lavender, just like the sky. A mix of sun and moon.
“You’re crazy to make me do this,” I say through chattering teeth.
“Certifiable.” He looks in my eyes and down at my probably blue lips. The tips of my fingers burn from the cold.
“I want to kiss you,” he says quietly.
Tucker could never have held me like this. Andrew is so strong, it’s effortless.
“Can I?” he asks. “Kiss you?”
“In a sec,” I say. My teeth chatter.
I press a cold hand gently onto his chest.
“What are you waiting for?” he whispers. “Hypothermia?”
We laugh through chattering teeth. I want to hold on to this moment for as long as possible. Right now, we’re in the in-between. We’re hovering in the water, together, and I am in his arms, in someone’s arms, in this incredible way for the first time in my entire life.
This isn’t simply an experiment. This is very different.
“It’s just . . . ,” I say with a small shake of my head. “This moment right now, we can never get it back. If we kiss we’ll never be two people who haven’t kissed before. It will be . . . the after.”
He has stubble on his chin. One of Andrew’s hands rests under my thigh and the other runs to the back of my head. “I never thought of it like that before,” he says. We hover there; he examines my mouth.
“Screw it,” he says.
Andrew hoists me to him and our lips meet.
He opens his lips, and I open mine, too.
Please let me be doing this right. With a turn of his head, Andrew kisses me deeper.
Please let me do this right.
His lips part from mine and Andrew’s eyes are kind, warm. He smiles at me but only by lifting one half of his mouth. Scarlett says she loves guys with crooked smiles—this must be what she means. My whole body shivers again, but I can’t tell if it’s the temperature of the water or Andrew.
His hand rests on my hip and I can feel the rhythm of Andrew’s legs as he walks us toward the shore. The movement is one I’ve never experienced before. When we get a few feet from the sand, my legs slide down his, and I’m standing in knee-high water, looking up at him and the constellations just starting to shimmer in the sky.
“Let’s go; you’re freezing,” he says. He grabs my hands and once we get back to the truck, I immediately slip back on my shorts and wrap my arms around my body, trying to keep in any body heat. I wring out some of the salt water from my hair, and lines of icy water drip down my back.
“You know,” I say, squeezing the ends so drops make little divots in the dry sand below me. “Hypothermia is possible in water at a temperature less than eighty degrees.”
“Hey, that’s one fact I know,” he says from the back of the truck and pulls out two huge beach towels. He shakes them free of sand and wraps one around me while I’m still wringing the water out of my hair. I was going to grab my sweater but this is better. He wraps the other towel around himself, and pulls the grill closer so some of the still smoking embers warm us up. “Want to show me more constellations?” he asks, pulling me up next to him on the hood of the truck. We huddle together.
Before I start explaining, I wonder about the car accident he mentioned earlier and if it had to do with that team jersey he wrapped around the tree trunk.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“You bet.”
“What were you doing on the street the night we met?”
Andrew turns on his side to me. I mimic his movement.
He rests a hand on my hip. I try to act like someone has touched me on my hip before. I love his warmth.
“My friend Mike died,” he admits.
I wish I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
“Curtis? The guy you met at the beach? He was driving Mike’s car and . . .” He hesitates, but I can see where this is going. “He was drunk. Curtis was all amped up. Mike didn’t have a seat belt on and—”
“He hit the tree,” I say, barely above a whisper.
“He hit the tree.”
Andrew isn’t looking at me as he utters the words. I never thought sad eyes could sparkle, but his do. It’s not a happy shine, but it’s not tears, either. We’re quiet