I lean closer.
He meets me halfway.
The next kiss is slower.
Deeper.
Full of everything neither of us has quite figured out how to say yet.
And when I melt against him, I don't do it because I'm afraid he'll disappear.
I do it because for the first time in a very long time, I feel wanted.
Desired.
Chosen.
Like someone looked at all my flaws, all my fears, all my messy complicated pieces—and stayed, anyway.
And that feeling?
It's better than anything I ever imagined.
Sixteen
Kai
I’m not a virgin.
Not by a long shot.
Not since I was fifteen and made out with Kelly Bentley behind the bleachers after Homecoming freshman year.
That had been awkward.
Fast.
A complete disaster.
But somehow perfect in the way first times are supposed to be.
It's been a hell of a long time since then.
A lot of years.
A lot of women.
A lot of mistakes.
Yet, somehow, sitting here on Mary's bed beneath a canopy of fairy lights, I feel every bit as nervous as that kid all over again.
Maybe worse.
Because this matters.
She matters.
She wasn’t supposed to matter.
