Текст книги "Slow Twitch"
Автор книги: Лиз Реинхардт
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
“Jake.” Brenna drew my name out long and sweet, like a soft piece of sugary chewed bubblegum stretched out of her cute little mouth on the tip of her finger. I got stuck on the sound my name made coming out of her mouth. “This is the weekend.”
The sun was high and hot overhead, but it suddenly felt like the temperature spiked, and it had nothing to do with the weather. I actually hadn’t forgotten. Not at all. But I didn’t know what Brenna would feel about the whole thing, so I was going to let her take the lead. “This weekend?”
“This is it.” She bit her bottom lip and broke out the biggest, brightest, most excited smile I’d ever seen.
That smile grabbed my throat and heart and…other places all at once. How did Brenna manage to shake up and twine sexy and sweet so perfectly? How did she manage to make me want to protect her from anything and everything and corrupt her at the same time?
“So, you make plans with anyone else? Or are you spending the whole weekend with me.” She nodded softly, and I cleared my throat. “You gotta check in with Mom?”
She held up her phone. “We’ve already texted, and I’ll check in again later. She knows I’m going out. I’m supposed to have fun. And be careful. Is that what we’re going to do?”
Her grin was contagious. “Get your ass in the truck, woman! I need a shower before we do this!”
My step-dad was out playing pool, so I settled Brenna in my room and got cleaned up. After my shower, I came into my room and found Brenna on the bed, hair hanging off the side, bare feet propped on my wall, studying my motocross posters.
“Were you upset about today?” She turned her head and looked at me with these soft blue eyes. She wasn’t giving me any pity, and I wanted to kiss her like crazy just for that.
“I was.” I toweled off, and laughed at her construction-whistle cat calls while I got my clothes on. “You’re a sexual harasser,” I accused, falling on the bed next to her.
“Only for you.” She grinned and ran her hands over my shoulders and down my arms. “I thought you did great today.”
“I did alright.” I wanted to say more, but I bit my tongue hard before I started spilling all my regrets. It was stupid to go over them. The bottom line was, I needed to learn from what I did and go forward, not worry about what already happened.
“You would have done better on the better bike,” she said matter-of-factly. She nuzzled under my shoulder, and I cradled her in my arms.
“I know.” I ran my nose over her hair, soft and good-smelling. She smelled like home.
“You’d do better if you took honors classes.” It was just another fact.
“I know that, too.” I watched as she fitted her hand to mine, palm to palm. I could bend my fingers right over hers.
“You seem to know a lot.” She turned her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “But what will you do with all this vast knowledge?”
“Is this another attempt to get me to sign up for honors?” I asked. It wasn’t an accusation. In fact, I was happy that she gave enough of a shit to keep after me about it.
“No. It’s just…” She sighed and pushed my hair back off my forehead. I’d needed a haircut for a while, but this summer brought out a lazy side of me I didn’t even know I had before. “This summer has been so crazy. I feel like it’s been longer than three months, but at the same time, it went so damn fast. And we both did crazy stuff. Me and my stupid essay–”
“It wasn’t stupid,” I interrupted. “The more I think about it, the more I like it. I reread it a few times you know.” I had. I had sat on the edge of my bed and struggled through it three or four more times, until I had it locked in my head.
Her eyes widened til all the lashes seemed to stand out straight. “Don’t read it too many times! I’m going to write more essays. Different ones. That’s what I’m trying to say. This whole summer has been crazy, right? You and Caroline and drinking. You punching your dad and Cadence’s idiot boyfriend. Me getting a handle on how to be friends with Saxon without letting him drive me nuts. Meeting Evan and listening to her when she told me I needed to do more, be braver. Learning how to be independent, but also follow the rules. All of this stuff…” She pressed her lips together. “Things change so damn fast, and I never, ever want you to be left behind. Do you understand? I never want to feel like I left you behind.” When she looked at me, her eyes were shiny with tears and her voice was tight like a rubber band stretched as far as it would go.
“You know I plan to follow you wherever. Off the plank, if it comes to it.” I threaded my fingers through hers and held her hand tight. “I’ve got something to show you.”
I got off my bed and went to my closet, pulled out the stack I’d been keeping at the top. Brenna sat up, her hair a big sexy mess and her mouth rounded out. “Jake? Are those the books for…”
“Honors English.” I sat on the bed while she touched the spines.
“Were you hiding them?” she asked, inspecting the cover of Song of Solomonby Toni Morrison with its robed guy in front of a big sun.
I’d been worried about the book when I saw the weird-looking cover. But I was more than halfway through, and had decided Toni Morrison was probably one of those people who would blow your brain away if you ever got to sit down and talk to her for a while in person.
“No.” I took out my iPod and showed her my playlist, filled with all the books we needed to read. “You know I listen. I just need the books…well because you need the books to be in class.”
She clutched the book hard in her hands for a minute, then threw it on the bed and dove at me. “I love you! I love you.” She kissed me all over my face while I laughed, then she stopped. “Wait. Did you listen to any of this book?” She picked up the crazy Song of Solomonbook.
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“And I think the women especially scare the shit out of me, but I kind of love all of them, even if they’re batshit crazy. Am I just insane?” I asked. Or at least, I tried to ask, but she was kissing me and, suddenly, talking about English class was pretty much the last thing on my mind.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She whispered the question in my ear after she pulled her mouth away from mine.
“At first, I didn’t know if I was going to stick with it. Then I was thinking you’d just think I did it because you told me to. But I thought about it for a long time. And today, even though I know you wanted me to use the bike my dad sent, you stood up for me. So I know you’d believe me when I tell you that I’m doing this because I trust you, and I really did listen to what you said. And I won’t get left behind, alright? Big plans for both of us. But, I’m still following you wherever the hell you go. That’s non-negotiable.”
Honestly, I’d made up my mind when I decided I couldn’t accept that damn bike. I knew it wasn’t in me to take bribes from my family, but I also knew that I wanted the kind of life they had. I wanted to be able to afford good shit and not work like a dog. If I was going to have it all, I had to change. I couldn’t just keep doing the same idiot stuff and expect a different result. So I decided to put my lazy brain to work and see where it got me.
For a few seconds after I explained, it was Brenna and me, sliding together like a key in an ignition. Or almost like that.
But not quite. Because I hadn’t forgotten this weekend was theweekend. And there was another part to my whole grow-the-fuck-up-and-stop-being-chickenshit plan. A part that scared me so much more than crashing headfirst into a dirt mound on my bike or flunking every test I attempted to take.
Because nothing scared me more than the way I felt about Brenna.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.” I liked the way I could see her trying to figure it out, like watching gears click and whir together.
“What is it?”
I took her by the hand and led her outside, to the truck. “You just gotta see it. That’s all. C’mon.”
We got in and she hung her head half out the window, letting the wind pick her hair up and whip it back. I kept my eyes equally on her and the road, and at least twice had to remind myself to do things like blink and swallow. She was so gorgeous, it ached to look at her.
We pulled down a long, unused road I knew like I knew my truck, like I knew my past, like I knew my feelings for Bren, so sure they gave me courage just when I was about to chicken out.
When we got far enough down the road that it petered into nothing but a gravel path, I cut the engine and took it out of gear. “Wanna drive the rest of the way?”
“Really?” She bounced a little with excitement.
“Have you been practicing?” I tried to use a good school-teacher voice, but I don’t think I really had the hang of it.
“Yes!” She clapped a little and her eyes were wide and shiny. “Mom’s been taking me out every Sunday. And Thorsten made me parallel park for two hours in the parking lot at the mall one morning. I’m ready. Is it legal?”
“Yeah.” I paused. “Kind of. Not exactly. It’s just because we’re only a year apart. I need two years of being licensed. Legally. But I don’t even know if this is a road. Legally. You worried?”
She shook her head. “Not even a little bit. Can I just say that I’ve been waiting for months to drive this truck. I’m so psyched. Seriously!”
I hopped out of the driver’s side and she scooted into the driver’s seat. I walked around the front of the truck, and it was surreal, seeing Bren behind the steering wheel of my truck. I was feeling a weird pride about being one of the people who would teach her how to drive. For me, there wasn’t anything that meant freedom and possibility the way a license to drive did.
I got in the passenger side and tried to get comfortable in a seat I’d never sat in before. “This is weird.” Everything felt weird. Even the fact that the seatbelt got pulled down over my right shoulder instead of my left struck me as profoundly off. “Okay, you got all the basics, right?” I double-checked.
“I’ve got the basics,” she assured me. “But, Mom’s car is an automatic.”
I grinned wide. I knew that, and, cool as it was to help teach her to drive, teaching her stick was even more awesome. “The pedal all the way to the left is the clutch pedal, okay? It releases the clutch and lets you pull the stick into gear. Make sense?”
Brenna leaned back and checked the pedals, then tapped the one far on the left with her foot. “Got it.”
“Push the clutch all the way, and you gotta use your left foot. You never use your left for anything else, but you have to pull it out for this. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Turn it on.” I watched while Brenna turned the key and the engine hummed to life. “Alright. To move forward, you gotta move the shifter towards you…yeah, left, and you push it forward as far as it can go. Good. Now you’re in first. Now listen, cause this is tricky. Listen first, okay. You’re gonna let off the clutch and, simultaneously, you gotta give a little gas. Ready to try?”
“Ready.” Brenna sat on the edge of her seat and leaned forward, let the clutch out too fast, and grunted in frustration when the truck jerked forward and stalled. “Shit. I stalled.”
“Congratulations. You’re learning to drive stick.” I smiled across the seat at her, overwhelmed with a feeling of camaraderie with my very cool girlfriend. “Do it again. After a couple tries, you’ll get the hang of it. It’s something you have to just get the feel of.”
She bit her lip and tried again. And again. And once she got it and we stopped lurching like crazy, we worked on moving into second, where she stalled a few more times. Bren tended to be one of those people who had a knack for things and always caught on quick. It irritated the hell out of her to stall out so many times, but she kept at it, and soon she was cruising. Slowly, but cruising.
Brenna drove with a cool confidence that probably had as much to do with the fact that she’d never almost flipped a truck as it did with the way she attacked everything with head-on enthusiasm. She leaned over the wheel slightly, her eyes fixed on the road, her mouth in a serious, concentrated line. She followed the path until it gave up even attempting to be gravel and just turned to high, soft grass. She glanced at me.
“It’s alright. You can pull over right there.” I pointed to a flat spot and she pulled in and parked the way I instructed her with coordinated grace, then looked at me like she’d just won her first heat.
I shook my head at her. “I knew you’d be a natural driver. I’d better get used to sitting on the right. It’s still kind of weird for me.”
“You should have come to Ireland with me. Then we could have practiced, and you’d get to stay on the left.” She draped herself on the steering wheel and gave me a lazy smile.
“Maybe I will come next time you go.”
At that minute, it felt real. The whole damn world felt real and raw and attainable in a way it rarely ever had before.
The afternoon was sliding into evening, and the air was a little cool. I grabbed a duffel bag out of the back of the truck and walked around to Brenna.
“What’s in the bag?” she asked, turning sideways so she could hook her legs around my waist and pull me close.
“Secrets.” I liked the way she kept one hand hooked on the steering wheel. I never imagined I’d be so turned on by watching someone drive as I was by watching Brenna.
“You’re pretty full of them this summer, aren’t you?” She squeezed her legs and my head swam.
“Not really. I’m just a dumbass, and it takes me a while to figure out the answer, even when it’s hitting me upside the head.” The strap of her tank top had slid down the curve of her shoulder, and I hooked one finger through and pulled it back up.
She turned her head and watched my hand on her skin. “Maybe you should listen to me more. You know, since I’m always right.”
I kissed her shoulder and pulled her out of the truck. “You know, no one likes a know-it-all, girlie.”
“Really? You can’t seem to get enough of me.” I swatted her on the behind and she laughed, that bright, clear sound that made my heart seize up in my chest.
We tripped over the big rocks jutting out of the path and tramped along the grass, crushing it under our shoes until it let out the smell of summertime; sweet, clean, and full of all kinds of twisting possibilities.
We finally got to the edge of a rocky kind of cliff, and I helped her down until we were by a little hidden grove with a waterfall.
Alright, it wasn’t Niagara Falls, but it was pretty cool. It was a creek fall, so it was mostly this slide of water over a high rock incline. The areas next to the creek were all smooth stones, like maybe the creek used to be higher and ran over the stones for years until it cut back. All above and around were these huge old trees that seemed to pick up the wind and funnel the moans and rushes of the air through their branches, and straight up was the sky, so far away it felt like being at the bottom of a deep well.
Brenna and I didn’t talk much at all as I unzipped the duffel bag and unrolled my old sleeping bag, laying it flat so the soft, worn blue flannel side was up. Brenna slid her sandals off, cuffed her jeans, and waded into the water, walking carefully over the uneven, rounded stones.
When I was done spreading the blanket out, I kicked off my boots and socks and cuffed my jeans up so I could wade out next to her. The water was so cold it bit at my skin, and the rocks made it hard to keep balance. Bren tucked her arms around me as soon as I got close.
“What is this place?” she asked in a hushed whisper.
“Saxon and I stumbled on it back when we were kids, back when we both raced. There’s an old track about a half mile away. Saxon almost killed himself because we didn’t realize there was this drop. His bike was pretty wrecked.” I laughed at the memory of Saxon’s screams, the crush of the bike, and then our little-kid excitement when we found this place. We were so excited, Saxon forgot all about the bloody gashes and his mangled bike. We didn’t find out until later that he’d fractured his arm, and he never bitched because we were so excited to be down in this little magical place we discovered, the pain just didn’t register.
“We planned all kinds of crazy shit. We were gonna build a clubhouse or a fort here, you know? Camp out all the time. We did actually sleep here once in a while, but I haven’t been here in five or six years probably. It’s still exactly the same.”
Brenna linked her arms so tight around me, I could feel the pulse of her heart right through my skin. “Isn’t that weird?”
“What?” I dragged my lips over the impossibly smooth skin on her neck.
“That five years can change so much. It can change anything, everything, for us. And then there are these places that feel like time doesn’t even affect them.” She rubbed her head on my chest. “In five years, I’ll be almost twenty-two and you’ll be almost twenty-three. We’ll be adults. We’ll be ready to have jobs and apartments and all that stuff. I wonder if this place will still be here.”
“This place will always be here. And we’ll come back. In five years.” For a second everything magnified; the creek roared, the water stung like ice, the wind groaned through the trees, the incredible, intoxicating smell of Brenna’s hair, like a flowers in the rain, all crashed over me. Then every single thing fell away, and it felt like the entire world was just me and Bren, just the two of us in this forever place.
“Five years from today, we’ll come back here.” She ran her hands along my back. “Right here to this place that never changes.”
“Deal.” I kissed her.
“But, Jake, what if this place–”
I put a finger over her lips and shook my head. “Don’t even think it.”
She talked around my finger. “But what if we…” Her voice trailed off and I dropped my finger form her lips. She craned her neck and took in everything. “Never mind. Come with me.”
We walked back through the creek water, and she sat on the soft sleeping bag, patting a place next to her.
I sat next to her and she tugged at the bottom of my shirt, pulling it slowly over my head. She pulled a hand over my shoulder and down to the center of my chest, where my heart was drumming so hard, I felt like I might be having a heart attack.
Brenna kept her eyes on my face as she slid her tank top over her head, flipped the button and slid the zipper down on her jeans, and gave me an expectant look.
“This is happening? Now?” My voice grated out, harsh with nerves.
“That’s why we’re here.” She said it like this whole romantic adventure had been her idea instead of mine. She held her hands out in the air between our bodies, and we looked down at them. “They’re shaking.” Her voice barely registered over a whisper.
“They shouldn’t be. You don’t have to feel nervous. I’m here.” I pressed her back gently and pulled her jeans down her hips, then off her long, perfect legs. I breathed slowly and consistently to keep from passing out.
She held her arms out to me, and I lay next to her, letting her body and mine rub and meet at all the right places.
I knew why I took her to this place that never changed. I knew exactly why. I wanted us to change, right here, and then I wanted to lock that change up so it could never undo itself. Like black magic. Like stupid hope. Like a wish you’d never unwish, no matter how much people warned you that you’d live to regret it. Like a chance, a risk, a leap, an undivided love too gorgeous to let a little thing like the reality of gravity’s hard knocks stop you from just diving, headfirst, right in.
Chapter Sixteen
Brenna
There was no going back. This place might not change in five years or fifty or five hundred, but I would and so would Jake. We had come to this strange, almost-magic place one way, and we would leave completely different. Different because we’d be truly together.
I was ready.
Ready, and so scared I couldn’t stop the shivers that ran over my body.
Jake kissed me softly, only the barest brush of his lips on my lips and mouth and neck, over and over until he calmed my skin and it stopped jumping erratically at every slight touch to its surface. I pulled my hands up and down over his back, so strong and smooth. Even though Jake was young, his back felt like a man’s back, bunchy with muscles from doing too much work for too long a time so many days a year. He was propped on his elbows, and his arms tensed solidly next to me, walling me in and making me feel protected.
I tried to squirm out of my bra, but Jake reached around my back and unclasped it calmly. I wiggled out of my underwear, and was completely naked, outside in the cool, sweet summer wind, under Jake Kelly, who I loved so much and so hard, my heart punched with the severity of it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been naked outside before. I mean, not since I was little.” I ran my hands over his hair as he smiled that sweet, shy smile I couldn’t ever see enough and kissed up and down my arms. “I wish we could skinny-dip in the creek.”
“We could.” His voice brushed against my ears with a rough slide. “If you want to die from hypothermia.”
“Can’t you think of any way to warm me up before I die?” I pulled my legs up and wrapped them around his waist.
“Yep. But we better swim now if you want to, because I’m just about to get to the warming up part.” His words made me shiver and he chuckled softly. “See? You need to get warm. It’s my duty as your boyfriend to protect you from the elements.” He rubbed his big, calloused hands up and down my arms, his skin scratching against mine. “You have the world’s softest skin.”
“I think it’s just because you have the world’s roughest hands.” I bit my lip as he rubbed in from my arms, his hands on my breasts and down my stomach, then lower.
And then we stopped talking and joking. His fingers rubbed low until he slid inside me and worked a steady, gentle rhythm that made me grab at his shoulders and bury my face in his neck until I shook against his hand. I hugged his neck tight, my eyes closed against his skin, and felt completely safe and treasured in his hold.
“Bren?”
I took one last deep lungful to savor the smell of him and looked at his face, so handsome, his gray eyes soft and serious in the darkening light. “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered.
His smile was half embarrassed, half completely pleased. “I’m glad you like what you see.” He kissed me, his mouth sweet and slow over mine, while his arms wrapped me tight. “I’ve never loved anyone in my life the way I love you, Brenna. And if you want to stop right now, I’ll stop, no problem. But if you want more…if you’re ready to do this, I’m ready to…I’m happy to…do this with you.”
“I do. I want to.” My voice shook, but I focused on Jake: the warm, sharp mint-and-autumn-leaves smell of him, the heat of his skin, the love that bloomed out of his eyes and twined my heart in a sure, sweet comfort I knew I would never have to doubt.
And then the pace changed. We didn’t glide soft and slow anymore. I nipped at his bottom lip and he squeezed my butt hard. His mouth dragged down my neck and he sucked lower, then back up, teasing my skin with his tongue and mouth. I rained kisses all over his ears, his jaw, forehead, his soft, sun-warmed hair. My hands pulled and rubbed down his arms, his back, around to his chest and stomach, then even lower. We rolled over, so I lay on top of him, my hand sliding down between our bodies so I could find the zipper and button of his jeans and somehow yank them down. Our hands twisted together in our excited, nervous grope and his laughter hit my ears in a soft wave.
“You’re always so eager to get me out of my pants,” he joked as he got his zipper down and slid the pants below his hips.
When he lay so close next to me, I felt a whirring wonder at the still-new feel of our bodies so close and so exposed.
“You can’t possibly appreciate how cute your butt is out of your pants.” I smiled at him, but my attempt at keeping it light stuck in my throat, because this was real.
It was happening, and I was both so ready for it and so nervous I could hardly think. My body pressed against his, my skin hot on his skin.
He pinched my butt to make me smile, and then he rolled me back under him carefully. My hair tumbled all over the blanket, and his body pressed down on mine. Our smiles faded and he licked his lips nervously.
“You tell me if you need me to stop. If you need anything, you let me know. Right away,” he said, his voice hushed, his eyes dark with worry.
I nodded, my heart doing a wild, adrenaline-powered tap-dance in my chest.
Jake reached for his jeans and pulled a condom out of the pocket. He ripped the foil packet and slid it on, and my mind was racing too fast to process it all. I looked up, and the leaves danced on the wind between the trees above us. The creek rushed and sang, the sky glimmered with the first few, faint, pale stars. And at the center of all this beauty was the gorgeous, loving face of my boyfriend, eyebrows smashed together with worry, mouth flattened in a serious line, eyes burning with focus.
I put my hands up to his face and held it, looking right at him. “Don’t worry. I love you. I love you so much. This is good. This will be so good.” I made sure my voice didn’t even shake.
Jake’s face lost all its worried lines, and he kissed me softly and leaned his forehead against mine. “I love you, Bren. Let me know if anything hurts or you need me to stop. Okay?”
I nodded and kissed him hard, holding my breath as Jake drew a few inches back. “I love you, too,” I said, the words taking a quick tumble out of my mouth.
He gave me a final kiss and then it happened.
For one intense, uncomfortable minute, I was enveloped in a shooting, squirming burn of tight discomfort. Jake’s eyes searched my face, his mouth bunched in desperate nervousness, and I managed a big smile and nod through the haze of my pain to let him know he could keep going. He made sure he kept his eyes on mine and read my every look, checking to see that I was okay.
Once I adjusted to the feel of him, I tried moving under him, surprised by how much of this was all awkward positioning and strange, burning discomfort. Jake and I had been together for awhile, and so much of what we did was easy and fun. A tiny, panicked part of my brain worried that sex would fall into a different category and would forever be like a nightmare game of Twister.
But once I stretched enough that I got used to the way our bodies joined, the pain eased and then it was gone. The tingle that started out overly tight and possibly never-ending bloomed into something more sweetly filling and then, suddenly, so good I stopped tensing and cautiously moved my body in time to Jake’s.
Jake’s expression was a mix of loose-cannon worry and intense concentration. I squeezed him around the waist and moved my hands to his hips, wrapped my legs around his, and pulled him closer. I could smell the sweaty-sweet tang of his skin and feel his body actually in mine, so intimate and amazing, I wondered how anyone could ever do this with someone they cared about and not be at least momentarily in complete love. Relief that it felt so good made me relax, and it felt even better.
“It’s okay for you?” His voice came out on a ragged breath, and he smoothed my hair back with his hands.
“Better than okay,” I said on a breathless laugh, so happy, I wanted to stay here, with him, in this place, doing this thing we were finally doing forever.
He locked my mouth in a long, sweet kiss, then changed positions slightly until I felt the same buildup of warm, hard-to-control shakiness that engulfed me like a warm bath, reverberated through me like the hypnotic beat of a perfect song, and whirled in my blood like a thousand carbonated bubbles exploding from the top of a champagne bottle on New Year’s Eve.
I wrapped my arms around him hard, pulled against him, wanting to be closer to his skin and his body and him, even though we were locked so hard and tight against each other, there was no space between us. Jake moaned my name, kissed me again, and then a few frantic seconds made everything rush and crash together in a twisting burst of sweetness.
We both panted, arms and legs locked each other under the soft purple-gray glow of the sky at twilight, and Jake pulled back slowly, untangling himself from the twist of our overlaid limbs, then rolled over to take the condom off. He tucked it back in the wrapper and took a long second to just breathe before he turned back to me and gave me the longest, slowest, shyest smile that I had ever seen cross that boy’s lips.
“You feel alright?” He pulled his boxers and jeans back on and sat next to me.
I could have stayed right where we were all night, but the sun had slid completely behind the horizon, and the air was chilly. “I feel amazing. Thank you.”
His laugh got tangled up in the cool breeze, and he made himself busy gathering my clothes and offering his clumsy help to dress me. I knew it was so I wouldn’t see how pink his ears were.
“Thank you.” His voice crept out in the dark. He didn’t meet my eyes as he pulled my tank top over my head, backwards, and opened his mouth like he was going to say more. Then closed it. Opened it again. And closed it.
“You look like a fish.” I fixed my shirt and took his face in my hands. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve just never felt like this. You know. After. I feel…” His voice sounded so scratchy and rough, I had no idea what to expect when he looked up. “I feel so fucking amazing.” He crushed me to his chest and held me, his breath hot and unsteady through my hair. “I love you. I wanted it to be like this, but I wasn’t sure it could be. I’m just…I love you.”
I rolled him onto the ground and kissed every inch of his face. “I love you. So much.” The moment could have gotten much more romantic, but I smacked a mosquito that had been quietly sucking at my blood, and Jake helped me to my feet.
“Enough lovey-dovey stuff. Finish getting dressed, and I’ll pack up. You’re gonna get eaten alive here in a few minutes if we don’t go.” I watched Jake get busy putting everything away, and felt like a tiny bit of the fairy dust had been rubbed clean from our trip to this secret Neverland.
