Page 55 of Passion and Payback

I snorted. “Yeah, well, even at twelve, I hadn’tquitegot there yet. All I know is that’s when puberty decided to kick in mentally for me, where you had already started physically.”

“I remember having a growth spurt that summer,” he said with a thoughtful frown. “Right before seventh grade.”

“Yeah. We ended up missing the bus back to your place. And we thought we could make the walk back before it was too late. We didn’t expect the sudden downpour.”

“Oh yeah! That was the year we kept having all those weird ass tropical storms come up from the keys and go along the coast,” he said with a chuckle. “Felt like you couldn’t go an hour without a sudden downpour.”

“Yeah,” I said with a snort. “And we got caught in one. You were so annoyed because it was your last good shirt and you didn’t know when you’d be able to do laundry, considering how terrible the machines were in our building. And the last time you’d gone to the laundromat?—”

“The owner’s daughter kept trying to get me to hang out with her. She was a couple of years older than me, but she didn’t care.”

“We thought we could get through the rain but had to take shelter. You were so pissed, grumbling to yourself, and you pulled off your shirt to wring it out and?—”

And I had my first understanding that someone taking their shirt off wasn’t always going to be an innocent gesture in my mind anymore. The growth spurt had come on over several weeks, and his torso had lengthened while his stomach remained flat. And there it was, what had felt like an eternity’s worth of skin to my young mind, not knowing there would be even more to show up as Kai aged. I had felt absurdly hot despite the cooling rain and wind, and like my entire stomach would flip over and disappear if I kept staring at him.

“I realized I really liked you,” I said instead of repeating the excessive description. “And that my feelings could be more than just wanting to hold your hand.”

He chuckled softly, picking up his glass and watching the light on its surface. “It’s actually pretty sweet. And so very you.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“I mean it!”

“That’s what bothers me.”

He shook his head. “You were always sweet like that. Innocent, I guess, is the way to put it. You always held onto that when everyone else was waiting to throw theirs away as fast as possible. And it says a lot about you that your first feelings for me didn’t even come close to sexual. That came later.”

“Well, it was bound to come up eventually,” I said, embarrassed at his assessment. Calling me innocent was a bit of a stretch. I had never been innocent. It was more that I tried my hardest to see the bright points in life. Not that it was always easy, and while I would never truly get that attitude back, I could still find ways to do it now. “Puberty doesn’t leave any survivors.”

He chuckled at that. “Yeah. It kinda just…ran me over like a train.”

“So.”

“What?”

“Well, you asked me when I realized I had a thing for you. Now it’s your turn.”

“Ah, well, uh…maybe I should have gone first.”

“What, why?”

“Because your story starts cute and then endearing.”

“Oh yeah, suddenly discovering what it’s like to thirst over someone because they took their shirt off. That’s endearing and cute.”

“Even with you getting all horny about it, it’s still cute.”

“Uh-huh. And yours isn’t?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Even more reason to tell me.”

He looked a little uncomfortable but was spared for the moment when our food arrived. I hadn’t processed the full description of my meal, but I knew it was medallions of duck with a sauce that had sounded nice. It came with a light salad and some fancy-sounding vinaigrette, probably because the duck was so rich. His was stuffed chicken, and the thing looked like it was ready to burst from everything shoved inside and a small container of gravy to go with it.

“Well, this is amazing,” I exclaimed when I took the first bite of duck and sauce. Curious about the wine, I grabbed it anddrank it, blinking as the flavors merged in my mouth. “Wow. Always trust the people who work at a restaurant to give good combo recommendations. This is awesome.”

“Honestly, I was kind of expecting this to be too rich for my tastes,” Kai said after swallowing his bite. “No pun intended. But it’s pretty light. There’s some citrus and…grass in it that lightens it up.”

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