Page 29 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

Juliet stands, a small groan leaving her as she does. I frown, a pinch of worry in my chest. Is she sore? Hurting?

“So.” She curls her hand around my biceps as we start to walk. “How do you want to do this?”

I peer down at her. “How do I want to do what?”

“Practice,” she says. “How meta do you want it to be? Do you want to just…do it?”

My cheeks heat. “Um…what is…it?”

Juliet’s eyes widen. She slaps a hand to her forehead. “Rusty moment. I didn’t mean to sound like I meant that we should, you know,do it. I meantjust do itas in, just go on dates and do our thing. Or, instead, do you want totalkabout it as we go?”

My cheeks are still hot. I clear my throat. “Right, gotcha.” I think about the last time we talked about what we were doing, when she walked in and I choked and offered her a handshake hello. How she made it easier for me to weather that embarrassment by being a goofball herself, rewinding across the coffee shop, giving me a second chance.

Her playfulness helped me not get hung up on it, but the fact that I flubbed it and we both talked about it, well, it stung my pride, I can admit that. All of this stings my pride a bit. I don’t like doing things I’m bad at. It’s always been easier to tell myself that if I think I’m bad at something, I don’t want it, that it’s not something I care about.

But it’s not that simple. That’s why I’m here, practicing with her right now.

It’s going to take getting used to, talking it through with her, revealing these parts of myself that I usually keep tucked away tight. It feels like that time I was going through airport security and my luggage was randomly selected for an in-depth search. I had nothing to be ashamed of or incriminating, but it still felt uncomfortable and raw as I watched my suitcase being flung open, my private contents dragged out for all to see.

I’m not used to that feeling, especially with a woman I’m attracted to. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just means it’s…hard.

She squeezes my arm. “Where’d you go?”

“Sorry. I’m…thinking through my answer.”

“Take your time,” she says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Juliet tips her head back to glance above us. I glance up, too, just briefly. The last thing I want is to trip on the sidewalk when I’ve got Juliet hanging on my arm.

The trees overhead sway in the breeze, lime-green leaves, mud-brown branches, dancing against the sky. I have a vivid memory of walking this stretch of the city when I first moved here for college, peering up and watching the leaves wave in the wind, a gemstone tapestry of peridot tipped with gold, bronze, and ruby. Just the beginning of autumn that would never quite match the grandeur of fall upstate but was lovely in its own way.

My gaze slips down to Juliet, her eyes still set on the sky. She looks so peaceful, so reflective. I want to know what she’s thinking, feeling, wondering. I want to know so much.

The only way I’ll learn any of that is if we talk, if I’m brave and I put myself out there, the way she is. And sheisbrave. I’ve been harboring an adolescent grudge that made me write off romance my entire adult life. Based on what she told me, she went through hell with the person she loved just last year, and here she is, already trying to come around to romance again.

Juliet’s being brave, and dammit, I’m going to be, too.

“I think we should do a little of both,” I finally tell her.

She glances my way, her eyes fixed on me as she listens.

“I think the default,” I tell her, “should be we both just…go for it. But when I’m struggling—”

“Wheneitherof us is struggling,” she says.

“I’m the one learning to ride the bike,” I remind her.

She lifts her eyebrows. “And I’m the one who’s going to fall off it.”

I nod, conceding that. “Wheneitherof us is struggling, we get meta, we talk about it. How’s that sound?”

Juliet smiles. “I think that sounds perfect.”

I stare at her as she glances back at the sky, drawn by the sound of two birds arcing and weaving toward the clouds. The wind snaps her hair around her face. I want to run my hands through it, feel it cool and soft across my fingers.

She catches me staring at her and tips her head. “What is it?”

I stare at her, the sun sparkling in her eyes, dark hair whipping in the wind, those soft dimples always waiting in her cheeks. “You just look…real lovely.”

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