Page 17

I’ve Got Moves You’ve Never Seen

There’s nowhere for either of us to hide.

Like the sun, I avoid staring directly at him. If I do, I risk being blinded.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” I say.

He scoffs. “You’re one to talk.” His voice isn’t exactly warm as he snakes around the far edge of the pool area and leans over the stone wall.

“Uh . . .” Approximately one million questions zip through my mind, anger I’ve suppressed for the last year bubbling to the surface.

Still, I love him and want us to be who we were before the Great Commencement Massacre.

The urge to grab hold of him and kiss him is there.

It’s confusing as hell, especially because it makes me want to cry remembering what his lips feel like against mine, and—

“Your wheels are spinning.” Ricky turns toward me. “Your eyes are doing that fluttery thing.”

Is he being flirty? He doesn’t sound like he is, but there’s only one way to find out: “You don’t know me.” A hint of a smile grows on my lips.

He doesn’t smile back. “Guess not.” His tone is stony.

Ouch.

“It’s been a while.” I straighten my back, puff out my chest, hoping the last few weeks pulling double duty at the gym did something for my chest. “I’ve got moves you’ve never seen.

” Pop my ass, and— augh! —too far, still not properly stretched out from the plane!

Now I’m hopping like I pinched a nerve trying to steady my breathing!

I expect Ricky to laugh like he would every time I made a fool of myself in front of strangers because I have zero chill, but he doesn’t.

His face grows cold; his body goes rigid. “You’re right, I don’t know you.”

“I—what?” I wasn’t expecting that.

“Don’t worry about it, Field.” His voice is ice and I have frostbite.

I move beside him and do the same, resting my arms on the cold, gritty surface.

“No, what do you mean by that?”

He clenches his jaw, the way he does when he’s looking for ways to swallow his anger. He doesn’t bother to look at me. “You really want to do this now?”

“Do what, Ricky?”

“Talk, Fielder. Actually talk to me.” His bottom lip is quivering and he bites it back.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about—you broke up with me, and you’re mad at me?”

He lets out a howl-laugh like an evil villain before shooting his hands through his long hair in frustration. “You’re so freaking dense, Fielder, ergh!” He paces back and forth, back and forth before landing in the same spot.

I don’t know this version of Ricky. The one from the postcard he sent me, where apparently I am the monster in his story.

We both study the warm, bright lights of the stacked buildings and houses of Amalfi glowing against the dark mountain like strands of Christmas lights. Haunting how beautiful that can be while we continue to find ways to fall apart.

“Beautiful, huh?” The words are so frail they nearly break on the shores of his lips.

“What happened, Ricky?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he says.

“Doesn’t it?” I ask, the air between us so fragile.

He used to tell me that I couldn’t hide around him. Now he’s the one hiding.

Our eyes meet.

I’m right here.

He hums in recognition, and every bone in my body turns to mush. “You look”—his lips flap—“really good, Fielder.” He glances to where the dining room is, and I wonder if he’s feeling guilt for complimenting me.

As much as he looks the same, up close, I see the last year on him.

A bit fuller, weight and muscle from working with his hands day in and day out.

I can see new calluses on his fingers. They were in the process of hardening his fingers, and now they’re more pronounced, his fingers thicker, wider.

His shoulders are broader, and he fills out his shirts more.

Ricky was one of those guys who had a five-o’clock shadow by the middle of freshman year, but now he’s got an actual beard.

His brown eyes with flecks of green sparkle in the moonlight.

His larger nose now fits his face. Nonna used to say Ricky looks like a younger version of some Italian actor, Giulio Berruti.

I Googled him and thought, Someday. Now, I see it.

Ricky does look older, but he always did.

I open my mouth, but clamp it shut.

“What?”

I want to ask why he ended things, ended us, why I wasn’t enough, why he didn’t try harder, why he never reached out, how I became his monster.

I want to fill him in on my entire last year, pull him down to the ground and talk to him for hours, filling in the blanks, the missing pages of our stories.

I want to ask what I missed of his life, see what he’s made with his strong hands, hear what he’s learned.

I want to nuzzle into his shoulder until my eyes flutter and the sun comes up over the mountains and bathes us in light.

“You’re still wearing the ring.” He points down.

I hadn’t realized I was fiddling with it, twirling it around my finger.

He moves closer, and I search his fingers for the ring I made him.

And by “made,” I mean I watched Ricky make it after I picked out the materials.

We’d been dating for about six months when one day he mentioned how much he missed wearing a ring after giving me his.

I told him I wished I could make him a ring, and he got the wild idea to bring me into his nonno’s workshop.

He showed me a piece his nonno was working on, an oak family tree that Sienna loved.

After telling me about every tool, machine, and wood type, he asked me to pick out the wood to carve (oak leftover from his nonno’s project), and moonstone fragments he later infused into the oak ring with resin.

I watched him work methodically for hours, unable to take my eyes off him.

The precision, the execution, was magic.

At points, when I was in such awe I couldn’t believe he was able to possess such power of creation, I recorded him to capture that magic, even posted it to Clock, which my followers ate up, but he hated.

When the ring was almost ready, resin dried, and it was time to polish and smooth it out, he sat me down and moved in behind me, placing his hands on mine, and guided me to completion.

When the ring was ready, Ricky wore it every day until our last.

Now, his fingers are bare. He rubs the center of his chest and looks away.

“Of course I am. I’ve never taken it off,” I say.

His eyebrows arch. “Really?” His surprise takes me back and fills me with a sadness I didn’t expect.

“Really.” There’s so much more I want to say, but nothing seems right anymore. I don’t know why I thought it would be easy to just get him alone and we’d see each other and, what, fall immediately back in love?

This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, the one I’ve spent all year hoping to get, yet I’m realizing how wholly unprepared I am. Where he once was my sun giving me strength, now he’s my kryptonite, crippling me.

Though we’re finally alone, I can’t break through either of our walls.

I don’t know how to not love Ricky, but in this moment, I don’t know how to stand here and love this version of us, either.

“You look like you have more to say.” Ricky folds his arms across his chest.

I do, but don’t know how. So I take the cowardly route and say, “Cam seems nice.” Again, my words come out twisted and mangled, and it sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m not— Oof . What am I doing?! This is too damn awkward!

He shakes his head, a show of disappointment, and turns to walk away in silence.

“Ricky, wait—”

He stops beside me.

Cedar and sweat, Ricky’s signature scent, envelop me. His warm breath prickles my skin and smells like a full-bodied red wine. Shivers shimmy up my spine.

“What?” He’s impatient.

Say something, Fielder!

We were always each other’s kryptonite—uninhibited and raw, our bodies magnets. I fight the overwhelming urge to grab and kiss him.

Every fiber, muscle, tendon, bone in my body pulls me closer until—

“There you guys are!” Topher’s voice is a crack of thunder that splits us apart. “What’s, uh, happening here?”

I’m breathing so hard I might throw up.

Think fast. “I was going for a swim maybe?”

The water ripples and jiggles like neon-blue Jell-O.

At the edge of the pool, I dip my foot in, and water soaks through my shoe.

Ricky storms off angrily, leaving me behind. Again.

Topher moves beside me, his arm wrapping around my shoulder as I shake water off my shoe. “Everything okay?” He looks down at my sopping wet foot, then in the direction where Ricky disappeared.

One sock squishes as I push down more brand-new emotions that threaten to completely derail me. Again. “Totally. All good. Never better.”

Topher sighs. “This must be a lot for you.”

“I stepped in it. Literally.”

He tightens his grip and pulls me closer. “Heard there was an incident in the kitchen earlier. If you need to talk, I’m here.”

“Sorry about that. It is. A lot. To be here. With—But I don’t want to ruin this week for you and Sienna.”

“Trust me, you won’t.”

I wouldn’t be so sure.