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“I will.”
Then we just gazed at each other. A comfortable silence. A safe one. And for the second time tonight Justin was inside my personal space.
I didn’t mind him there. At all.
“What are you thinking right now?” he asked.
“I’m thinking that you’re supposed to kiss me,” I said. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I’m supposed to kiss you.”
“Do you think it still counts if you kiss me on a date that’s not one of the dates?” I asked.
“I don’t care if it counts.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth, my heart picked up—and then the lights on the balcony turned on over the pool.
Mom came out and leaned over the railing. “Emma, Justin! Is that you?”
The moment was shattered. A flicker of disappointment flashed across Justin’s face. He turned and waved. “Hi, Amber.”
Neil came out onto the balcony in his robe and Mom hugged him from the side. “Neil and I are going to goat yoga on Saturday,” she called. “Do you two want to come?”
Justin glanced at me. “Goat yoga?” he said, too low for them to hear.
“They climb on you,” I said. “Baby ones.”
“Hmm.”
We gazed at each other.
“Well?” Mom called.
I snapped out of it and turned back to her. “I have work Saturday, Mom.”
“Thanks for the invite,” Justin said.
“Okay, let us know if you change your mind!”
They went back inside, there was giggling, a playful shriek, and then the balcony door closed.
The motion sensor light stayed on for a few seconds, then doused us back into soft darkness. Maddy was almost here. Too close now for a kiss to be anything but rushed. Oh well.
Justin put his hands in his pockets and looked around the yard. Then he gave me a playful glance. “You know what this feels like?”
“What?”
“A zombie movie.”
I snorted. “I was just going to say that. That dark, eerie night, the moon’s out and zombies start ambling from the bushes and you have to run for your life.”
“We would be pretty screwed if we had to run from zombies here,” he said.
“Why?”
He nodded at the lake. “We’re trapped on one side by water.”
“You just run around them back to the car.”
