Georgie, All Along (37)

But none of that’s about fitting, and I’ve got the sense that saying so would disappoint her. I don’t want to end the meal that way. I want to keep that light in her eyes, the one I’ve put there just by understanding something about her.

“I think you should keep going with it,” I say. “It’s a real good idea.”

She’s about to say something back, I can tell, but then Hank barks and we both look over at him. He’s sitting right in front of the rooster, looking up, as though they’re having a conversation. I’ll be honest, that rooster makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think of myself as superstitious, but there’s only so many times your dog can try to communicate with a lawn ornament before you start to wonder if the thing is sentient.

My eyes track back to Georgie as soon as hers track back to mine, and for a long second, we look at each other in shared isn’t that just like Hank amusement—her smile soft and easy again, surely mine smaller and more strained. But it’s so jarringly, unexpectedly intimate that I push back my chair and stand, gathering the plates to take inside.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, remembering how I’m not being fragile tonight. I only need a second to breathe without her right there, pushing against all the glued-together pieces of me with her nearness. I’ll tell her about the guinea fowl when I get back, maybe.

But before I can go, Georgie stands, too, and if I thought she was right there before, well.

Well, my thinking was all wrong.

She’s close enough that I can see her chest lift when she takes a breath. She’s close enough that I hold my own so I don’t miss the feeling of her releasing it.

“Levi,” she says, setting her hand on my forearm to still me. It works, because I turn into a statue beneath her touch, if statues had big, beating hearts and also blood flow directly to their dicks. I’ve never felt this fragile and firm at the same time in my whole life.

“Yeah,” I say, or think I say. Could be I only make a noise. I catch myself looking at her mouth, her lips soft and pink. She’s got a smudge of pizza sauce on the left corner of the lower one, and it feels like a crime, how much I love the look of it there. How much I want to touch my thumb to that spot.

“Thanks,” she says. “For the dinner, and for . . .”

She lowers her eyes, looking at her hand on my arm, as though she’s surprised to find herself touching me. She moves one of her fingers the slightest bit—the slowest, smallest stroke over my statue-stillness, which I’m holding on to with every ounce of my strength.

“And for . . .” she repeats, trailing off again, and it’s me who’s strung tight now, all anticipation for how she’s going to finish her sentence. I’m waiting for her to say something about how I talked to her, offered something of myself to her. Encouraged her about her list.

Was friendly to her.

But that’s only because I never expected the alternative. And the alternative turns out to be Georgie—with a gentle squeeze of the arm she’d stroked so softly—lifting onto her tiptoes and pressing her mouth to mine.





Chapter 9


Georgie


He isn’t kissing you back.

I don’t know how long it takes me to realize it—I can only hope it’s one bare, humiliating second, maybe even a matter of milliseconds, but the truth is, I suspect it’s longer. I suspect that the things I felt when my mouth first touched Levi’s—the warmth of his lips, the teasing scrape of his beard, the hard, flexing tension in that forearm beneath my hand—stunned me into some kind of stupor, where my only thoughts had been about all the perfect textures of him, and all the ways I wanted to explore each and every one.

But once I do realize it?

Once I do realize it—total stillness standing there before me—the only texture I can think of is that of the ground beneath my feet, since it would be great if it could open up and swallow me whole.

I jerk back so quickly that Levi’s hand—the one not holding a stack of dishes—reaches out to steady me at my elbow, and of course . . . of course the texture of his hand is delicious, too— soft heat and the rough ridges of a calloused palm, the strong curve of his gentle fingers shaped to my arm.

“Wh—” he begins, and I cannot bear it. I cannot bear him asking, What was that? or Why did you do that? or Where is the shovel so I can help you dig your humiliation hole?

“I’m sorry!” I say, stepping back again, losing the heat of Levi’s hand on my skin. The backs of my calves bump against my chair, the metal legs of it making an unholy clatter on the brick patio. Hank barks, the clink of his collar telling me he’s coming over to see what all the noise is for, and I realize that eye contact with this man’s dog is also too embarrassing a prospect at the moment.

“Georgie,” Levi says, his voice low and quiet in a way I recognize, and it’s definitely not the kind of muted impatience that’s about discreetly buying your milkshakes for you, but it’s also got a note of something familiar, something I’ve heard from all sorts of people in this town who’ve seen me screw up.

It might be something slightly . . . pitying.

I actually do know where the shovel is; it’s in my dad’s stuffed-full garden shed. I’ll wait until Levi goes inside, then I’ll get it out and dig the hole myself.