Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,69

Their mouths fit each other. He couldn’t think

of it any other way. It wasn’t all that long of a kiss, and the world didn’t go into slow motion or anything like that. He felt her lips, the sweet

tea on her breath, a quick flick of their tongues meeting. They pulled

away rather quickly, though their hands remained on each other, their

sides pressed together, the cheap towel slipping down from around

Julia’s shoulder just an inch.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Dave said,

unable to keep himself from whispering.

“Really?”

“Years,” Dave said, nodding, leaning in for a repeat.

The second kiss was longer, hungrier. Julia turned herself over and

sat on his lap, wrapping them both up inside the towel. “Why didn’t

you say anything?”

234 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

“Because I’m dumb.” He kissed her again, one hand on the side of

her face, the other holding the towel up around them. The fire had

dwindled down, and he grabbed one of the last remaining logs and

tossed it at Julia’s impromptu pit, not wanting the whole thing to turn

to ash. It had already been one of those nights that felt significant

even before the kissing—the drive, the concert, this perfectly isolated

beach—and he didn’t want it to end. He wished they’d bought more

firewood. “I can’t believe we could have been doing this the whole time.”

Julia laughed through her kisses, as if she didn’t want to pull away

from his lips for even a second. “I guess we have to make up for lost

time.”

She laid herself heavy against him until he was lying down on the

sand, the weight of her a wonder. It was strange that of all the things

he could be marveling at, Julia’s hair falling across his face, her lips on his, the sheer nakedness of her as the towel slipped away, it was weight that he was focusing on. She raised herself slightly to kiss his neck and he instantly pulled her closer, wanting the weight of her to remain.

“Easy, Dave. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know,” he said. “You just feel great.”

“I hate to be crass, but I bet I can make you feel better.”

“You do not hate to be crass,” Dave said, laughing a little and

brushing the hair away from her face—uselessly, since it only fell back

down.

“True. I’d much rather be crass than touchy about this.”

“About what?”

DAVE & JULIA 235

“Boning my best friend on a beach,” she said, grabbing his hands

and holding them down, smirking even as she moved to kiss him

again, to more than kiss him.

When the moon had turned into something a little less spectacular,

a little more itself, Julia and Dave were lying together on the towel,

the last of the logs dropped into the fire along with the skewers, the

charred remains of marshmallows that hadn’t made it into s’mores.

Sand was absolutely everywhere.

“This is such a cliché,” Dave said, offering dozens of little pecks all

over her face, beneath her ears, those three freckles on her neck, which he could have devoted his attention to for the rest of the night.

“What is?” Julia’s eyes were closed, her arms on his bare back.

“Sex on a beach.” He kissed his way across her throat, down to her

collarbone. “The fire, the moon. Virginities lost amidst romance. We

are so cheesy.”

She pulled him up and kissed him firmly, wrapping her legs around

his, pulling him as close as they could get. “No complaints here.”

Sand continued to get everywhere, and every now and then a car

would pass by unseen on the highway, sometimes with music blasting

from open windows. Mostly it was the sound of the ocean and their

kisses that filled the night, the occasional murmured I love you, or a joke that would make them both break out into laughter, burrowing

their faces into the nooks in each other’s necks until the laughter

subsided and was once again replaced by kissing.

This, Dave thought to himself as Julia’s hands ran down his back, as

he kissed her over and over again, this was perfect.

236 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

PERFECT

THIS, JULIA THOUGHT to herself as Dave ran his hands down her

sides, as she kissed him over and over again, this was perfect.

SUNRISE

DAVE WOKE UP—like he’d imagined so many times—with Julia in

his arms. The sun had just barely risen behind them. Fog tinted the

sky a light yellow and made the water look gray. Julia’s head was resting on his chest, her arm draped around him, their bodies keeping each

other warm in the briskness of dawn. A few strands of her hair moved

in the ocean breeze, clearing away to show her peacefully sleeping face.

It was still perfect, except Gretchen was on his mind.

She’d