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Cove: I’ll meet you. I just want to check if you're okay. I can walk you back to your dorms if you like? No pressure for anything more, I really do just want to see you with my own eyes.
I snap a picture of myself and send it to him with the caption: I’m fine, see? He replies a second later.
Cove: You’re beautiful, but you don’t look…yourself. Now I *have* to see you. I’ll be there soon.
A smile tugs at my lips and I pocket my phone, suddenly pleased I reached out. Jittery excited nerves – butterflies I guess – start up in my stomach at the thought of seeing Cove again, mixed with relief that he doesn’t hate me for disappearing on him. Ghosting him, Summer would say.
The rest of the trip back to the island goes quickly, as if my excitement at seeing Cove is powering the boat’s engine. Utter crap of course, but the excitement is almost making me giddy.
Until I see him, that is, when I basically freeze and turn to stone in his presence.
“Mai-Tai!” he cries, throwing his arms around me in a way that I wish I could appreciate.
“Hi.” Riveting.
“It’s so good to see you.”
“Umm…you too.”
“Not a hugger?” he asks, catching on to the fact that I’ve not moved since he wrapped me in his warm embrace. It’s taking all of my control not to inhale his scent as it invades my nostrils and melts the stress from my bones. Shit, that’s a metaphor right there. See, I knew Cove made me feel.
“Not usually.” Understatement. “I could make an exception for you.”
“Well, you’d have to hug me back in that case.”
My heart stops.
“Umm…how?” I mean that literally because he has my arms pinned to my side but he takes it the wrong way.
“You don’t know how to hug? Were you never hugged as a child?”
“No, but that’s beside the point. I’m trapped.”
“Ooops.” He releases me with a sheepish grin and I awkwardly return the ‘hug’ with a one handed back pat type thing.
“Wow. You suck at this.”
“Shut up. You didn’t think that when you kissed me,” I joke, then regret it when his whole face brightens. Didn’t think it was possible for his smile to get any bigger or more infectious.
“You remember?” he asks hopefully.
“No, sorry. I just figured if I sucked at it you wouldn’t have come back.”
“Hmm, maybe it’s me who’s bad at kissing. You wouldn’t remember anyway.”
“Ah so that’s why you’re pursuing me,” I quip. “No one else will have you twice?”
“You’re funny. Were you always this funny? Because it kind of feels like a new development. I like it though.”
He laughs and the tension that was coiling in me eases. I made a joke, a boy laughed at it, and the world didn’t stop turning. I give him a tentative smile in return.
“Is that all you’ve got?” He points to my bag. I nod and he takes the bag from me and shoulders it.
“You didn’t have to. I had it.”
“I want to. Besides, you had it on the wrong shoulder.”
“You’ve put it on your right shoulder, same as I had it.”
