Page 51 of Mixed Signals
I thoughtCaleb would kiss me right away.
After unexpectedly unloading some of my family baggage on him, I thought he’d get up from that stool, back me into my countertop, tangle his hand in my hair the same way he did with my apron strings, and give me one hell of a distraction. I thought he’d kiss me.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls his hand away from mine and ushers me out the door to the car like we just finished a conversation about the groceries, not the particulars of our physical boundaries.
He holds the door of his Jeep open for me and keeps his hand at the small of my back as I climb in. He lets me pick the radio station, and he keeps both hands on the wheel while I give him directions to the spot I’ve picked out for us. Wide open road, rolling green fields on either side of us. He kicks us up to seventy as soon as we hit the highway that leads straight to the coast, the warm wind whipping through my hair, my scarf twisting around me in a dance of pink and blue. I laugh as Caleb tries to tuck it behind my ear, but only manages to get it twisted around his wrist instead. I untangle it from my hair and leave it on his arm and he beams at me from the other side of the Jeep, pink on his cheeks.
The closer we get, the heavier the air gets. Sea salt and driftwood. Caramel from the taffy shop right on the corner of the boardwalk. The fields roll into soft dunes and willows, reaching their long green fingers to the sky, endless blue above us.
It’s a perfect summer drive.
I just wish Caleb would kiss me.
I don’t understand. I want Caleb to kiss me. I want to kiss Caleb. I thought I made that pretty clear. But he’s driven us forty-five minutes down to the shore without a single press of his lips to mine and now I am confused.
“Are you going to kiss me or not?”
That’s the beauty of our arrangement. I can ask whatever I want, whenever I want, without worrying that I might scare Caleb off. It’s freeing in a way I never expected. I know that no matter what happens, we’ll both be perfectly okay at the end of our month.
It’s also an absolute delight to watch Caleb almost trip over his own feet as we walk through the parking lot to the beach, the gravel gradually changing to sand. We stopped for custard at the stand right before the beach, my hands curled around two orange creamsicle cones as Caleb attempts to tie my scarf back into my hair. The one in my left hand is starting to melt over my knuckles.
Caleb finishes with my hair and reaches for the hand with the slowly melting cone, unthinkingly guiding my messy fingers to his lips. My breath hitches when he lowers his mouth to my hand, bottom lip dragging across my knuckles, a slow drag of his tongue where the ice cream is sticky against my skin. He does it without hesitation—like we’ve been doing this for years—and now I’m the one tripping over my own feet.
“Not yet,” he tells me, pulling his mouth away from my hand and steadying me with his arm over my shoulders. I certainly need it after that little performance. He tilts his custard cone to the side and saves some of the dripping ice cream with another obscene lick. Goosebumps erupt over every inch of my body. “I need to plan.”
A laugh sputters out of me. “Oh yeah?”
He nods and takes another lick of his ice cream cone. “Yeah. You deserve a good kiss. A classic movie kind of kiss.”
The tension I didn’t even realize I was carrying disappears, just like that. Caleb wants to kiss me, too. Something tender and soft curls inside my chest. “Is that so?”
He nods and looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Fireworks, shooting stars.” He grins from behind a rapidly dwindling mountain of vanilla. “Et cetera.”
“I’m interested in what et cetera means.”
“I thought you might be.”
“It sounds very complicated.”
He shrugs, arm jostling against mine. His fingers trace a lazy pattern against the bare skin of my shoulder. I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it and it makes me like it even more, those hidden secrets written against my sun-kissed skin.
“Let me plan. I’ll give you a heads up if that makes you feel better.”
“I’d like that, thank you.”
“My pleasure, Layla.”
Something tells me it’ll be my pleasure, too.
We stroll to a stop at the end of the reed fence that lines the small boardwalk down to the beach, the rolling dunes settling into soft, smooth sand. It’s practically empty at this time of day, families packing up their chairs and umbrellas and towels and toys to head back to their hotels. We’re the only ones on the beach moving closer to the surf, the crash of the rolling waves beckoning us forward.
I grab the blanket out of my bag and then the apple juice container, handing both to Caleb. He unfolds the blanket with one quick snap of his wrist as he stares at the apple juice container. I shouldn’t find that so attractive.
“You brought apple juice?”
“Wine,” I correct. “I didn’t want to bring the bottle. Glass isn’t allowed on the beach.”
“Beautiful and smart,” he tells me. He tries to peek into my bag. “What else do you have in there?”
