The Resolution of Callie & Kayden(7)

‘What do you have back there?’ I ask. ‘An iPod dock or something?’

She shakes her head as she hikes through the snow toward me, reducing the space between us, something I’m ridiculously grateful for. In fact, I want it all gone – not a single drop of space left between our bodies.

‘No, it’s Luke’s stereo. Seth borrowed it from him so I could use it for this.’

My smile rises, the first time I’ve smiled all day. ‘God, he’s so weird with all that old crap he keeps around, right?’

‘Like all his mix tapes?’ she says with a soft laugh as she stops in front of me and tips her head back to look up at me.

I eliminate the rest of the space between us and put my hands on her hips. Suddenly, I become warm in the midst of the cold. ‘I seriously think he belongs in the eighties.’

‘Maybe he does.’ She loops her arms around the back of my neck and draws me closer. ‘What era do you think we’d belong in if we could go live in a different one?’

I consider what she said. ‘How about the sixties?’

She beams up at me. ‘We’d be all about the peace, love, and happiness.’

‘I think that sounds a lot like you.’ I tuck a strand of her damp hair behind her ear. ‘I’m not sure about me, though.’

Her forehead creases as I stroke her cheek with my finger, mesmerized by the softness of her skin. I’ve touched it a thousand times, yet every time is as amazing as the first.

‘You’ve seemed a little bit down lately. Has something been bothering you?’

‘I’ve just been thinking about some stuff.’ I trace a path up her jawline to her temple.

‘About family stuff?’

‘Yeah … I can’t help it … with the holidays coming. It’s just got me thinking.’

‘About your family?’

I swallow the stupid lump that has wedged its way up my throat. ‘Yeah, about my lack of one.’ I don’t really mean to say it because I don’t want to be a downer when clearly she had some sort of fun night planned, but it just slips out.

‘You have me,’ she says quietly, placing a hand on my stubbly cheek. ‘You always will.’

My heart tightens in my chest. ‘I know I do,’ I say, wishing it were that simple, that I did fully believe she’d always be here with me, that nothing would change, and that that could be enough in life. But I’ve been abandoned before, so there’s a bit of a skeptic in me.

Still, being here with her momentarily lifts my problems away, and I lean in to kiss her, unable to take the space between us any longer. However, she pulls away, stopping mid-kiss, and leaving me panting for air.

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

She lets out a shaky breath, jittery and shivering from the cold. ‘I have to ask you something … something really, really important.’

I search her eyes and I see the same nerves I noticed when I first walked up to her. ‘What’s wrong?’

She takes another unsteady breath and her hold on me tightens, her fingers digging into the fabric of my coat, like she’s afraid to let me go. ‘Okay, so I have something I want you to think about, but I don’t want you to answer it tonight.’

‘Okay …?’ I’m trying not to get worried, but it’s hard when she’s acting this way.

Her eyes are wide and full of terror, but she refuses to look away from me. ‘Okay, so I’ve been thinking a lot about our … our living situation.’ Her chest rapidly rises and falls, causing a cloud of fog to rise around her face. ‘Remember how at the beginning of the school year I mentioned something about how much easier it’d be if we were living together?’

I waver, because I really don’t remember what she’s talking about, but it seems like maybe I should. ‘I vaguely remember you saying something about you wanting to move out of the dorm and get your own apartment.’

A loud exhale puffs from her lips. ‘Well, what I meant to say when I said it … or what I should have just flat out said is that maybe we should just … you and I,’ she gestures between the two of us, ‘live … together …’ she trails off, biting her lip, which has turned a bit blue from the cold.

I swallow hard, unsure how to answer. I have no idea how I feel about the idea. Excitement. Want. God, the want. But I’m f*cking conflicted because within the want there’s a fear. Am I ready for that?