Page 63

Mayday. Mayday!My internal sirens blared. Warning me ofwhat, I wasn’t sure. But my heart pounded away, terrified. Or excited. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the two anymore.
I took a full breath and released it, barely calming my nerves. “Yeah, Neil. That’s how I see you,” I confessed. It felt like I was divulging every last one of my sins. Breaking down more facades; letting him see too much of me. If I hadn’t already scared him off, I was surely going to now.
But… he surprised me. Like he always did.
He parted the water in front of him with his hands, closing the distance between us, and then his mouth was on mine. My back pressed against the shallow edge of the wall, Neil completely surrounding me. His chest, and his lips, and his hands, and his arms, caging me in.
Minutes that lasted a small slice of eternity passed, his lips slower and more cautious, careful. Protecting himself, or me, or the both of us, it felt like.But from what?
When his mouth slid away from mine with one last lingering kiss, the question drifted away. He was taking these slow, shallow breaths, his eyes glued to my mouth. I watched his gaze leave my lips and travel over my collarbone, landing on my shoulder. He inched closer, his mouth meeting the colored bruise that was there from our paintball date.
Then he kissed the other one, a few inches over, where my shoulder met the base of my neck, before rising up and settling his forehead against mine. I sucked in a weighted breath, closing my eyes.
“You make me want things I know I should be waiting for,” he said, so quiet I almost hadn’t heard him over the cicadas buzzing around his yard. “Things Iwantto wait for,” he corrected.
I let his words resonate somewhere past my mutual want for him. Past my selfishness and the urge to corrupt the good in him. “I’m sorry,” I offered.
He shook his head. “It’s not your fault.”
It sort ofwasmy fault, though. Wasn’t it? I urged him on every chance I got. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted to round the bases with him—absolutely even more than he did.
“I think my parents will be home soon,” he changed the subject, redirecting the traffic in my brain entirely.
I let his words penetrate and settle. “Do you want me to leave?” I asked. Was this it? Was this where he finally told me this was too much for him? That we’d taken things way further than we were supposed to?
“No.” He shook his head again, and I visibly sagged in relief as embarrassing as that was.
But… I thought he was probably wrong. “I probably should—leave. Before your parents get home.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly, and my stomach dipped, but then he reached out with a smile and tickled me, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, andthatis when his parents decided to announce that they already were home.
Mortified. That was me. “Oh, god,” I think I breathed.
Neil cleared his throat. “Hi, Mom.” He seemed nervous but not really all that nervous, if that made any sense whatsoever.
I forced myself to turn around. “Hello,” I said with the best smile I could muster.
She gave me a tight-lipped smile in return, turning her attention back to Neil. “We brought dinner.”
“Okay,” he responded. “Mom? You remember Olivia?”
The surprise on her face was quickly smoothed over by something slightly more welcoming. “Oh, yes, of course. Why don’t you join us for dinner, Olivia?”
My mouth forgot how to move for a few stuttering seconds.Me. Stay here. For dinner.With Neil’s family.
Umm…
“Please?” Neil whispered, and the desperation in his tone further softened something inside me. Something that kept melting and conforming itself around all thoughts and feelings where Neil was concerned.
“Okay, yeah. Thank you,” I gave his mom my answer, and I was awarded with his smile.
I guess I was having a proper dinner with Neil’s family. With thepreacher.
Somebody, somewhere, was surely turning over in their grave.
Forks scraped against plates and my water glass made a softclunkas it hit the dinner table, but other than that, the room was so quiet I could actually hear Neil chewing next to me.
Awkward, uncomfortable, stuffy, tense—the energy in the room could’ve easily been described as any of the above. And that was before the conversation started…flowing, for lack of a better word. Water crowding around a beaver’s dam and slipping its way through any available crevice in an interrupted flow, was more like it.