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He’s leaning close. I can feel his breath on my face once we’re at eye level, and he’s staring at me hard. He’s staring at me like he cares and wants me.
His hand tightens on mine. “We can talk about it if you want.”
“I miss him, that’s all,” I whisper. “I miss how he’d always smile, no matter what happened. Even toward the end, he was always smiling.”
“That sounds like Jacob,” Kai says, smiling with a far-off look in his eyes.
“What are you thinking about? Tell me something about Dad.”
“The first time I went to the boxing gym,” Kai says, “I was thirteen. Your dad let me spar with him. He let me win. He let me beat the crap out of him to boost my confidence. You’re right. He was smiling the whole time.”
“He never stopped smiling.”
Kai’s hand is still on mine, holding tighter. He leans closer.
“He was a good man.”
We’re just talking about my dad, nothing else. I scream the words in my mind.
This isn’t intimate.
We’re not almost kissing, but hestillgets closer.
“He was,” I say, and then we’re silent.
We keep staring into each other eyes as if we can’t stop, as if something magical and extremely not okay is happening here.
“I don’t want you to be in pain,” he says huskily.
He’s so close now that his warm breath tickles across my cheeks. I can smell the bodywash from where he must’ve showered after his workout. I can smell the leather clinging to him like it would survive a thousand showers: the oil and the bike metal.
“I feel better with you here,” I whisper, forcing the words past my nerves, not hesitating.
“I wish I could fix this for you,” he says, his voice getting deeper and more significant.
And in this moment,
We exist forever.
Before the kiss,
Everything is perfect.
But after…
The poetry composes itself in my head. There’s no way to end it or know what happens if I’m not hallucinating and he’s going to kiss me. If he crosses that line, I know I’ll have to stop him. I’ll have to remind him of Ryan, not that either of us shouldneedreminding.
He touches me with his other hand. A pulse shimmers up my thigh, his palm warm against my knee through the fabric of my PJ bottoms. He’s got this torn look on his face like he’d get when reading me a story for the fifth time when he wanted to tell me no but couldn’t do it.
He shoulddefinitelysay no now. Back away. Stop this before it gets out of hand.
Am I dreaming? Time moves in slow motion as he leans toward me, his mouth almost on mine, his eyes almost pained as they get bigger in my field of vision.
Soon, there’s only his eyes, the brilliant, intense green.
“Kay,” he says, almost desperately, as if begging me to make him stop.
“Kai,” I whisper, begging, sure… but not for him to stop.
