Page 113 of Friendshipped
I turn toward Lexi to kiss her lips, but before I do, there’s a loud clunking sound as if someone dropped a drum of oil and the entire barn is immersed in pitch darkness. I feel Lexi cling to me until she is knocked away by someone who obviously lost their bearings when the lights went out.
People are talking and shouting from every direction while bodies jostle about in the darkness. The entire interior of the barn has been thrown into mayhem with a dash of chaos.
I’m shouting Lexi’s name while I hold my spot and grope around in the air hoping to make contact with her somehow. I hear her shout my name, and it sounds like she’s a few people away from me.
The DJ comes over the sound system. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve blown a fuse. Stay where you are, and we’ll have light restored momentarily. Please remain where you are.”
Someone grabs my arms and holds onto me. I assume it’s Lexi until I hear Memaw’s voice saying, “Bill is that you?” Then I feel Memaw draw near to me and I smell cold cream and muscle rub as she goes on tiptoe obviously ready to sneak a kiss with her date in the darkness.
“I’m not Bill!” I shout into the blackened room, as I pull my head back to avoid being kissed by Memaw.
“Trevor?” she asks.
“It’s me.”
“Oh, goodness. And here I thought I was going to give Bill a little surprise in the dark.”
I don’t know how to even respond to this, so I keep my hand on Memaw’s forearms.
I hear Lexi off to the side of us calling, “Trevor?”
“I’m over here,” I shout back. “With Memaw.”
I feel the feather of her dress tickle my forearm when she reaches us, so I take one of my hands off Memaw and wrap it around Lexi’s midriff.
Lexi leans into me. The lights flicker on. A huge smile erupts across Memaw’s face. Her eyes flit between me and Lexi and I can tell she knows.
A man I assume is Bill approaches us.
“There you are,” he says to Memaw.
I hand Memaw over to him and shift my attention back to Lexi.
42
Trevor
The music resumes and the DJ comes on and says, “Sorry about that everyone. Let’s get back to celebrating this wedding!”
Lexi smiles up at me.
“Where were we?” I ask her.
“I think here,” she says as she leans back into me, allowing me to wrap one arm around her and hold her close while she places her hand in mine. “And here,” she says lifting onto her tiptoes and brushing another feather-light kiss to my jaw.
A wide smile takes over my face as I bend in close to her ear and plant a kiss on her neck below her jaw.
“And maybe here,” I say, barely able to allow myself to believe I’m allowed to freely kiss her after all these years.
Lexi hums as I kiss along her jawline.
Then she says, “I think it was here.”
She turns toward my mouth and I claim her in the kiss it feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life to give her. We’re still swaying to the music as our mouths join slowly, with tenderness, testing the waters together.
We connect like we’ve been kissing one another forever, and yet this kiss is filled with newness and promise.
Our kiss shifts from tender to insistent. The connection between us feels like a wildfire. We’re fueling one another. I give her everything in this kiss and she responds to every movement with matched intensity.
