AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Russell came to meet me on the driveway, holding the Merediths’ tent and my duffel bag. “This is home?”
I smiled at him as I took my stuff from him. “This is home.”
We stood there for a moment, a few feet apart. I was acutely aware that I didn’t have a script for anything that happened next. As I looked at him, standing in the sun, it was as though he was coming into focus, like when you look through the lenses in the optometrist’s office, when you don’t realize how blurry things have been until the right ones fit into place. And suddenly everything is clear, and you can read the line of letters with confidence.
And I knew I didn’t want to say goodbye—not yet.
I took a step closer to him, closer than we’d been since Jesse, just hoping he wasn’t ready for this to be the end either. I took one more step and then I was right there, in front of him, with my heart on my sleeve and nothing left to lose. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said, looking down at me, happiness and surprise mingling on his face. We weren’t touching—not yet—but it felt like we were just a beat away from it.
“I didn’t know if you wanted to—come inside? It’s a long drive back to Brentwood.”
“It is a long drive,” Russell said, taking a step closer to me, his eyes on mine.
“I thought we could hang out in my house for a bit.”
A smile was pulling at the corners of his mouth, like a boat straining against its ropes. “You mean the house where your dad isn’t home?”
“The very same.”
“I thought you said—you just wanted to be friends.”
“I did say that.” I nodded, then looked up at him and smiled, my heart beating hard. He reached out and touched my cheek, so softly. “And yet…”
And then I moved toward him and he moved toward me and caught me up in his arms, and we were kissing.
V The Ballad of Darcy & Russell
Friday 5:15 P.M.
DECEMBER 21ST
I was almost there.
Jesse was just twenty minutes away, and time seemed to be compressing and expanding simultaneously. I’d turned my music off an hour ago. It was like I couldn’t even hear my favorite songs right now. Music was too distracting, spinning my thoughts in too many directions. I needed to focus on where I was going and what I was heading to.
My heat was cranked up—the temperature had been steadily dropping as I’d gone north, but even so, I could still feel my palms sweat when I thought about what I was moving toward.
Because Russell would either be there, in the place we’d decided on back in August, waiting for me—or he wouldn’t.
And if he wasn’t, then I’d just be a girl alone in a bus station who’d driven seven hours with nothing to show for it except a slight sunburn across her cheeks.
But I had to take the risk. I had to show up and just hope that he would be there too, that he’d missed me as much as I’d missed him. That his heart was also pounding an excited, nervous metronome in his ears right now.
I saw the exit for Jesse and signaled to take it, flexing my hands against the wheel.
I was almost there.
CHAPTER 20 Monday
4:19 P.M.
We were kissing as though we’d never stopped, picking up without missing a beat. His hands slipped under my T-shirt to rest on my waist, warm against my bare skin. My arms were around his neck, pulling him as close to me as I could.
It was wonderful to be kissing him again—because now the nervous energy from back in Jesse was gone. This was a kiss that remembered everything that came before and promised what would come next. And even though it had only been twenty-four hours, I knew him now. I knew who he really was, in all senses of the phrase.
I’d met his family and his dogs. I’d seen him when he woke up in the morning. We’d had a terrible fight and had come out the other end. I’d told him my biggest fears and worries, shown him the worst side of myself, and he was still here.
