Page 81 of Only You

My mouth opened and shut on replies like: it feels wrong tome, or why don’t you tellherabout us, then, and see whatshehas to say. But in the end, I went with the simplest response that I could. The one that would be the final retort to any comeback he might have had to my other comments.

“I don’t love you. Go back to Atlanta. Be happy with Leslie.” I turned and opened my car door, putting one foot inside. “Don’t ever come near me again.”

I got in and slammed the door shut behind me. I locked the doors before I started the engine. I pulled out of the parking lot, leaving him in the shadow from the church spire. Turning back toward the interstate, I gunned it hard so I’d have a good lead on him if he tried to follow me again.

The rest of the way to Kingston, I kept one eye on the interstate ahead of me and the other on my rearview mirror. As it grew darker outside and evening descended, I tried to ascertain if the headlights behind me were shaped like a Mercedes, or if I was being paranoid. After a few more miles, it seemed evident I’d left him in the dust. Or else he’d chosen not to follow me after all.

At the Kingston exit, I pulled over onto a side street and parked outside of a stranger’s house for a minute, just to get my breath. I was determined not to cry or feel anything except anger. But the image of Adam’s face when I’d said I didn’t love him kept flashing through my mind.

I didn’t love him. Not anymore. But I didn’t like hurting him either. Why did he have to keep coming around? Why couldn’t he let me go?

Fuck him.

A telltale tightening started in my throat. I swallowed around it. I wasnotgoing to cry.

I moved back out into the street and began driving toward Daniel’s again. It was easier to put Adam behind me when I was moving.

***

Daniel’s driveway wascluttered with the gang’s vehicles. I found a spot next to Barry’s car on one side and Minty’s tough-as-nails truck on the other.

The first time I’d seen his truck, I’d done a spit-take, it was so unexpected. Minty, wearing a pink T-shirt and a blue jean skirt over leggings, had glared at me and said, “What? I’m a country boy, asshole.” And I guess deep down he was.

It was a lucky thing Robert and Barry could be here. They both had a rare Saturday night off from the clubs, and they’d chosen to spend it with Daniel. I’m pretty sure it was because they knew how hard things had been for him lately, and not because they didn’t have better things to do than to hang out with us in the countryside burning wood and staring at the stars. It wasn’t Robert’s usual scene.

The sunset was dying, casting a pink glow behind the house, and from the driveway I could smell the bonfire smoke in the cool evening air. It seemed steeped with the promise of the upcoming fall weather, and I took a deep breath. As I let it out, I released the rage that’d pooled and boiled in my gut after Adam’s stunt.

As I walked toward the bonfire—a big ball of orange and red—and my friends, I took my time, letting the anger ease out of me into the night. I scanned for Daniel and found him standing beside Barry with a soda can in his hand, listening as Minty told a story requiring a lot of hand gestures. Windy and Antonio sat on the wooden benches pulled up around the edges of the bonfire pit, and Robert stood by them, talking over Minty with equally dramatic gestures.

Daniel saw me and lifted his hand. I raised mine back.

This,thiswas what I’d chosen when I walked away from Adam in Atlanta and again tonight. This sweet, swooping feeling.

When I was about twenty yards away, Daniel ditched his stick with the marshmallow still attached, and ran toward me. The smile and the sparkle in his eyes were enough to push away any lingering ugliness.

When he reached me, he swept me into his arms, lifted me off my feet, and twirled me around. It was silly, it was giddy, and it was, as always, honest.

“Hey,” I said, when he put me down, one arm still around my waist.

“Hey.” He plucked one of the curls that’d fallen into my face. “Boing.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

He grinned again. “I’ve been dying to see you.”

“I could have come over at any time.”

“This was worth waiting for.” He nuzzled my cheek, kissed my nose, and then picked me up again, hands on my ass. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he kissed me.

His kiss wasn’t gentle, but it was still sweet. He put all of his joy at seeing me, all of his pent-up eagerness into it. It wiped away everything but a clarifying sense of wonder in me.

Fuck Adam. Fuck everything but this.

Here was a man who wanted me in a way that was healthy and good. If “healthy and good” was kissing me senseless right here in this field while our friends hooted and hollered from over near the bonfire. And it was.

“Well, hot damn,” Antonio said, when we joined them, hand in hand, my lips aching from the happy force of Daniel’s kiss.

“Hopefully that isn’t how you greet each other all the time.” Barry rolled his eyes, the sclerae looking whiter than usual in the glow of the fire.

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