me.”
“It’s just…I’ve never felt this close to anyone before. Ever.”
> “Neither have I. Ever.”
My fingers find his skin, touch the place near his heart, too. “But I’ve never been this close to anyone, either, and you and I were close in the past, Luke. You were my everything—and we lost each other.”
“Will you look at me, please, so I can talk to you?”
I force my face up to his. His eyes are open, so full of feeling, like when we were best friends and he was confessing one of his deepest secrets.
“You look like my Luke again,” I tell him. I want to say Lucas, but I’m not sure I can.
“I am,” he says. “That’s what I’m trying to say: that part’s never changed.”
♦ ♦ ♦
My body feels warm all over and deliciously relaxed. We were together again and our movements were slower this time, long and indulgent and sensual. It’s hard to believe people are allowed to share this much pleasure with one another, to be this completely, thoroughly happy.
We’ve become a tangle of arms and legs among the sheets; if I half-close my eyes, it’s hard to tell where one body ends and the other begins. My stomach growls, but I’m not sure I ever want to leave this bed, no matter what my stomach says. Still. “I’m starving,” I say. “Aren’t you?”
Luke nods, leaning forward to nip at my neck. “Ravenous.”
“Rice and beans?”
“My favorite. How’d you know?”
I force myself to get up so I can make a late brunch—opting for oatmeal instead of the rice and beans again—and Luke feeds the fire and reassembles the bedding. We eat mostly in silence, him in his boxers, me in my underwear and his t-shirt, sitting side by side on the floor with our backs against the kitchen cabinet.
It’s chilly in the cabin, but neither of us seems to feel it. We can’t stop grinning at one another.
“My face hurts from smiling,” I tell him when he stands to wash the dishes.
He pulls me up, kisses my cheeks, my chin. “Your skin’s a little raw from kissing, too. Sorry, I guess shaving didn’t help much, but then again, we’ve been doing a whole lot of kissing…”
“That’s why you shaved? You expected us to—?”
He grins. “No. Well, maybe the hope was there, but…”
I lean in, interrupting him with yet another kiss. He keeps his lips pressed to mine and wraps his arms around me. I open my eyes, and he opens his at almost the same time. We laugh, breaking the kiss.
“Is this weird?” I ask. This new thing between us should be off-the-charts bizarre, except it insists on feeling natural. That’s the part that keeps throwing me off balance.
“Not weird for me.”
“But…will it be weird when we get back?”
He shakes his head. “Not for me.”
“Promise?” I hold up my pinky and his finger catches mine, curls around it.
“Promise.”
He smiles, tells me to close my eyes, kisses me once on each eyelid, and then he’s gone. I wait, listening to kitchen sounds—a lid unscrewing, a drawer sliding open. “Open your mouth,” he says, when he comes back.
I do, and he drizzles honey over my tongue. It starts to melt right away. “Mm.”
“More?”
“Mm-hmm.” This time, his tongue follows the honey, and sweetens our kiss. “Oh,” I say, opening my eyes. “More.”
“Come here.” He leads me to the bed, setting the honey close by. “Arms up,” he tells me. I do as he says and he tugs the t-shirt up, over my head. Goosebumps rise over my skin, but it’s not because I’m cold.
He doesn’t speak as he slides my underwear down my body, but his gaze follows his hands, and heat spreads through my face and my belly.
He stands in front of me again, brings his mouth to mine—to kiss me, to whisper against my lips. “Lie down,” he says. The sound touches me like fingertips.
He smiles. Then he reaches for the honey.
♦ ♦ ♦
We’ve kissed and cuddled, tasted and touched our way through yesterday evening, part of the night, this morning. It’s now midday on January second, we’ve already used our third condom, and we’re lolling in the sheets. This must be what they mean by “basking.” I can’t think of too many things I like better. The part that leads up to this, the pre-basking, would have to be one. Same goes for the post-basking—the talking, the laughing, the quiet, all those skin to skin moments that can be as intimate as sex.
“I think we’ve forgotten how to do anything else, Luke.”
“Are you saying that like it’s a problem?”
“It could be a problem, depending on how many of those condoms you have left,” I say.
Luke’s mouth twists into a little frown. “Three more.”
“Only three?”
He laughs. “I like how you think.”
“Where’d you get them, anyway? Please don’t say this place.” I study the old cabin and its cobwebby ceiling.
“No way,” he says, following my gaze. “I got them from the truck, when we went back.”
I scoff. “From the truck? What made you think you’d need them at the cabin?”
“I wasn’t assuming anything. It’s just, I was feeling closer to you all the time and I thought…in case. Anyway, I don’t have any but these three, so I guess we’d better hope our rescuers find us soon.”
My mouth tightens. “This is going to sound crazy, but right now, a big part of me doesn’t feel like hoping for that.”
“Why? When we get back, things’ll be different between us. You have to know that.”
“Yes, but…I just keep thinking about how bad it all was, and how far apart we were. Seems kind of hard to recover from, don’t you think?”
“I think we’ve done our share of recovering…” He kisses my bare shoulder.
“You know what I mean. It’s so much easier here, when it’s just the two of us. We can be ourselves. Back there, people have expectations. We’re labeled, stuck into boxes. Separate boxes. ‘Jocks’ and ‘freaks’ boxes.”
Luke raises an eyebrow.
“I’m serious. Think about it: among the few encounters we’ve had in the last few years, one was when you beat up my art-freak boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” he says, frowning.
“Ex. Anyway, another was when you knocked me down at school. I know, I’ve officially forgiven you, even if it did take me a while.”
“You’re right, it did. How many times did I try to apologize after it happened?”
“I don’t remember, but I do recall that those apologies always seemed to happen when we were alone, far away from football players and cheerleaders and…”
“You make it sound like I was ashamed to talk to you.”
I tip my head at him.
“No way. Don’t do that. I would’ve apologized in front of anyone. I just knew you’d be ten billion times angrier if I approached you with other people around. You’d get uncomfortable or whatever, and you’d refuse to listen. Hell, you refused to listen even when there wasn’t anyone in sight.”
My leg is still wrapped around his waist. I slide it off, roll my body back from his.
“Don’t pull away,” he says.
I let him keep his arm around me, but I can already feel the distance happening.
“If I’d heard you out back then, what would you have said? ‘Sorry I didn’t help you pick up your stuff. I’m just embarrassed that we know each other.’”
“Hey, that’s enough. Will you listen to me?” Frustration has entered his voice; he takes a deep breath, and kisses me once on the lips: a hard peck. “Please?”
“Fine.” My brow furrows and my lower lip pushes itself outward. I’m pouting and I know it, but I can’t help myself.
He leans forward, gives my lower lip a little bite. “You know, as stubborn as you can be and as much as you drive me crazy sometimes, I love it when you pout.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“No, I’m not. Here it is: that day, when I bumped into you and made
you drop your stuff…” He lowers his gaze, sighs, forces his eyes back up to meet mine. “I was staring at you. You were talking with your friends and, by then, we had almost no contact. I missed you and…sometimes, I couldn’t help watching you. But that guy saw me. Bill frickin’ Carter.”
“The asshole.”
“Exactly. Anyway, he said something crude…something about jumping your bones. I turned to tell him to fuck off, but he pushed me back, smash, right into you.”
“I remember the smash.”
Luke nods. “And you got so mad. Sort of like now,” he teases. When I smirk at him in reply, he continues, “So, you were mad and you got right up in my face, like this.” He holds his hand up, directly in front of his face, to demonstrate.
“I know.” I tug his hand away.
“You were pissed off, but I’d been thinking about you in a different way, you know what I mean? So, when you got in my face and you smelled really good, like flowers or maybe some kind of fruit, and your lips…they were this deep, blood red, really sexy…”
He stops, stares at my mouth, and kisses me, slow and deep.
I pull back, after. “I thought you didn’t like my lipstick.”
“The black. I like that red,” he says. “Anyway, I, uh, reacted…or at least a lower region of me did.”
“Like right now?” I ask, looking down.
“You have that effect on me…when I’m awake, not awake…”
“You’ve dreamt about me, too? I’ll need details on that later,” I say, leaning in to draw another kiss from his mouth. “But, really? You got turned on because I was shouting in your face?”
“I think it was more about the attention than the anger. The same thing might’ve happened if you’d stared at me or bumped into me, or maybe even if you were just standing there, not doing anything…”
I think of the cafeteria line, with Luke standing in front of me. Anonymous and sexy.
“Anyway,” he says, “there’s no explaining the sex drive of a…what was I? Fifteen, sixteen?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Eighteen doesn’t seem much different, from my view.”
“True. But, to be fair, you have these lips…plus, you were wearing those thigh-high things,” he says, “and when you bent down to pick up your stuff, a little bit of your skin showed, like right up here, on your thigh…” he says, running his fingers lightly over me.
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