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“Tell me I’m the best,” he demands.

“Never,” I choke out in fits of giggles.

“Say it.”

“You’re the best”—his fingers lift up enough where I can finish with—“at cheating.”

“Oh, that’s it.” In a smooth flash, Knox shifts, his weight rolling over mine as the mattress dips beneath us both. The blanket twists, trapping us together and wrapping us up in a cocoon where he’s suddenly on top of me.

His weight above me feels like a blanket, warm and comforting and so familiar but a tad new, too, with his hands on either side of my shoulders. Knees tucked between my legs, the tiny cross at the end of his chain necklace I got him years ago dangling just above my collarbone. Something heavy settles in my chest as I take him in; this close, I can see everything on him. The faint scar near his eyebrows where he and Ledger wrestled and he fell off the dock. The dusting of light freckles across his nose after I have yelled at him tirelessly about the need for sunscreen while he’s working.

It’s all there, but the thing that feels the most different right now is this look in his eyes—dark, fluttering lids, wide pupils that flicker from my eyes to my lips. A question in there somewhere.

“You okay?” His breath ghosts across my lips, the question quiet enough for just us.

Suddenly none of this is as funny as it was before. It’s a shift into this new place that we’ve been teetering on the edge of, both of us not knowing which way to lean first. Maybe it’s the medicine, or maybe I still have a fever, but I take the chance and lean on the edge.

“What are you thinking about right now?” I ask, and it sounds so distant I wonder if it even makes it to him before he asks right back, “Honestly?”

I nod. Honesty is all I ever want from him. For him. With him. Even in the scary, unknown places we dwell in these days, I want pure, unfiltered honesty with Knox.

“I’m thinking about kissing you and about how it would be with us. How I really wish I kissed you when I had the chance this summer.”

The words land low in my stomach, warm and heavy like honey. My swallow is audible, stuck in my mouth as my heart stumbles in an attempt to play catch-up.

“And you?” his voice creaks and he clears his throat. “What are you thinking about?”

“That it might be…nice…” My voice is barely audible. “…if you kissed me.”

“Nice?” Knox laughs, and of the thousands of times I’ve heard his laughter, I know I have never heard one like this. Deep. Throaty. A laugh that’s devoid of any humor. One made only for moments like this.

“When I finally kiss you, nice isn’t the word I’m going for. Decadent. Transcendent. Heavenly. Those are the words I’m going for, love.”

When. Not if, but when. When, when, when.

As in, when is it going to happen? When am I going to finally be blessed with the knowledge of what Knox Turner can do with those always-grinning lips. Judging from the look in his eyes and the weight of his body against mine, I think it might be now. In my room. Under my covers. With Matthew McConaughey projecting directly behind him and a handful of Scrabble tiles wedged beneath my back.

My pulse jumps. This boy… He left his work to carry me home. He made soup for me and checked my temperature and fed me electrolyte drinks and cough medicine and has seen me in all my sickly, fevered mess and still is thinking about kissing me.

“You-you are?”

“Uh-huh.” He nods and his fingers brush against my hair, pulling a single curl tight and letting it bounce back to its shape. “Only if you want, though. I can wait for those fireworks you’ve been dreaming of. I’ve waited a long time, and I’ve grown to be pretty patient by now. I’ll wait as long as you need.”

Words drift back to me from the beginning of this fall.

I want a grand finale fireworks kind of kiss. One that rocks you off your feet and makes you feel like everything around you is a dream.

This moment right here is by far the closest I’ve ever come to that feeling. And if not now…when? When I go out with someone else that will have to relearn everything about me while Knox already knows me inside out? How long does it take to form something like what we have with someone else?

“I want.” I nod. “I want it with you.”

“Yeah?” He shifts above me, and the blanket over his shoulders drops low to his waist, exposing his arms. I run my fingers over his bicep, lean for someone who can lift a calf over his head. Goose bumps awaken with his touch, and I can hardly do any more thinking. There’s just my skin on his.

“Yeah.”

His gaze bounces between my eyes like he’s searching for a last-ditch effort not to kiss me, but he won’t find it here; I want this. Judging by the intense pulsing low in my stomach, maybe I want it more than he does.

The kiss looms between us, not there yet, but so, so close.