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“Sure, let’s do the maze.” I grab his hand, pulling him to the main entrance and away from my grandfather. “Here, there’s an app on my phone we need to try out too.”
I shove my phone in his hand and he takes it, then tosses me a concerned look.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks me again, and I wave away his questions.
“Don’t worry about me. Let’s double-check the maze.” I glance over my shoulder and find no sign of my meddling grandfather. “Lead the way.” I motion for him to move ahead, and he obeys.
As we enter the maze, he examines the screen on my phone. “So what do we do on this?”
“The location is on, and there are six flags throughout the maze. When we find them, it’ll update that on our tracker.”
“What do you get if you find all six?”
“I… I’m not sure about that. We’ll have to think of something. Maybe a free candy apple or something?”
“I mean, I’d be down for that,” Jack agrees. He hands me my phone. “Or some kettle corn.”
“A treat of their choice, then,” I amend. We come to a fork, and while I know which way is the right one now, I’m not going to tell him.
His head swivels to the left, then the right, then toward me. “You’re not going to give me the answer, are you?”
“That would take all the fun out of it.”
He sighs theatrically. “Fine, fine.” He takes a step toward the path on the left, and I stay still.
“Final decision?” I tease him.
“Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about it.” He nods, ginning over at me, and takes off down the path. I follow in his footsteps, smiling at his back.
“Good choice. We trained you well.” I tell myself my eyes are locked on his retreating form merely because he’s in front of me, but I know better. The way his shorts hug his hips has me mesmerized. After months of being cordial, today he’s acting normal for the first time since we almost kissed in the barn, and I’m living for this exhilaration.
It’s as if the wall he had up has dropped after our conversation about my anxiety this morning.
“I was taught by the masters.” Jack stops at the next fork so quickly that I run right into him, my body connecting with his before I can stop myself. My dress covers all of me but is pretty thin, and as my breasts press against his back, they come alive from the contact. I jump away as soon as my brain registers what my nipples are up to, but it’s too late. He turns to face me, his face expressionless, as if he’s pasted on a mask, and god, I wish I had that kind of control.
“I’m so sorry,” I ramble on, motioning around the maze. “I was distracted and didn’t see you stopping and—”
Before I can finish my sentence, his mouth is on mine in a feverish kiss, our lips moving together in a dance of passion and familiarity.
“Jack,” I groan against his mouth, regretting my next move before I’ve even done it. I push my hands against his chest half-heartedly. We stand there for a moment, our chests heaving, and his lips are looking much too inviting. “We can’t do this.”
“I know,” he agrees, nodding. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Just nostalgia. We’re in the corn maze, and this is our time of year.” My words are to soothe me more than him.
“This is why I’ve tried to keep my distance the past few months. I didn’t want to overstep or make you feel uncomfortable.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, blame my tits. They started it,” I joke, and his gaze drops to my chest.
“Fuck.” He turns around. “I’m just gonna go. I think that would be best.”
He brushes by me, heading back to the entrance. Probably a good plan, as it takes at least forty-five minutes to get to the exit, and that’s if you hustle. We don’t need to be trapped together any longer. There are enough dead ends in this maze.
I give him a head start and then head out myself. Once I’ve emerged, my nerves have calmed and I’ve reasonably pushed down the feelings that awakened when Jack kissed me.
“Jack, good morning,” Papaw greets as he comes around the side of the maze. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” His tone is apologetic, but his face is not. He beams at us, eyes darting from Jack to me, and then he waves us on.
“Don’t let me intrude. Rachel, you take the rest of the day off. Jack, you were supposed to be off anyway. You two should be out having fun. I’m done for the day too. Your mamaw and I are going to go ride around.”
