Am I reading too much into this? Exchanging jewelry—even camp-craft bracelets made out of rubber bands—feels romantic, like a promise. Like a commitment we’ll still see each other after the summer ends.
I play it cool, though. Olivia spooks easily.
I stretch my lips into an easy grin. “Taylor Swift style?”
Her shoulders relax, as if she’s been holding them taut and has now finally released the tension in her muscles. She breathes out a shaky laugh. “Similar, but we’re going to use rubber bands instead of jewelry elastic. We can still use beads though.”
I let go of her hand to rub mine together. “Let’s do it!”
She beams, bolstered by my enthusiasm. “Have you ever made a loom bracelet before?” she asks.
I purse my lips, tilting my head at her.
She laughs. “Well, I don’t know! You could have been up to anything the last five years.”
“I have not been making bracelets out of rubber bands,” I tell her.
Olivia gestures for me to sit down at the table. When I do, she sits next to me and picks through the pile of baggies until she finds what she wants.
“We’re going to make double-band fishtail-patterned bracelets,” she explains. “You choose two or three colors, depending on how you want the final design to look.”
She opens a bag of light blue rubber bands and another bag of a bold yellow color. She holds up two fingers and stretches a blue band between them, with a twist in the middle. Then she adds a yellow band, with no twist. She adds a third band, no twist, and then flips the first blue band up somehow so that it bunches in the middle of the other two.
I squint my eyes. “Wait, wait. What did you do?”
Olivia smirks and slides the rubber bands off her fingers. “I’ll show you on your fingers. What colors do you want?”
I consider. “Are these my for-real colors, or to practice?”
She shrugs. “It could be your final bracelet if it goes well.”
“Okay, then. Give me a minute.”
I shift the baggies around on the table to examine my options, and there are a lot of options. Some of the rubber bands are neon, some pastel, and some even have designs on them with multiple colors on one band.
I stop short when I see a baggie filled with the perfect rubber bands. Before I reach for it, though, I shoot a glance at Olivia, who’s watching me.
I divert my hand to a bag of purple bands and then add in a bag of white ones. “This is going to be my practice bracelet,” I tell Olivia. “The real one is going to be a surprise.”
She chuckles. “Okay, weirdo.” She adjusts my hand so that two of my fingers are pointing up.
She walks through the instructions for starting a bracelet again, this time using my fingers to demonstrate. She leans in close to manipulate the small rubber bands—so close that her shoulder rests against my chest and her hair brushes against my nose. I inhale quietly and am rewarded with the sharp, minty smell of her shampoo.
“Got it?” Olivia asks, turning her head toward me so that our faces are inches apart.
Oh, right.I was supposed to be paying attention to the bracelet-making instructions. “Umm. Maybe you could show me one more time?”
She sighs, her breath tickling my lips.If I slant forward a bit…
“Gage!” Olivia laughs, angling farther away. “Focus.”
“I am focusing,” I mutter as I bring my hand up to her ponytail and run my fingers through her hair.
She scowls, narrowing her eyes and jutting her bottom lip toward me. “I mean on the bracelet.”
I zero in on her lips. “Mm-hmm,” I say, before closing the distance between us. She’s not frowning anymore as I kiss her in that languid, gentle way I’ve discovered she loves.
Of all the things I’ve learned about Olivia this summer, after knowing her so intently in our growing-up years, I value knowing these privileged details about her the most. I want to know everything about the way her hands wander while she kisses me, from my shoulders to my back and up to my neck and face. Everything about the soft, uncontrolled sounds she makes when my hand is in her hair. Everything about how her eyelashes flutter as she closes her eyes and loses herself to me.
