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I was aware of every movement, every twitch of his hand, every glide of his thumb across my fingers. If holding his hand felt that good, I could only imagine what everything else with him would feel like. If his arms were wrapped around me, if his lips were to ever touch mine.

It had to happen.

I didn’t care what I had to do; I was going to make him mine.

Six Before

NOTEBOOKS, FOLDERS, PAPERS, pens and pencils were strewn across the table in front of us, our devoured burgers, fries, and shakes pushed to the outer edges.

We’d already tackled the first few sections of The Raven when I found myself spaced out again, staring at Greyson’s profile—for what felt like the hundredth time. But I couldn’t help it. The way his brows furrowed in concentration and the way he absentmindedly licked his lips when writing something down in his notebook made it completely his fault I’d lost concentration so many times.

His face turned towards mine, half-smile, eyebrows raised. “Jess?”

“Hmm?”

He laughed, shaking his head, flipping his notebook shut. “I guess we should stop here; we did get a lot done already.”

What? No!I didn’t want to leave; I wasn’t ready to leave yet.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like Greyson was in any rush to leave either. He slid his things into his backpack and turned towards me, crooked smile on full display. “Dessert?” he asked, pulling out the menu and silently reading over the options.

“Is that a serious question?” I scoffed playfully. “What the hell is this life without dessert? Nothing. The answer is nothing.”

He whistled, eyebrows sky-high, playfully mocking me in return. “Wow. Jess takes her dessert seriously. Noted.”

I laughed, nudging him with my elbow, and he nudged me back, and somehow, we ended up even closer to each other than we already had been. Our shoulders were now touching, our arms, our hips, our legs. The entire right side of my body tingled with awareness.

“Want to share something?” he asked.

“Okay,” I replied, immediately embarrassed at how soft it had come out. Could he tell how affected I was, how desperate I was?

If he noticed, he didn’t show it. “Hot fudge sundae?”

I nodded, not able to get the words past my lips without embarrassing myself again.

When our sundae came, we dug into it, falling into an easy conversation. I felt an ease with him I’d never felt before. It was unsettling—or more accurately,scary as hell—but also…comfortable,warm.

I told him about my love for art and photography, and he told me about his for football and music. He’d already joined the team at our school, but his real passion was music—and yes, I found out that hedidsing, and I almost died at the thought of hearing his voice belt out the words he’d been writing in his notebook the other day.

Also? He played the drums and guitar, too.Swoon.

I tried my best not to stare at him as he took his last few bites of ice cream, but like much else in my life, it was a total failure. He dropped his spoon into the bowl, licked his lips, and relaxed back into the booth, turning his face towards mine.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he started, his eyes a bit hesitant for some reason. “Have you always lived here?”

I rubbed my hand along the base of my throat. A habit; a nervous tic. “No.” It was like a security blanket, giving me the illusion that I felt choked by myself and not by the outside world. “I just moved here over the summer.”

He nodded, looking as if he might have expected that answer. “Where from?”

I swallowed past the thickness quickly building in my throat. I swear I could almost feel the pressure of it sliding past my palm. “Washington.”

He nodded again, tapping a beat against the table with his fingers, completely oblivious to the raging of my heart inside my ribcage. Oblivious to the anxiety slowly trickling its way through my body. But then again, I was pretty good at hiding these things. “That’s pretty far. Why here, of all places?” he asked.

I don’t know why, but I forced the truth past my lips even though I could feel that familiar weight pressing down on my chest. It was a question I anticipated every time someone asked me where I moved from, but it wasn’t one I had ever planned on actually answering until then. “My mom died last year, so…after that I didn’t really have any choice but to move out here with my dad,” I told him.

I didn’t say the other words that were on the tip of my tongue, words that begged to be released.

That I’d hated my mom. That she’d been a drug addict with a rotating door of men who took advantage and stole from us, men who only ever pulled her deeper into her addictions, and who tended to pay more attention to her daughter than to her.