Page 26 of It Started with a Sunset
To connect with her.
Maybe what she had been interpreting as striving for perfection through the years they’d worked together had actually been the way his strong passion for what he was doing shone through. And she realized that her passion wasn’t all that different from his.
As they angled their walking to the right at a fork in the sidewalk, they were closer together for a small moment, the knuckles of their hands brushing. It was the slightest touch, yet it sent thrills of peaceful joy through her.
Connecting with people was her thing. It ruled her waking hours. She connected with her best friend, her colleagues, her dad, people who worked at the stores where she shopped, the mailman, students, guys she went on dates with, everyone who worked at LBSU, everyone who showed up at the tri-town meet-up at Lake Baldwin, random people she passed on the street. She purposefully connected with people constantly. So how was it that her connection with Brock felt so much deeper than any of the others?
And how long had they had that connection? Had it been building the entire four years that she’d known him and she just hadn’t realized how deep it had become? Or had it been shallow until Tess assigned them to work on Aquamoose Tracks together? She wasn’t sure anymore.
By the time they got to the game, the ambassadors and prospective students had long since made it inside and found their seats. Summer and Brock took the seats she always sat in on the top row of the home side, where her ambassadors knew where to find her if they needed her. She could keep an eye on things, yet still let the ambassadors do their thing without interference so the prospective students could get more of a feel of college life.
The rowdy crowd of the full stadium quieted for a moment as the national anthem was sung and the ball was kicked off. Then the crowd cycled between cheering and anticipation, groaning and excitement, worry and happiness, foam fingers bouncing, teal and purple growl towels waving, moose-antler capped heads constantly in motion.
And Summer and Brock joined in with the crowd, too, cheering on the team that had been theirs since each of them first got their acceptance letters during their senior years in high school.
Then, as the first quarter neared its end, the sun began to set on the horizon, throwing brilliant purples and pinks and oranges and golds across the sky and the wisps of clouds, and suddenly it no longer mattered what was going on around them.
Brock reached out his hand, hesitant for the smallest moment before he entwined his fingers in hers. She responded by snuggling in close to him, resting her head against his shoulder.
It no longer mattered that they were surrounded by fourteen thousand enthusiastic fans watching a hometown football team at the beginning of a promising season who were really rocking it on the field. They were in a world by themselves, at the start of something new and beautiful, and she couldn’t imagine being more blissful.
Remarkably, not a single ambassador came to her with an issue during the game. Possibly because it had been such an action-packed nail-biter of a game, so no one had time to worry about anything else.
Once it was over and everyone started exiting the stands, hoarse from so much cheering and exhausted from all the adrenaline, she and Brock joined the Aquamoose Tracks group to say goodbye and remind them to go straight to the dorms and that they would see them at nine in the morning for breakfast.
“This was a great game for them to experience,” Brock said as they collapsed onto a bench, one of the few remaining people in the stands. “That’s got to get them excited about going here.”
Summer nodded. “We couldn’t have planned that better.” And then she chuckled, just thinking about how their planning had gone during their presentations. “Are you as exhausted as I am?”
“Definitely.”
But he was sitting right next to her, and suddenly all of her nerve endings weren’t so tired anymore. Brock reached out and ran a couple of fingers from the side of her forehead, down the edge of her hairline, brushing her hair out of her face—hair that was probably looking mighty crazy from the rain in the ballroom. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and it sounded like the most authentic thing she had ever heard. As if even in her exhausted, recently-drenched state, he still honestly found her beautiful.
There was something about him seeing her in a very un-perfect state and seeming to see her as perfect that made her heart melt.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said as she smiled at the hair on the top of his head that was always perfectly tousled, like it was the one rebellion he allowed himself, but was currently ever so slightly curly from how it dried after being soaked.
And then she looked into those dark eyes with the dark lashes and dark eyebrows and dark glasses frames and saw a light that she was so drawn to. A light that shone through everything that showed how much he cared about people. He ran a hand down the sleeve of her light jacket, and it sent shivers all up her spine.
Then she grabbed his face with both hands, like she couldn’t stand to wait another moment, and kissed him. He slid his arm around her waist, pulling her a little closer as his lips moved against hers, cautious and careful, gentle and sweet. Like she was precious to him. She lost herself in the kiss, letting herself feel what it was like to kiss this man that she’d known for so long, seeming to feel every emotion he was pouring into the kiss, too.
After a moment, she pulled back from the kiss, touching her forehead against his. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since you are you, but that kiss was perfect.”
She felt the rumble of his soft chuckle as much as she heard it. “That’s almost exactly the same words I was thinking about you.”
Chapter Twelve
Brock
It always amazed Brock how quickly one hundred fifty high school seniors and fifty college students could completely devour every last breakfast item filling four long banquet tables on the grass in the quad.
He turned to Everett. “Did we eat that much when we were their age?”
Everett popped the last bite of his blueberry muffin in his mouth and then patted his stomach. “Some of us still do.”
Once every scrap of food was gone, it wasn’t too hard to get the reenergized students in the same groups they had been in yesterday.
Summer turned on the megaphone and held it to her mouth. “Raise your hand if at least one person in your group has installed the app for the scavenger hunt on your phone.”
