Page 68 of Every Step She Takes

The problem with a-pitcher-of-sangria Sadie is that I’malsoa-pitcher-of-sangria Mal.

I got drunker than I should have. I touched her more than I meant to, and I got caught up in the way she responded to my touch. I got carried away by her freckles and her newness, and I would have kissed her, if not for Michelle’s voice in my head, reminding me that this is what I always do.

Sadie is a pretty girl and a perfect distraction.

Which is why I can’t kiss her now, even if she’s begging me to. I’m worried kissing Sadie Wells will make it that much harder to stop elegizing her freckles.

I take a deep, cleansing breath of salt air. “I’m sorry I flirted with you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Sadie shifts her gaze toward the ocean, hiding a look of hurt.

I don’t want to hurt her.

I really,really, want to kiss her.

“This night didn’t quite go how I planned in my head,” I confess, shoving my hands into the pockets of my fleece to stop them from reaching for her.

She snorts. “It’s been a real fucking octopus of a night.”

“We should’ve read the signs.”

“The Octopus Omen,” she says, her arms wrapping tighter around her chest. She moves her hands up and down the length of her folded arms, shivering slightly.

“Oh shit, you’re cold.” She took off her zip-up when we got to the bar, and now she’s only wearing her white crop top. I shrug off my fleece and bridge the three steps between us. “Take this.”

“I’m fine,” she says between teeth chatters. I hold up my fleece, and she steps into it without further protest. I wrap it tightly around her without realizing this means we’re standing too close again, as close as we were while dancing. Sadie’s hair smells like a garden, her mouth smells like wine, and her skin smells like sunscreen and sweat, like every happy summertime memory.

She smells like all the summers I spent here, in Portugal, with my father. Summers spent running around vineyards in the sweltering afternoon sun. Summers spent holding the first sip of wine on my tongue before my father drilled me with questions about acidity and tannins. Lonely summers spent hiding in the gardens during my father’s lavish parties, lying on my stomach in the grass, reading a book by flashlight and wishing that he would notice I was gone, waiting for him to come find me.

He never did, and eventually I learned to stop waiting.

Sadie smells like all of the real feelings I’m trying to ignore. And here I am, practically hugging her as she puts on my fleece.

“The last guy I kissed… his name was Grant,” Sadie says quietly into the small space between us. “He was one of the guysVi set me up with. And he was honestlyperfect. He was everything I’m supposed to want, and I didn’t want him.”

The sadness returns to her voice, and I can’t fight the urge to hug her on purpose, to wrap my arms around her and hold her close.

“So many men, and I never wanted any of them. And I started to believe that I’d never find love, that I’d never find my person. That I’d never get married or have a family of my own. That I’d never get to have any of the things I wanted because I couldn’t make myself be attracted to men. So I started telling myself I didn’t want those things at all.”

She goes quiet in my arms, her cheek pressed to my shoulder. “I’ve forgotten what it feels like to want something.”

She raises her head. She’s so close that she takes up my entire field of vision, blots out everything else. All I can see are those eyes, those freckles, those two front teeth piercing her upper lip.

“Right now,” she says in a hushed but firm voice. “I really want to kiss you.”

And I can’t really argue with that.

Sadie

“Okay,” Mal says, exhaling wine and fruit. “Kiss me, then.”

And I’m not going to overthink this.

We’re on a moonlit beach with the sea and the stars, and I’m wearing Mal’s jacket, and it smells like candlewood and sugar and sweat, a mixture of her and this place we’re in together. She’s right here, with her arms encircling me, and I want to know how it feels to kiss a woman—thiswoman—just this once.

I’m going to kiss her.

I have no ideahowto kiss her, and now I’m definitely overthinking it.