Page 34 of Finders Keepers

Maybe it’s the moonlight reflecting off the river, or the sticky air settling on my flushed skin, or too many tequila-based cocktails, but tonight feels different.

Magical. Full of possibility. Almost like being at Sprangbur.

Even though the place is half a mile behind us, it’s as if we’ve stepped inside one of the magical Edlosian bubbles Fountain talked about and now we’re drifting somewhere new and exciting, unable to steer but open to wherever it takes us.

All I know is that, when I look at Quentin strolling beside me along the water with his pale skin glowing and his hair fluttering in the breeze, our history collapses into something folded so small I can tuck it away.

I’m able to store it out of sight and fully focus on the man beside me.

Up until now, it was like the teenage version of Quentin was a ghostly image projected over the adult version.

But now the projection has been shut off, and I don’t have to try to figure out which parts of what I’m seeing are from the past and which are present.

Everything tonight is stripped down, simplified into him and now and want .

Instead of feeling lost, I’m starting to feel…free.

“Hanako,” he says out of the blue.

“What about her?” I ask, stomach dropping.

“Do you want to know our secret?”

Yes. But also no. It really depends on what it is, I guess, but I can’t admit that without sounding jealous. “Sure. If it’s yours to tell.”

“She was my first kiss,” he confesses. The streetlights illuminating the trail reveal a deep blush spanning his cheeks and continuing to the tips of his ears.

I’m officially nauseated. “Oh. I assumed something like that.”

“Really?” Quentin raises his eyebrows as he glances over at me. “It wasn’t because we had any sort of connection or anything. I wasn’t particularly, like, interested in her—not that she isn’t attractive, of course.”

“Of course,” I repeat. I’m not sure why he’s telling me this. It doesn’t make my stomach hurt any less. And the magic feels like it’s dissipating by the second, like the bubble might be about to pop and drop us somewhere inconvenient, like into the river.

“It only happened because we got to talking that night, at Tyler McMaster’s pool party.”

“Why were you even there, anyway?” I ask. “No offense, but you weren’t exactly a cool kid.”

A low rumble of laughter rolls through him—that Taco Bell rumor one.

“Offense very much taken! I have always been cool, Nina.” He claps a hand to his chest as if I’ve wounded him, then lets it fall.

“I was at Edgar’s playing D&D when Tyler IM’d to invite him—they were on the varsity soccer team together, remember?

—and Ed asked if he could bring me along.

Anyway, we went over there. I had like half a Bud Light, so I was feeling wild , and I wound up spilling my guts to Hanako about how I had a huge crush on someone but was terrified to make a move because I’d never kissed anyone before and didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing.

She suggested she give me a quick lesson, just platonically, so that I’d be confident enough to shoot my shot before I left at the end of the summer.

It was all very technical and unsexy, to be honest. But helpful. And really kind of her.”

My pulse is going a million miles an hour. Not only did I not know about his kissing Hanako, but there was a whole crush on someone he never mentioned? Even though I actively feel like I might vomit, I can’t help but ask, “So, did it work? Did you work up the nerve to kiss your crush?”

He shakes his head, grinning down at the trail beneath our feet as we walk. “Not yet.”

Not…yet? I try to think of who is still around that he might be in contact with, but the only person that comes to mind is…

me? But that doesn’t make sense, because then why wouldn’t he have made his move that night in his backyard?

Or one of the zillion other times we were alone together that summer?

The toe of my shoe hits a small divot in the asphalt as I take my next step. I wobble before stumbling slightly in the direction of the riverbank. I regain my balance quickly, but not as quickly as Quentin reaches out and grabs my arm.

“Geez. Didn’t realize you were that drunk,” he says.

“I’m not!”

He playfully narrows his eyes as if he doesn’t believe me. “Well, I’ll feel better holding on to you. Just to be safe.” He lets go of my arm and instead interlaces our fingers.

Oh my god. Quentin Bell and I are holding hands again.

We are holding hands as we walk home on a beautiful night, and he and I are two adults who are getting to know each other better, untethered by whatever happened to those kids we used to be.

This could be the beginning of a new chapter.

One in which this attraction I feel toward him is something that can be acted on.

Something that doesn’t have to be a fantasy I resent, or dismissed as a coping mechanism, but a real possibility.

I should be more anxious about that. Why am I not more anxious?

Probably the tequila.

Heat from his palm transfers to mine, and thinking about it makes it spread faster and wider until I feel it in my arm and my chest and my face and between my legs.

We walk and chat idly, letting our joined hands swing as if this is a normal thing that we do.

Or maybe it’s actually the start of a game of intimacy-based chicken in which we each keep pushing ever so slightly forward until the reality of it becomes too much and one of us backs off. Another competition between us.

More likely, I’m completely overthinking it and Quentin is truly worried I might stumble into the river.

Except when we reach the end of Riverside Park and turn onto East Baltimore in the direction of our houses, no more water in sight, he doesn’t let go. Neither do I.

When we’re standing in front of our duplex on West Dill ten minutes later, I figure this is the moment when he’ll finally release me, laugh it off.

But we keep our fingers threaded together as we go up the stairs to our respective porches.

The support column at the top of the steps forces us to finally part, and we make a big, goofy, tipsy show of it.

I do a little lopsided pirouette on my porch, nearly falling over.

Once I regain my balance, Quentin takes my hand again.

This time he gently tugs me toward him until we’re standing mere inches apart, the wooden railing the only thing separating our bodies.

“I had a lot of fun tonight,” he says. “It was nice to just…be with you.”

“It was,” I agree, vaguely aware that the words echo what I said I was looking for in a partner. No, shush, brain. This is lust, pure and simple. Not romance.

“And you look…” His eyes sweep over me briefly, as if refreshing his memory, before closing hard, an almost pained smile on his face. “You look so fucking beautiful, Neen.”

I know that my hair is gigantic from being outside in the humidity, the eye makeup beneath my glasses is probably smudged, and my lipstick is just a light stain clinging to the edges of my lips.

The fabric of my tank top sticks to my back, and my thighs are slightly chafed where they rubbed as we walked.

It’s hard to believe I’m particularly pretty like this, but when he opens his eyes again, they’re all honesty and reverence, almost daring me to argue.

Okay, maybe it is roman tic , but still, not romance. This is not a romance.

But, god, he’s beautiful too. The way his hair shifts from red to brown depending on the light.

The small, nearly vanished scars near his mouth, his eyebrow, his hairline—marks of childhood misadventures.

Deep lines sunbursting from the corners of his eyes, evidence of how often he smiles.

The faded freckles sprinkled over the very tops of his rounded cheeks.

It’s like his face is its own sky full of constellations and corresponding stories, and I think it would be nice to spend this warm summer evening committing each one to memory.

For the life of me, I can no longer come up with even one reason why I shouldn’t.

My stomach dips and my heart pauses. My mind can’t help but wonder if there’s someone else out there he might wish he were with right now. Someone he’s been waiting to kiss for years and years. But whoever they are, they aren’t here.

I am. I’m the one he said it was nice to be with. The one he said looks beautiful.

The wanting is stronger than my doubt, than my anxiety—stronger than anything that could stop me—and I’m leaning in, in, in, once again.

Quentin meets me halfway, our fingers still entwined atop the railing, his free hand settling on the side of my neck while his thumb comes to rest sweetly on my chin.

And then we’re kissing. The hint of heat I felt at Sprangbur yesterday is nothing compared to the volcanic eruption happening inside me as my body registers the sensations of his mouth pressing against mine.

His lips are soft, wide, perfect. He tastes of warmth and sweetness and a hint of rum.

How far will this go? How far do I want it to go?

All the way, all the way , my body chants.

My brain, however, is like, Hold up a second .

Because I’m not supposed to want this. It’s admittedly hard to remember why that matters right now, but I’m pretty sure it does.

I pull back ever so slightly and let out a small hum. “I’m…a little bit drunk,” I say.

“Same,” he whispers as his lips find mine again.

His stubble is deliciously abrasive against my bottom lip as I gently suck on his.

It adds another dimension to the sensation that grounds me in the moment.

My hips press into the railing, as if they hope maybe it will disappear and bring our lower halves flush if they’re persistent enough.

“I’m sure we’ll laugh about this in the morning,” I add when his mouth slides to my jaw.

“It’ll be hilarious,” he mutters into the sensitive spot below my ear before taking the lobe between his teeth.

I spent so much of the summer of 2008 hoping Quentin would kiss me.

I wanted that kiss between us more than I wanted anything up until that point in my life.

But in this moment, as he unthreads our fingers so he can slide his into my hair, tongue swiping over the seam of my lips, requesting entrance, I am so immensely glad that it’s happening now instead.

That we saved this for when we truly understood how to do it. What it could lead to.

Like my hand beneath his shirt, making his breath catch when I brush over his nipple.

If I invited him inside right now, I know he’d come. Come in, I mean. And also, well…

“Nina,” he says, pulling back, though his voice matches the dark, drugged appearance of his eyes.

I try to close the distance he creates, to lean in and put our mouths back together—where they belong—but he slides his hands from my hair and cups my face, gently keeping me at bay.

“Nina,” he repeats. “Wait.” And while his pupils are still blown out, his gaze is focused now. He’s a man regaining control of himself. Putting a stop to this.

Well. Fuck.

I remove my hand from his shirt and take a few deep breaths, our eyes connected as we see each other through the comedown.

As the lust clears, I decide I agree with Quentin that we need to stop before things go too far.

We’re still in the middle of hunting for the treasure.

We don’t need sex derailing our efforts.

Like, best-case outcome if we followed this to its logical conclusion: We don’t make any progress on finding a new lead because we’ve wasted our remaining weeks in bed.

Worst-case: We wind up complicating this too much and obliterate the small amount of trust we’ve managed to rebuild.

Most likely: I don’t know, but probably some combination of the two.

None of those outcomes include me winding up with my portion of the reward money or a way out of Catoctin.

Also, while neither of us are wasted, we aren’t exactly sober either. The inside of my skull still feels a little too light and fluffy, like it’s filled with cotton candy. That alone is a decent reason to hold off.

“Oh. Um, okay,” I say. “Yeah.”

“I don’t want to stop,” he says quickly. “I really don’t want to stop. But we can’t—I can’t—”

I lay my hands over his and fake a smile as I take a step back, slipping out of his touch. “No, no. I get it. It’s for the best.”

“Nina, wait,” he says again. The exasperation in his voice is corroborated by that vertical line between his eyebrows.

But I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to linger in this feeling of awkward incompleteness.

I don’t want to stand here looking at him, wanting him, without any possibility of relief.

And I don’t want to give him the chance to say it was a mistake.

“It’s fine, Quentin. Thanks for the drinks and, um, stuff,” I say, moving backward until my butt hits the storm door’s handle. “Good night!”

His voice is quiet, no louder than a sigh, and I barely catch it as I go inside. “Good night.”