“Yeah?” He took a life-changing step closer and then another one. “How so?”
He was close now, too close. So close I could smell that clean soapy scent on his skin that mingled with that of tobacco. So close that when I lifted my eyes from his heaving chest, letting them drift slowly up to take in the scruff coating his strong, stubborn jaw and outlining those parted, full lips, I struggled to breathe. It was a task easier said than done when all I could see, smell, and hear was everything I’d been wanting, standing before me, just one word or movement away from touching me.
“Clover,” he said, gravel filling the word. “Answer me.”
“You really don’t want me to do that,” I said, finally meeting his eyes.
That was a mistake. I knew it before they even collided, but the wreckage couldn’t be salvaged now.
A hissed curse flew past his lips, and then his hands were cupping my face, his turbulent eyes darting back and forth between mine, looking for something I couldn’t name. He must’ve found whatever he was searching for because then it happened.
His lips lowered, landing on my own and stilling. I could feel it, the way both our bodies seemed to turn to stone, the air shifting and warping around us, cocooning us in a forbidden but oh, so perfect bubble.
“Clover,” he whispered, mouth parting.
Soft and warm, his lips held mine between them, a hint of mint and whiskey on his breath. Breaking the spell, I raised my arms, wrapping them around his neck as I tilted my head to press my mouth over his gently, carefully until I grew more confident and tried to lick my way inside to meet his tongue. I wanted it so bad, my knees trembled, and I whimpered when he grabbed my shoulders and moved me back a step.
“Look what you’ve gone and done now,” he murmured, though not a trace of regret filled the words, only rough, complicated lust.
“Me?” I asked, incredulous.
He nodded, gripping my chin and kissing my forehead. “Don’t go kissing anyone else, or I’ll rip their tongues out and decorate your precious gardens with them.”
My heart dipped. “Everett.” Panic and want warred when he went to open my door. “What…?” I started, then shook my head. “Ugh, I just… I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand.” He ran a hand over his hair, sinking his thick fingers into the mussed strands. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
“Huh?” Something began to sink inside me, plummeting and pulling. “You can’t tell me not to kiss anyone else and a heartbeat later decide we can’t kiss again.”
Laughing, he smirked down at the ground, the sound quiet and filled with resignation. “I never said we wouldn’t do it again.” He opened the door, not looking back as he left me with, “Just that we shouldn’t.”
“What is going on, then?” Adela asked.
It’d been a whole week since Everett had first laid his lips upon mine.
One whole week of waiting and watching, desperate to see what would happen next. Desperate to know if his last words to me meant anything would even happen. He’d been at the garage, though, much to the band’s dismay as they tried to squeeze in some practice that week. Everyone was tied up with jobs and school ending for the year, so I hadn’t seen the guys together since the week before.
“Two months?” I heard from the kitchen.
“One sec,” I said to Adela, cracking open my bedroom door to listen.
“But Graham’s out,” Hendrix said. “How are we supposed to find another drummer in two months?”
“It doesn’t matter,” came the voice I’d been waiting to hear. “We’ll find someone. If we don’t go, we probably never will, and then what? We’ll just waste away here with no other plans?”
There was a beat of silence before Hendrix cursed, and then the sound of their voices faded as they no doubt went outside to work on the bus.
Two months until they leave.
My heart thudded hard.
“Stevie?” Adela called.
I pressed the phone back to my ear. “Sorry, the guys were saying they’re leaving in two months.”
“Wow,” she said. “But what does that mean for you and Everett?”
Nothing, I almost said. Instead, I sighed. “Not sure. We’re not… something anyway. I don’t know what we are or what even possessed him to kiss me in the first place.” All true words, yet they still jabbed like needles.
We spoke some more about a date she was going on that night before deciding to chat after she