just stood there with the sun still disguising his expression. I could guess at it, though. Without needing to see, I knew his brows were pinching with impatience.
Sighing, I got up and went to turn the hose off. When I returned, Everett was standing before the skateboard, holding his hands out toward me. “Get on.”
“I was on it. Then you kicked me off.”
“Clover,” he pressed.
“Fine.” I set my bare feet upon the coarse grip-tape and squealed a little when the board rolled.
Everett caught my wrists. “I said take my hands.”
“You said no such thing; you merely held them out.”
I could see his face just fine now, and the bemused curl to his lips grated. Then, slowly and with our eyes locking, I watched as all humor fled his while his hands crawled down to mine.
They were warm, callused, gentle, and strong. A prickling sensation danced over the nape of my neck, and my belly warmed faster than my face. “I’m going to fall.”
“So fall,” he said, low and confident. “I’ll be here to help you get back up.”
I felt it then, that irrevocable shift inside. As if somehow, someway the vibrancy of the world had dripped away, and the only color that remained was us.
Tugging my hands, he helped me roll off the curb to the street. He laughed louder than I’d ever heard before when I screamed, pitching forward into his chest, and breathing hard. “I could’ve died.”
“Don’t say that.” He sobered, and his arms seemed to squeeze me close for all of a second, and then he was straightening me on the board. “Back we go then, chicken shit.”
“No,” I said, refusing to release his hand. Staring down the cul-de-sac, I looked back at him and grinned. “Just once.”
Watching me for a beat, he shook his head. “This was a bad idea.”
“This was the best idea,” I said, pushing off with my foot, and then I lost my grip on his hand, my arms pinwheeling as the skateboard carried me faster and faster down the street.
I didn’t even have time to scream; the curb was approaching, and my heart was lodged in my throat. It was all I could do to keep upright, my hair coming loose from my braid and tangling around my face.
My eyes squeezed shut as every muscle braced for impact. Then arms came around me, and the inertia sent me and Everett tumbling onto the neighbor’s front lawn.
“Ow,” I moaned, my ankle protesting the weird angle it’d found itself in.
“Yeah, ow,” Everett grumbled beneath me, wincing as he tried to lift his head.
I pushed my hands to the grass, gazing down at him. The second our eyes connected, laughter howled from us both, dizzying and oxygen depriving.
Drawing a few deep breaths, I settled and stared at his smile, hypnotized by the low chuckles still vacating his mouth. “You okay?”
“I’m good.” He heaved out a loud breath, squinting at me. “You?”
“Perfect.” His body was hard everywhere, and I swallowed, my gaze unwilling to drift far from his. “My hero.”
He grinned, blinding and breath-stealing. “I’m no one’s hero, Clover.”
“You kept your promise.”
Huffing, he groaned, cracking his neck. “Guess I did.”
“That makes you a hero in my eyes.” His body grew even more taut. Sensing the change in his mood, I climbed off him, then went in search of Hendrix’s skateboard.
It’d wedged itself before the opening of a drain. I pulled it free and joined Everett, who was waiting for me on the street.
“You were fucking flying,” he said.
“It’s made the top five most terrifying moments of my life.”
He chuckled, sighing as we reached the driveway to my house. “Do me a favor?”
“What?” I used my hand to block the sun, trying to find his eyes.
They refused to be found, and instead, they drifted across the street. “Don’t get on that thing again.”
I laughed, grabbing the melted shake, and watched him cross the street before heading inside.
I was nearing seventeen when I agreed to go out on my first date.
I’d been asked out a few times, but I’d always said no. It took Adela asking if I was gay or a love-sick fool to finally realize what I’d been doing.
I’d been waiting for something that wasn’t ever going to happen.
And so when Clive Went asked me out, I shrugged, and said, “Sure, why not.”
He was cute, the captain of the swim team, and best of all, he was not friends with my brother.
Judging by the gathering of his dark brows, my answer didn’t exactly thrill him, but