Not If I See You First(38)

Perfect.

I push forward and lightly kiss his lips. Again. God, it’s like being cold and blowing into hot cocoa and feeling warmth waft over your face, then sipping it and the warmth spreads to your cheeks and down into your chest, lower and lower, filling you. My head spins with nothing but simple thoughts like warm and soft and exciting and wonderful and mmmmm…

“What?” he whispers when he takes a breath.

“What, what?” I whisper back and kiss him again.

“Mmmmm… what?”

“Oh.” I guess I said that part out loud. “Mmmmm, garlic…”

“Oh!” He draws back. “Sorry, I…”

My hand finds the back of his neck and I pull him back to me. “Don’t you know what mmmmm means?” I kiss him again. And again. And again. Firmer but not harder.

The tip of his tongue fleetingly touches my lower lip—a star bursts in my head, a thrill that no other word can describe. Like when you’re running at a comfortable pace and push yourself to go faster but instead of getting more tired you get a surge of energy. I feel just a flick of tongue again and now I’m sprinting along…

I have no sense of how long we’ve been in the backseat, kissing and breathing and touching… hand on my back, and then down to my waist where it fits just right… and I know I could do this all night without a break or getting tired or bored… his hand sliding up a bit… then a bit more…

I know where it’s going and my brain wakes up. The troll brain that thinks and double-thinks and triple-thinks and overthinks and acts like I’m a committee instead of a person. It asks me what the hell do I think I’m doing, French kissing this guy I met less than a week ago and considering letting his hand slide up—no, not considering it, but anticipating it, wanting it, expecting to enjoy it… My troll brain wants to ask why I’m letting it happen but it can’t because I’m not letting it happen, I’m willing it to happen. What does it mean that I want to be touched by this guy now?

It hits me, clear as ice-cold water, how for three months I’ve had almost no physical contact with anyone. Faith hugged me on the first day of school and aside from that I’ve had a pat on the shoulder here and there but that’s it. Dad hugged me every morning before school, and when I came home, and before bed, and lots of other times just because, and many nights we’d listen to a book on tape or a podcast and we’d sit together on the couch with his arm around my shoulders and I’d lean on him like a warm cushion. Dad was the exception to Rule Number Two because him not giving my shoulder a squeeze when he walked by would’ve been more of a surprise. Then he was gone and in the following days of stunned disorientation all sorts of people tried to hold me and comfort me but I wouldn’t let them, wouldn’t allow strangers or relatives I barely knew to touch me, and finally they stopped trying. Of course you want this guy all over you, my troll brain says. You used to be hugged and touched several times a day and now you’ve gone three months with nothing around you but voices in the dark. You’re starving— “Parker?”

We aren’t kissing anymore. Jason’s hand is back down on my hip, having never strayed very far.

“Are you okay?”

I don’t want to tell him any of this. Not that I need to keep it a deep, dark secret; it’s just some things you only want to share with people who know you. Jason would listen and be sympathetic but he wouldn’t really understand.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine…” I say, sounding groggy. “What time is it?”

“Only nine-thirty. Well, almost nine-forty. But we’re only ten minutes from your house.”

“Let’s… let’s head back anyway,” I say, slowing my breathing. “I don’t want to give my aunt anything to bitch about.”

“Okay,” he says. I can hear he’s disappointed. I don’t know how I feel.

We climb out our separate doors and back into the front. He starts the car and we back up.

I’m sort of numb. We drive for a while before he says anything.

“So… you live with your aunt? What about your parents? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“My mom died when I was seven. She drank a bottle of wine and wrecked the car and that’s why I’m blind.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

I’m glad it’s all he says, understanding that it’s long past and not trying to get into it all now when we have so little time left.

“Then it was just me and Dad till he died in June.”

“Which June? This past June? Three months ago?”

“Yeah. Then my aunt and uncle and cousins came here to live with me.”

“Oh, man… Parker… I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “There are lots of things you don’t know about me. I don’t know much about you, either.”

“That’ll change,” Jason says.

“I hope so,” I say, but it’s my flat voice. It’s the only one I can seem to find.

“Does that mean you want to do this again?”

“Only if you do.”

“We’re agreed then.”

The car gently stops.

“Ten minutes early. Someone’s peeking out the blinds. Looks like a little kid.”