“Times are different now. You could be my date if we were in high school again now.” Juniper softened. “Is that why you refused to go?”
“Yes and no.”
“What was the ‘no’ reason?”
“I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let anyone force me into a dress again.” Juniper noticed how Rowan quickly steered the conversation back. “I didn’t realize how lost I already was for you until the whole Jason thing.”
Juniper laughed. “You were so bashful when you admitted that to me. I still remember you couldn’t even look at me. You kept looking at your feet.”
“To be fair, it was also so I wouldn’t keep looking at your boobs. You tormented me all summer long with your bikinis, and you knew it.”
“You were like, respectfully horny for me.”
“So fucking respectfully horny for you. Not much has changed.”
“I’m still mad at you though.”
A brief moment of worry flickered through Rowan’s eyes. “Why?”
“You were supposed to be my first, asshole.”
“I did fuck that up. You know what I won’t fuck up?”
“What?”
“Being your last.”
Juniper groaned, even though the thought of Rowan staying with her forever was exactly what she wanted. “You’re so corny.”
“Again, you secretly love it.”
Juniper sighed. “I do.”
“You are everything,” Rowan murmured into the kiss she placed on Juniper’s temple.
Juniper angled her face toward Rowan’s again and ran her fingertips over her lips. “I want you to kiss me forever.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”
Juniper’s fingers softly traced the lines of Rowan’s collarbone, the slight curve of her breast, and landed on the tattoo on her ribcage.
“And love me forever?” Juniper blushed at her own question and turned her face to the side.
Rowan cupped her face and turned it back so their eyes could meet. “Yes. That too.”
They laid that way for a while, basking in the sunlight while letting the water cool off their hot skin as it ebbed and flowed around them. Eventually Juniper allowed Rowan to roll back onto the sand, but she wrapped herself around her body again anyway. Each occasionally noticed something in their environment and called the other’s attention to it, like a heronflying above or the feathery shapes of the clouds.
When they were finally ready to get up, only when they were physically unable to lay their thirty-three year old bodies on the unforgiving beach anymore, they waded back into the water to rinse all of the sand off of each other. They almost got caught up in another round, but they quickly got dressed at the realization that Rowan had an entire house with lots of much softer surfaces to explore.
Before they got back in the boat, Rowan’s arms wrapped tightly around her, binding themselves together for what Juniper hoped would be forever. She settled into her body, and they swayed back and forth, kicking up water from the coastline as they did. She wanted this to be the one true love story of her life — after all, it always had been.
Chapter 18
“Istill don’t understand how you survive with this little groceries.” Juniper shook her head as she put the last of the cold stuff away in Rowan’s refrigerator.
“Protein shakes and microwaveable mac and cheese don’t count?”
“That’s awful, Rowan,” Juniper laughed.
