Page 64 of Exchanged

“You wouldn’t.” Still, he returns the camera to its protective case and hangs it from its strap on a nearby tree.

I take this as an invitation to throw the snowball at him. It hits his shoulder, the sound of its impact a scratchy thud in the quiet woods. He recoils, pretending to be injured, then bends over, crafts his own snowball, and whips it back at me.

The battle is on. I have the height advantage from my place on the steps, but he has the hand-eye coordination gained from years of football practice. After several volleys, one of his snowballs strikes home in the center of my face, its cold wetness and blunt force causing me to stumble backward.

“Shit, are you—”

But then I’m running at him, ready to take this thing to the next level, ready to whitewash him in the snowbank. My body plows into his much larger one, and whether it’s because he’s surprised or because he’s letting me, he falls backward and I land on top of him.

And then he’s in the snowbank with my entire body pressed against his, our winter coats squeezing together. We both go still, forgetting the snowball fight. He looks up at me, his face inches from mine, and I can see a snowflake stuck to one of his eyelashes. His breath clouds the air between us; I feel its warmth.

The woods around us hold enough silence that I can hear the whisper of snow landing on snow.

We’ve done this before. A warning alarm sounds in my brain, and I move to stand up.

But before I can, his arm swings around my back, pulling us together so tightly our jackets compress, forcing out the air held in their bulky linings. His eyes, fixed on my face, narrow a little, and his eyebrows pull together like he’s thinking through a math problem. I wait for him to push me away and pretend this never happened.

But he doesn’t. So I lean forward and brush my lips against his. They’re cold and soft. I pull back, a question hanging between us.

He answers it, over and over.

He kisses like the bass line of a Hans Zimmer soundtrack, purposeful and driving and quietly epic, like there is more to each kiss than just his lips and mine. His gloved hand cups the back of my head, clutching me like he’s afraid something will tear me away from him if he lets go. His lips may be cold, but his tongue, when it enters my mouth, presses fire into my body, and every part of me wants more.

Before I know it, I’m on my back in the snow with him on top, the solid weight of his body pinning me down, his arms planted on either side of my shoulders. One of my legs wraps around him and his hips grind into me and I can feel the hardness of him beneath his snow pants.

When he pulls away, breathless and red-faced, I fight the urge to place my hand on the nape of his neck and pull him back in. I’m lightheaded and trembling but warm underneath him. If he kissed me again, our bodies could melt away this entire snowstorm.

He rolls into the snow next to me and sits up, and for a horrifying second, I think he’s about to tell me that this was a bizarre joke, that he’s about to remind me what he thinks we are to each other. But then he flashes his one-third grin and instead of cocky, it comes across as uncertain, shy.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice softer than the snow.

I sit up. “For what? That was amazing.”

“For … I dunno. For not being honest,” he says. “For making you think that I haven’t wanted that for months. For all the times I’ve been unable to hide how I’m feeling and then afterward pretended you were imagining things.” He absentmindedly packs a snowball together in his lap, then tosses it at a nearby tree, leaving a white target on its graying trunk.

“How long?” I ask.

He looks at me. “Honestly? I knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw you at the airport.”

A laugh of disbelief erupts from my throat.

“I’m serious. I mean, Enz: Have you seen yourself? You’re gorgeous. Your eyes. That chin dimple of yours. The way you make flannel look surprisingly hot. And don’t get me started on your hands.”

“My hands?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Uh, yeah. They’re, like, pretty big for a guy your size, and when you play your oboe … woof.”

I snort. “There is nothing sexy about the oboe.”

“In your hands?” he says. “I’d disagree.” He turns serious again. “Anyway, it took exactly zero seconds for me to crush real hard on you. Then we got off to our rocky start, and it was easier for me to fight with you because I wouldn’t have to worry about developing feelings if I hated you, right? But when I actually got to know you, it was impossible not to like you, and I thought maybe we could have something casual, something fun that would run its course by the time I’d leave in June. But nothing about you is casual, Enzo, and that scares the shit out of me. And because we’ve met in a place where I don’t belong, a place where you won’t belong for much longer, where does that leave us?”

The snow keeps falling, covering every tree branch, covering Garrett’s hat and coat, covering the stairs, covering everything. I think about the way our futures are already driving an inexorable wedge between us: At the same time that Garrett has begun to belong in Irontown and in my family, I have begun to move on. We are like two instruments destined to play in unison for only one measure of an entire film soundtrack.

“Does something have to last forever to be worth it?” I ask.

“I don’t know.” He bumps his shoulder against mine. “But I don’t think I care anymore.”

“What changed?” I ask. “Why now? Why not after that football game or on the beach by Superior or in my bed on Christmas Eve?”