“It’s too hard.” My stomach flipped as his hand covered mine on the guitar strings.
“It’s not.” Patiently, he guided me through the simple chords again. His long legs bracketed my shorter ones on the seat, and his warm breath stirred wisps of hair near my ear.
“It’s not difficult for you,” I grumbled, though I really didn’t have a lot to complain about.
I was with my best friend, and we were in his backyard. A pleasant tang of salt from the Pacific Ocean drifted past us, which was only a few blocks from his house.
“Only because I’ve been playing guitar longer.” His hand warmed my cheek as he gently turned my head.
As I glanced at him over my shoulder, his face was all I could see. That cute face was all I wanted to see. Everything else faded when I was with him, even my doubts.
Storm was my favorite person in the whole wide world, aside from my dad and my little brother. The palm-shaded alcove we sat in was my favorite place, our very own private refuge. Lush, it was as lovely as the rest of Storm’s backyard, which my father had landscaped.
“You were good at it from the moment you picked up your first guitar,” I said softly, my admiring gaze drifting over his handsome features.
Music was the only outward sign of Storm’s inner artistic spirit. Everything else about him was orderly as his father demanded.
Storm’s sun-streaked light brown hair was shorn military style close to his scalp. His boyish features were rounded, but most times schooled into determined lines. His clothing was wrinkle-free. His shorts and T-shirt were like mine, but unlike mine, his were as clean as when he’d first put them on at the beginning of the day. If he got them dirty or wrinkled, he got into trouble.
His father was a Navy man, a petty officer first class in charge of an electrical team of fifty men on the USS Embassy. He ran a tight ship, both at his job and in his home. Even when he was stationed away, like he was now, Graham Hardy expected his wife and three boys to adhere to his rules. All his rules.
“Why do you want to learn to play so badly?” Storm asked.
Because it’s my connection to you, I thought, and I don’t have many left except for surfing and music.
Storm was in middle school now, kissing and dating girls, entering a world that I was too young for. A lot of the time, I felt naive and foolish around him. I could feel it happening, a separation between the two of us. My best friend was growing up faster than me. Soon, he would leave me and childish things behind. I was losing a little more of him every day.
“It helps me, gives me a beat for my rhymes,” I said, my eyes remaining locked on his.
The soft earth-brown color of Storm’s eyes grounded me as much as having my hands wrist-deep in rich soil did. My father’s daughter, I loved planting things and watching them grow as much as he did.
But unlike my dad, I also loved words. Arranging them into pretty patterns helped me make sense of my world, something that was hard for me to do whenever I thought about my mother. I didn’t understand why she left my father, my brother, and me. Yes, she was going back to Thailand, where she’d been born, but weren’t we more important?
What was wrong with us—with me—that she’d never once tried to see or talk to me again?
“I like your poems,” Storm said, his voice cracking. His voice and his body were undergoing so many changes, and I didn’t want our friendship to be one of them. Yet, in one way I did.
My gaze dipped to his mouth. His lips were as firm as his features. They tempted me lately, the warm terra-cotta color and the sculpted shape of them. I imagined pressing my mouth to Storm’s, like my mom used to do to my dad. I’d imagined that a lot. Even dreamed about it.
But I knew Storm would never really kiss me. He didn’t think about me the way he did those older girls. We were only friends, but I thought about him as more. I wished for him to one day think about me as more than just a friend too.