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“What?” Cade nudged my shoulder. “No good? Might I add it’s a really, reallythickbook. It’s likeWar and Peacethick. It might not fit in your slot, you know.”
I choked and Cade grinned victoriously. “Nobody borrowsWar and Peacefrom the library,” I laughed.
Cade was silent for a moment and I turned my head to find his cheeks slightly red.
“You did?”
He nodded. “I borrowed it for an international literature club I started a few years back,” he said, shrugging. “But, yeah, that’s not the point. The point is I want you know that my penis is really, really big.”
I gawked at him, mouth open like a whale shark vacuuming up plankton.
“I win?” he asked, grinning widely.
I couldn’t defeat Cade in a strength contest, a flexibility contest, or apparently even a reading comprehension contest, but I had been training heavily in sexting recently. I smiled sweetly up at Cade and said, “Organize me like your Dewey decimal system.” I ran my hands over my hips and flipped my hair over my shoulder.
He burst out laughing and then bowed to me. “Okay, okay, you win.” He swept his hand across his body dramatically. “I concede.”
As I let the gentle, foamy waves tickle my toes, Cade set out a blanket for us. We sat down on the blanket and enjoyed watching the colors along the horizon brighten and intensify and cast the most beautiful reflections across the glistening ocean. We ate our sandwiches and munched lazily on the fruit (strawberries and raspberries and the juiciest oranges I had ever had in my entire life). We also drank the wine straight from the bottle, passing it back and worth.
Cade was the first to break the silence. “Tessa, can I ask you something?”
I turned to find him staring at me, his eyes brilliantly golden. Back on our first non-starter date, when I was hiding in the bushes outside the restaurant, I had wondered what Cade’s eyes would look like in the sunset if I had been brave enough to put down my phone and simply walk over to him. I should have been braver before, because this sight was breathtaking.
“Um, yeah,” was all I could manage to say.
Cade seemed to be studying me, trying to find something in my own eyes. “Do you remember when I said there is no New Tessa or Old Tessa. Just Tessa as she’s always been, with parts of her she’s just never let free before?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Cade leaned in closer to me. I grew nervous at how close we were in that moment. There was nothing between us: nothing at all. No line of yoga mats and big-boobed women. No row of treadmills. No cell phone screen. No bushes.
It was me and him. Face to face, eye to eye, breath to breath.
“Do you think you can let her free now? Practice going after life?” he murmured, his eyes never leaving mine. “Taking what you want?”
My breath quickened.
“Life is waiting, Tessa,” Cade said, his fingers walking across the grains of white sand speckled across the blanket toward my thigh. He stopped just shy and returned his gaze to mine. “Reach for it.”
This moment wasn’t real. If this was my life I would be at home, Cheetos crumbs on my chest, messing around on my phone and groaning at an Instagram picture of a couple in some magically private cove at sunset with an empty bottle of wine between them. If this was my life, I would walk past a scene like this on a billboard as I left yet another audition before even just stepping inside. No, if this was my life, this moment right now might appear in my dreams and I might wake up with a gentle smile on my lips, but it would still be inmybed, inmyapartment, inmylife.
But the warm sand beneath the blanket was real. The empty bottle of wine propped up in the sand was real. The spray of the waves was cold and real. The man of my dreams, sitting in front of me, waiting for me, was real.
This wasn’t my life.
But it could be.
I tipped my head slowly to Cade. My heartbeat raced and I assured myself I wasn’t dying of a heart attack as I tilted my chin and gazed at his lips. He remained still as I hesitated, fighting the feelings of insecurity inside of me. My lips were no more than an inch from his. I could count his eyelashes, each and every long, blond, perfect eyelash. I was close.
Here is where I would have bailed before. This is where I would have stopped and turned around and headed home.
I swallowed heavily.
Closing my eyes, I crossed the short distance between the two of us and then there was no distance at all. It was as if there never was. I pressed my lips gently, almost chastely, against his.
His lips were warm, like the California sun; soft, like the fluffy white clouds high above; gentle, like the tide that whispered in the cove.
I was afraid to move too much, as if I might somehow shatter the moment. So my hand moved slowly, cautiously when I lifted it to his neck. My thumb skimmed over his collarbone first and I almost sighed in relief: I half expected my fingers to hit nothing but air and then bed sheets. I would wake up back in my bedroom.
