Page 39 of Even After This
Pursing my lips as hard as I can, I’m still unable to rid myself of the smile breaking across my face, so I lower my head. My shoulders shake. “I’m gonna—” I cough to rid myself of the laughter building in my throat. “I’m gonna have to figure out how to watch that video.”
“Oh, really?” Harlan says, part offense and part humor in his voice. “Then maybe I’m gonna have to leave you on one of these rocks.”
“Listen,” I say as I stand, “you’re not the only famous person here. My junior high marching band played the halftime show of a Dallas Cowboys game.” I singsong the last few words as I strut down the next section of our path.
Harlan jogs a few steps to place himself in front of me and taunts, “Show me some of your moves. Come on, I know you’ve still got it.”
“I’m sorry, but no. I don’t do public performances anymore.” My attempt at a coy smile is successful right up until I trip over a pile of small rocks.
He grabs my elbow while chuckling. “Maybe youdon’tstill have it.”
“Shut up” is the brilliant response I laugh through while I regain my footing.
Before I know what’s happening, he slips his hand around my waist and angles me perpendicular to him while he lifts his phone in his other hand to take our picture. “Smile.”
Smiling isn’t a hard request. I seem to do that a lot around him. But him wanting a picture of the two of us feels meaningful. Significant.
When I turn to him, his hand slides away from my waist, but we’re still very close. As in I-could-count-his-eyelashes close.
A fire flashes in his eyes. “I kind of want to kiss you.”
“Kind of?” I say on a rushed breath.
“No. Not kind of. I definitely want to kiss you.”
“But you said ‘kind of.’” Somehow we’re even closer. So much so that I place my hand on his arm because now I’m losing my balance for a different reason.
“I didn’t want to scare you.” His deep, quiet voice settles over me. “We haven’t talked about that sort of thing.”
“It’s, um...” I look over his shoulder, trying to make sense of the seventeen thoughts scrambling through my head, then I look back to him. “It’s been a while. For me. With the kissing.”
He glances at my lips. “It’s like dancing. You don’t do it for a while and once you get back on the dance floor, you just automatically remember and everything falls into place.”
I try to keep a straight face but fail. “Okay, first of all, I think you mean it’s like riding a bike,” I say through chuckles. “But in your case, I seriously hope you kiss better than you dance.”
He winks, and there is nothing cheesy and everything good about it. Then his face turns a little more serious. “I’m wondering how you feel about it. Me kissing you.”
Reflexively, I squeeze his arm. Is this hard? This is a no-brainer, right? I swallow and steady my voice, hoping it sounds calm when I say, “I feel fine about it.”
Fine?
I just told Harlan Holcombe that I feelfineabout kissing him. As if he asked me how I feel about having green beans with dinner. Fine. What do I think about getting Grandma a scarf for Christmas? Fine. How do I feel about people who wear corduroy pants in April? Fine.
He smiles at me.
It’s a drawn-out, dangerous smile. The kind that starts in the lines at the edges of his eyes right before it adds a spark of mischief to them, then slowly spreads to his curving lips.
“Fine,” he says. But somehow his “fine” implies so much more than mine.
Still holding my eyes with his, he slides his hand from myelbow down my arm and laces his fingers with mine. “Later,” he says, his breath feathering against my lips.
While my nerves feel like a pinball pinging across my body, he leads me down the path.
“Later” sounds way too far away and terrifyingly close all at the same time.
After we pass the Tower of Babel formation, I catch the Siamese Twins in the distance. I stride over to the side of the trail and stop to face the orange rock formations with the majestic purple mountain backdrop.
The scenery seeps serenity into the nervous energy that his promise of a kiss had placed there. A breeze brushes my face, and I close my eyes, inhaling a deep breath through my nose.
