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She’s going to go back to the city,I remind myself, as we call it quits and head for the bench.Don’t get too used to this.
Gemma’s cheeks have a gorgeous pink glow. Her bare arms are toned beneath the black sweater she’s wearing, rolled up to her elbows. The silver accents of her jewelry reflect the moonlight. She perches on the bench and tucks her knee up to her chest to untie her laces.
I watch her work.
Because she’s beautiful.
She glances at me through her lashes. “You could take a photo.”
“Hm?”
“It would last longer,” she teases, shaking her head and going back to work. When she hops up to her feet, now back in her leather boots, she strides up to me.
I busy myself with packing up the duffel so I don’t look like I’m gawking. As she nears I get to my feet, too, and loop the bag’s strap over my shoulder.
“We’ll leave the lights here,” I say. “Might get smashed up or stolen if people come to play ball or whatever, but we’ll deal with that if it happens.”
“That’s how you handle things, hm?” She stops before me and tilts her face up to mine. “Wait to see what comes up, then you deal. Maybe you should try thinking ahead more, instead of sitting back and watching things unfold. I think it’d help you. And I was joking, by the way, about the photo. I know you look at everything the exact same way you look at me. It’d be ridiculously self-centered of me to think it’s just me. For all I know, you looked into that oatmeal pot this morning with the same awe-struck reverie.”
“Well, it was good oatmeal.”
“Par-keerr…” She reaches out and pushes my arm. And when the gesture ends, she’s standing closer to me.
So close that I can smell a faint whiff of her perfume. Her shampoo. And that marshmallow gloss.
It’s like every memory I have of her has come to life, here right in front of me.
If I closed my eyes right now, I’d be able to recall exactly the way she used to stand up on her tiptoes and wrap her arms around my neck before delivering one of her sweet, delicious kisses.
I used to live for those kisses.
For a long time, they only happened in my mind. I had fantasies about her for years. Then, for those few weeks, I actually got to experience them.
And for years after, I looked long and hard for another woman that would make me feel like she did.
Never found it again—that feeling.
Maybe it was because love was so new to us, that it felt so amazing. Or, is it something about her and me, and the way our cells and nerves and souls sparked up, every time we touched?
I don’t know.
I don’t have this stuff down to a science, like she apparently does.
All I know is it was different in a good way, what we had. And that even though I searched, I couldn’t find anything quite like it again.
“Stop it!” she quips, as she gives me another swat. “You’re doing it again!”
I chuckle. “What do you want me to say, Gem?”
“Tell me why you look at me like that.”
“Can’t. I don’t want to come on too strong.”
“Now you’re speaking in code again. I don’t know what to make of a statement like that, Parker.”
“It’s like… it’s like I said in the driveway, about your cat. I’m going to be patient.”If you want me as much as I want you, you’ll make the first move.
I don’t want to scare you away.
