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He kisses me. Soft and gentle. And it’s not like our first kiss—when he’d swooped me in his arms after I’d just gotten out of the shower. That kiss was driven by nothing more than intrigue and desire.
This kiss…
This kiss feels like the fulfillment of hopeless wishes whispered into the darkness.
This kissfeelslike a first…
A first that could last forever.
35
Jamie
The front door opens, and Holden appears dressed in nothing but boxer shorts. His hair is a mess, sticking up in all directions, and his eyes have that just-woken bleariness. He’s glaring at me, and I don’t know why. I’ve been awake for almost an hour already, waiting for him to do the same. I stayed in bed for a good half of it before boredom kicked in, and so I got up, made myself a coffee, and now I’m sitting on the bench just outside his front door.
Without a word, Holden re-enters the house and slams the door shut between us. “Holden!” I call out.
“One minute!” he yells back.
“Weirdo,” I mumble, contemplating whether to get up again. I’ve already walked around his front garden, basking in all the smells as I checked out the plants and had multiple one-sided conversations with random birds. In other words, I’m living my dream.
The door opens again, and Holden reappears wearing gray sweatpants but still beautifully shirtless. “Do you have a bird book?” I ask.
He slumps down beside me, his head drooped between his shoulders. “Awhat?”
“A bird book,” I repeat and sip my coffee while he shakes out his hair, combs his fingers through it. “Like a book about different species of birds.”
He swings his gaze to mine, his eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, Grandma Jameson,” he says, his voice cracking from lack of use, “but they have this thing called theinternetnow, and you can access it any time from your phone.”
A giggle builds in my chest, but I suppress it. “I don’t recall you being this grumpy in the mornings.”
Swear it, he actuallyhumphs.Right before he takes my coffee from me and throws it across his yard, mug and all. Then he reaches down, sweeping my legs up and over him while lifting me onto his lap. He hugs me tight, and he still has that just-out-from-under-the-covers heat radiating off him. I nestle in while he mumbles into my neck, “I thought you’d left.”
My stomach sinks.I wasn’t thinking, too busy caught up in my own head, my own emotions. “Aww, baby. I’m sorry.” I run my hands through his hair, try to soothe him.
He rears back. “Did you just call mebaby?”
I nod. “Is that weird?”
“No.” His grin is ridiculous. “I like it.”
Hoping to lift his mood, I say, “I just thought baby suited you since you’re acting like a giant one.”
“Shut up,” he laughs out, pressing his mouth to mine. I can taste the toothpaste on his lips but can barely feel the touch.
“Is your mouth numb?” I ask, breaking the kiss.
He laughs, nodding once while he relaxes his hold on me. “I can barely feel it.”
After he kissed me inmygarden last night, we never really stopped. He’d packed a picnic blanket and basket, and we ate as the sun went down, kissing between bites, and we talked. A lot. Once it had gotten too dark to stay out, we got to the four-wheeler, and he kissed me again. He told me that Maggie had made up the guest room at the main house, stating that he didn’t want to be presumptuous of how our night would end. I told him I should probably stay there. He kissed me some more, and we both knew neither of us wanted to be apart. So, we came back to his house, and lay in his bed, andkissed. And that’s all that we did. For hours. He never made a move toward the next step, and I didn’t really want him to.
It was so sweet.
So innocent.
Like what I imagine being with your first crush is like when you’re a teenager. The butterflies. The giddiness. The fighting the fatigue and the heaviness of your eyelids just so you can be with them a second longer, kiss them one more time.
So, yeah, our second firstrealkiss kind of did last forever.
