scrambled for something else to say, but between his nerves and that look, he couldn’t think straight, so he said, “What do you remember most about our first kiss?”
“The way I felt like I was floating on air until you slipped your tongue into my mouth, which totally freaked me out.”
He laughed, relieved by her levity. “Come on. You had to expect it. You had been asking me when I was going to kiss you for a week.”
“Yeah, but it was still invasive, and thrilling, in a nerve-racking way. I’m sure you could tell I got flustered.”
“Why do you think I put my hand on the back of your head? I wasn’t about to let you get away. Nick taught me that trick.”
Her jaw dropped. “You talked to Nick about kissing me? Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is?”
“Do you know how embarrassing it was to have to go to him in the first place for pointers? I figured I had one shot with you, and I wasn’t about to blow it. God, I was so nervous.”
“I could tell you were,” she said softly.
“You could not.”
“I could tell a lot of things that night. Like how you pulled your T-shirt down to hide your hard-on.”
“I think I need a drink for this.” He opened the wine and took a swig, then handed her the bottle. “You were my first grope, you know. You were so soft and perfect. I was sure you’d been put on this earth just to make me happy.”
“And you were so hard. I remember thinking it had to hurt.”
They both laughed.
She took a drink and said, “We sure fumbled through our firsts.”
“We might have fumbled at the beginning, but we got the hang of things. I know we were just kids, but I’ve never experienced anything even close to what we had.”
Her eyes looked troubled again as she tipped the bottle up to her lips. She was quiet for a minute, and then she said, “I remember how you looked at me after our first kiss. It was the same way you looked at me after the first time we had sex, like I was your earth, sun, moon, stars, and sea all in one.”
“You were, Carls.” You still are. “You turned my world upside down every day from the moment we first started hanging out together until the day I left.” He wondered if the regret in his voice was as loud in her ears as it was in his. They walked in silence along the edge of the lake for a few minutes. Zev wrestled with bringing up the reasons why he’d left. But he wasn’t ready to give up this happier place yet. It felt good to be with Carly, to see her smile and hear her voice as they relived happy memories. “Remember when we decided we should be more than friends?”
“You mean when you asked me to be your girlfriend in a note that you taped to my bedroom window?”
“Yes.” Another nervous night.
After sneaking out together, they’d said good night through that window. And after their last kiss, when she’d closed the window, they’d used their breath to fog it up and wrote messages as fast as they could before the fog faded. They’d become so adept at writing backward, they could do it as quickly as they wrote forward. They’d said good night by that window hundreds of times, and every time was as heart-wrenching as the last. The hours between good night and school the next morning seemed to go on forever. But now he knew what forever really felt like.
“I still have that note,” she admitted. “And all the others.”
His gut twisted. Had she kept the note he’d taped to her window the morning he’d left town? He bit the bullet and said, “I wasn’t sure you’d show up tonight, but I’m glad you did. I’m sorry for the way I left, Carly. It wasn’t fair, and I’ve always regretted it.”
She stopped walking, turning her beautiful, troubled eyes on him. Her breathing quickened, and she said, “That was really messed up.”
She clenched her mouth shut like she was holding back, and it made him feel even worse because they’d always said what they’d felt, and he deserved whatever she was trying not to say. “I know, and I’m sorry, Carls.”
“You broke my heart.” Heart came out cracked and shaky, her lower lip trembling. “No,” she panted out, her voice escalating. “You did worse than that. You