Page 27 of The First Kind of Love
I don’t think he realizes it, but his fingers tighten around my sides, and he doesn’t rush to prop me upright. The way he’s staring at me right now—like I’m somehow more beautiful than one of nature’s most wondrous creations—has something unnamable gnarling around my heart, akin to the way roses grow thorns to protect an untouched underbelly. It’s constructing this delineation between us, and I hate that I’m so aware of it.
I deserve to be happy, don’t I?
At the expense of your parents’ happiness? They need you. The business is failing. Itwillfail without you.
But I’m so tired. I’m trying my best.
It’s not good enough.
Even though I don’t want to, I extricate myself from our position anyways, scrambling to a stance as embarrassment rolls down the notches of my spine. “I’m sorry for falling on you,” I mumble, head bowed and eyes downturned.
Fulton—stupid, beautiful, clueless Fulton—hooks his index finger under my chin, promptly lifting it until I obey the sleight of his hand and meet his gaze. “You can fall on me whenever you want.”
Hubba, hubba.
Since we’re both still amateurs when it comes to reading the room, we speak at the same time, and whatever pointless gibberish that was going to fly out of my mouth is swamped beneath Fulton’s “Do you want to go for a walk?”
I slam my lips shut and nod.
As we branch off from his group of friends, I can hear Aeris and Lila whistling at the two of us from their spot on the beach, and Fulton’s thankfully too swept up in his train of thought to witness them pulling sex faces as they pretend to dry-hump each other. My eyes flick down to my sand-flocked feet, and I watch the deep imprint they leave behind with every step.
He slices through the silence before it even has the chance to marinate. “I wanted to apologize. Again. For last night.”
“No, Ful. It was my fault. I should’ve?—”
He halts in his tracks, and considering he’s got a longer stride than me, I find myself stopping too, just a few inches from him. I think he swallowed too much saltwater today because he grabs my hand and holds it for a no-longer-platonic minute, as if the distance between us has become physically unbearable.
“You were perfect, Shi,” he whispers, his longing stare searching my expression for God knows what, his thumb coming to kiss the mountain range of my knuckles. The eye contact alone is enough to galvanize my anxiety, but his touch has my heart fully ricocheting off my ribs.
How does he always know just what to say?
“I hope you know I don’t think any less of you,” I tell him quietly.
“Because I shit my pants?”
“Yeah.”
He chuckles. “You don’t seem like the type of person to judge someone for something they can’t control.”
I’ve had my fair share of fights with control, so no, I’m not the type of person who’d do something like that.
It looks like Fulton’s lips part a centimeter, but I’m already resuming our aimless stroll and narrowly dodging a gaggle of kids that zoom past us in a colorful blur—who are then followed by equally colorful expletives.
We walk for a few uninterrupted minutes, soothed by the inner and outer workings of the beach—the hardcore surfers paddling out on bodyboards, the lost tourists taking advantage of the numerous shops lining the dock, the surround sound of conversations intercut with murmurs from local wildlife, the heave-ho of breaking waves, the rustle of palm fronds in a salt-steeped breeze. On paper, it should all be overwhelming, but with Fulton, it’s like I can observe the chaos from a safe distance.
I’ve never felt that way with anyone before.
I’ve always been the dictator of my own safety. I got used to only relying on myself because others were too unpredictable. Ace was unpredictable. My parents were unpredictable when they paid my way through college without my knowledge. I’m a control freak. I need to be in control because it’s the only way I can regulate my expectations, as well as my disappointment. I don’t like feeling blindsided. But now Fulton’s knocked my very foolproof way of living off-kilter, and I’m not sure he’ll be able to catch me this time.
“I want a redo,” Fulton says out of nowhere.
Confusion spikes inside me. “What?”
“I want a redo of our first date.”
He does? He’s still interested in me…even after I poisoned him?
I trap my bottom lip between my teeth in contemplation, and I’m not sure how Fulton can understand me so well already, but he ghosts the back of his hand over the curve of my face, coaxing me to lean into his touch.
