When I return, he’s sitting in the grass with his eyes trained on the sky.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Stargazing,” he answers, then pulls on my hand until I’m sitting down next to him. “Join me.”
I turn my head up to look at the stars, painfully aware that he’s still holding my hand. The night is quiet; the only sounds are the buzz of the cicadas and the soft lapping of the lake water on the shore.
Without thinking, I lean against Gage’s side, tilting my head until it rests on his shoulder. His body stills, as if he’s afraid moving might break the spell.
Slowly, he brings his face down and kisses the top of my head with agonizing softness. Then he stops, but when I don’t push him away, he moves on to my forehead. His lips linger against my skin, and I close my eyes, drinking in the sensation.
I switch my brain back to autopilot. Playing in the creek, tussling together over cards, relaxing into conversation on the lake; everything about today with Gage has lulled me into my feelings and away from the very good reasons I have for leaving him alone.
I tilt my face toward him, giving him better access, and he kisses down one side of my face—to my eyebrow, my cheek, my jawline, my chin—and then back up the other side. His mouth is warm when he parts his lips and presses an open-mouthed kiss to my temple.
His nearness and his touch are so exhilaratingly loud and bright in the dark quiet that they leave no space for my doubts. So, I push the doubts aside.
I shiver, and he wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. The shift puts my mouth mere inches from his, so close I can feel his breath on my lips as he breathes in and out. Time stops, and we’re suspended in this moment, hearts pounding and breaths ragged, for too long.
He doesn’t come closer, doesn’t make a move, and my frustration ratchets up with each second that passes. I reach out and clutch the fabric of his T-shirt in my fist, hoping to jolt him into closing the gap between his lips and mine.
“Olivia,” he breathes out. “If you want this—”
“I want it,” I murmur.
“It’s your move.”
I don’t second-guess. It’s like the thread holding me back has unraveled bit by bit and now it snaps, and I’m falling into him. My lips are on his in an instant, desperate and needy. He returns the same energy, moving his mouth over mine with a frenzy that leaves me gasping for air.
We can’t get close enough. He pulls me onto his lap, and I use the new angle to deepen the kiss. With one hand still gripping his shirt, I slide the other to the back of his neck and drag my fingers through his hair.
He has one of his arms braced behind my back while the other cups the side of my head. When his mouth detaches from mine, I whimper, then gasp as he drags his lips down the side of my neck to my shoulder.
A deep, low-pitched “hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo” from the nearby trees startles us away from each other.
Gage chuckles, smoothing a hand over the wrinkles in his shirt from where I was gripping it. “An owl, I think.”
I nod, though I’m not sure he can see me. It’s gotten dark quickly.
With the loss of his proximity, my brain switches back on, and the doubts crowd back in.
I check my smartwatch to distract myself from the impulse to reach for him again. Wow, it’s late. So maybe it hasn’t gotten dark quickly; we’ve been out here a while.
The realization sets my nervous system into panic-mode. Questions shoot through my mind so quickly I don’t have time to consider answers to any of them.Was this a fluke? What is Gage thinking? What did this mean to him? How can we move forward as friends after this?
I clear my throat, forcing myself to channel the detachedness of my cool, unbothered Delaney persona. “We should probably get to our cabins so we can get some sleep before the new group of campers arrive tomorrow.”
Gage is quiet. The owl hoots again, and a breeze blows over my bare arms, causing me to shiver.
“Yeah,” he says finally, his voice subdued. “Let me walk you back.”
At my cabin door, he leans forward and brushes a strand of hair off my face. I watch him, searching his face for any indication of what he’s thinking, how he’s feeling. But he’s impassive.
For him, that kiss must have been a bit of closure on our halted relationship five years ago. For me, it was a compulsion, something that I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to, despite my better judgment and my desire to do the right thing.
As if confirming my thoughts, he brushes a dispassionate kiss to my cheek before stepping back. “Good night, Olivia.”
“Night,” I echo.
