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She stops walking and looks at me. Like she’s searching for something. I don’t really know what that look means, but I like that she studies me.
I think she’s going to say no, but then she puts both hands on my shoulders and leaps, her knees landing on either side of my hips.
“You have a great vertical jump,” I say. “Are you a secret basketball player?” I turn my head to look at her, and our faces are very close together. Any closer and I might drop her. Or kiss her. Maybe too soon. I face front.
“Volleyball,” she says, her breath tickling my ear. “But only in summer. Only at the beach. Our beach house has a court. I’m very competitive.” I feel the words as much as I hear them.
“Only in summer? Does that mean if we played volleyball tonight I’d beat you?”
I can feel her shaking her head. Again, she leans close to my ear. “I mean, I only play in summer. It’s a beach thing, and volleyball at any other time is just wrong.”
My arms are hooked around her calves, and she tightens her arms over my chest. I walk us out of the forested trail and back onto the main part of campus. “Sorry about bad timing for a hike,” I say. “Let’s do it another day.”
“You’re not trying to get out of our plans, are you, Dr. Mercer?” she says.
“Never,” I say. “Nothing could drag me away from this date.”
She laughs and slips down from my back. “Except a medical emergency.”
A few drops of rain fall, and Sage steps under the nearest tree. She waves me over, and I follow her. The leaves do a good job of keeping the sprinkling rain off us. Sage leans her back against the tree’s trunk. The rain makes it a little darker now, and I feel like we’re less conspicuous out here on campus than we were half an hour ago.
I come close to the tree, raise my arm and lean in, forearm braced against the bark above Sage’s head. This is a perfect angle to talk to her, to watch her. As she tilts her head to look at me, her neck stretches long, and I’m fully dedicated to this lean. If she keeps stretching her neck like that, there’s no chance I’m walking away without kissing the base of her throat, right there above her collarbone.
Without breaking our eye contact, Sage reaches her hand out and places her palm flat at my side, her fingers pressing slowly as if she’s holding me together. It’s only a hand on my ribs, but I feel its effect pulse through my whole body, as if she’s pressing an electric current through her fingertips. Right this minute, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could manage it. She has the look of a woman who can do anything.
We stare into each other’s eyes, and I want to stay here all night, forever.
A rumble of thunder works its way across the mountain to the east of us, echoing and rolling over the hills. The breeze picks up pace and lifts her hair. I can’t stand to not be able to see her face, so I slip my hand across her cheek, moving the hair away, and now I don’t want to move my hand. Is it weird if I just keep my fingers here, at her temple? My thumb brushes beneath her eye, caressing the field of freckles at the top of her cheek. If it’s weird, she’s not complaining.
The thunder rumbles again, nearer this time. Chamberlain Academy is perfectly situated for excellent storms, here near the tops of these mountains. I don’t know why anyone would want to live anywhere else, when there’s such a perfect balance of sky and trees and hills.
“I love rainstorms,” I murmur, speaking quietly as an excuse to stay close to her. At the same moment, she whispers, “I hate thunderstorms.”
“Really?” I ask, just as another, much louder thunderclap announces that the storm is moving closer. A sheet of lightning bursts from behind the hill like a giant photo flash.
She makes a shrug, then she shakes her head, then she nods. “I have always been a little afraid of being hit by lightning.”
I lean in just a little closer. “Do you know what the odds of that are?” I ask.
And apparently, she does. “It depends who you ask. The CDC calls it one in a million, but actually, they’re measuring yearly chances of being hit. Really, almost three hundred people a year are struck by lightning in the US. And so it’s more like one in fifteen thousand if you look at it over a lifetime.”
If those words came out of anyone else’s mouth, they’d be hilarious. But Sage isn’t even cracking a smile. She has immediately retrievable data (however suspect it might be). I’m not going to question her math any more than I’d dare to laugh at her. She’s not playing.
A flash of forking lightning lights up the sky behind the science building.
I can see her getting worked up. She moves her hand away from my side so she can pull her hair behind her, a nervous habit I’ve seen her do before. I take my hand away from her face, because it feels like I’m in her way, but my other arm still rests on the tree over her head.
A second later, she’s twisting her hands together, and I move over to reach for them, covering both her hands with one of mine. A few more forks of lightning flicker in the rapidly darkening sky. The storm moves in fast.
I want to send her a little comfort. Reassure her that we’re perfectly safe.
“I like our chances,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I’m kind of used to being the exception,” she says. “My life is an experiment in long odds.”
“Most people around this campus don’t know that about themselves,” I say, and a crack of thunder punctuates my words.
Sage looks actually frightened, and I don’t want to minimize her concern, but really? We’re not going to get struck by lightning.
