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I haven’t opened the note and I haven’t passed it over to him. Levi covers my hand that holds the paper. Maybe he’ll tell me never mind. Maybe he’ll say I should keep it to myself. Part of me wants that—it’s safe, but more of me wants to tell him everything.
His warm hand tickles the skin at my knuckles, filling my body with warm toasty shoots. His amber eyes find mine and hold me there, a prisoner in his gaze. “I won’t laugh,” he tells me. “I won’t scoff.”
I swallow, there might be a lump the size of Georgia in my throat. I give a small head-bobbing nod.
“I might even be able to help.” His cupped hand circles from covering the top of my hand to cradling it, sending more warm sparks across my skin.
Number five.
I press my list into his palm. “It’s not that big of a deal,” I lie.
I never lie.
But it falls off my lips as if to placate any of my real and present feelings. I entwine my fingers through his, my list locked between our grasps, and cram my eyes closed, my nose wrinkling. “That’s not true,” I say, opening one eye to peek at him. He’s smiling back at me. It’s sincere, kind, and soft, almost un-Levi-like. “It is a big deal. To me.”
“I know,” he says, his voice low and encompassing.
I slip my hand from his and face forward. I’m not sure I can watch him while he reads this. Even if Levi is offering me grace.
I listen as he unfolds the paper and straightens it out to see for himself.
“Catch a butterfly,” he reads.
Number one.
“Pierce my—”
I turn, like lightning. I am a regular Barry Allen. I press my pointer finger to Levi’s lips, stopping him from speaking out loud. “Maybe read inside your head.”
“You’ve told me about items on your list before,” he says against my finger.
I curl it up and bring it back into my lap. “I have. But that’s like wearing an off-the-shoulder dress. You’ve seen one shoulder. Not all of me.”
“Okay,” his eyes turn to slits as he thinks. “And this—”
“This is like being naked beneath a trench coat and just—” I stop, Levi has pressed one finger to my lips.
He sits, inches away, with his breath warming my cheek and his breezy scent filling my lungs. “I got it. I’ll read in my head.”
I swallow, and I’m certain he hears it. “Thank you.”
He sits straight, turning back to the list I began years ago. “What does this X mean?” He points to number two.Pierce my ears.
I scoop my hair behind one ear in answer, and his eyes flick from my face to my earlobe.
“Aw. Completed.” A grin plays at his lips.
I nod, but I don’t dare speak.
His eyes scan down, he isn’t reading, but searching. “You’ve completed five things already, then?”
I clear my throat and squirm a bit in my seat. “Six now.” I tap the page, number four: Learn to ride a bike.
“So, you’ve pierced your ears.” His thumb and finger find my earlobe for two tingling seconds. “You’ve purchased a cell phone—number three.” He taps the screen of my cell in my lap. “You’ve tried coffee—proving to the world that they are wrong and it is not, in fact, the morning drink of choice.”
“Blech.” I cringe. “OJ all the way.”
He turns back to my list, his finger dragging down, finding my X’s. “Number thirteen—you’ve been to a movie theater.” He pauses, his eyes bouncing from my list to my face. “You’d never seen a movie?”
