Page 5 of The First Kind of Love
Revlon cuts off my trek toward the janitor’s closet, standing in front of me with her arms crossed menacingly over her chest. She’s huffing like an angry bull, the natural curls of her raven hair bouncing against her shoulders. But at the last moment—before I get the ass ripping I’m expecting—the anger dissipates from her body, soundless, colorless, odorless.
“Just picture it for a second. Please,” she begs.
My heart pinches. “Picture what?”
“Picture actually being happy for once.”
The statement catches me off guard—wounds me like a gun with the safety off—and I blink a couple of times to stave the pressure cropping up behind my eyes. The pressure that prefaces a waterfall of unshed, bubbling tears waiting to mangle my vision into nothing but a blurry mirage.
I am happy.I am.I love helping people, even if it’s just something trivial like serving them a coffee order. Even if it’s an act of kindness they’ll probably never remember becausetheydon’t live their life wishing they were somewhere else.
What Revlon doesn’t know is that I constantly war with the prospect of escaping—escaping from my responsibilities,escaping from Riverside, escaping from the hellscape that is my overactive imagination. My head and my heart want two different things, and I can’t choose one without hurting the other.
“Think about it: you’d only be gone for what? A week at most? I’m sure your parents can handle the shop until you return. Hell,I’llpick up some shifts if it means getting your ass onto some fancy private jet with some overpriced champagne.”
Realistically, my leave shouldn’t be too long. And though I hate to admit it, my parents wouldn’t keep me from going on a personal vacation. In fact, they’re constantly bugging me about getting out of the shop and doing something out of my comfort zone. They’d be ecstatic if I told them a handsome stranger had swept me off my feet.
“You always put everyone before yourself,” Revlon says, sympathy bleeding across the fine lines of her face. “Maybe it’s finally time that you go after what you really want instead of always doing what’s expected of you.”
“I—”
Before I can eventryto scrounge up a rebuttal, there’s a knock on the glass, and we both instantly turn our heads toward the source of the sound.
Fulton waves sheepishly at us from behind the door—backlit by a warm-toned ombre dripping across the sky—and I’m fast-walking toward him before my sensibility can stop me. I know I just saw him a few hours ago, but I can’t help the excitement that flares inside me like an out-of-control firework…excitement that I haven’t felt since I was a child.
Once I come face-to-face with him, the air is punched from my lungs, and I’m half-positive I’m sporting a pretty vibrant blush that he’ll have no trouble seeing in the fading light.
“Hi,” I whisper breathlessly.
One disarming smile, and he’s suddenly jump-starting all my hormones. “Hi. I, uh, sorry. I just forgot to get your number.And I also forgot to tell you that the trip is three weeks long…in Cabo.”
Cabo? Oh my God. Cabo has been on my top five places to visit.
But three weeks is a long time. What if something bad happens to the shop while I’m gone? What if it gets taken out by a very realistic hurricane? What if my dad has a stroke out of nowhere? What if my mom gets hit by a getaway car full of dangerous fugitives while she’s crossing the street?
I try to masquerade some of the internal panic. “Wow, that’s…”
Fulton scratches the back of his neck, shaking free some more of that distractingly irresistible hair of his. God, it looks even softer up close. “I know it’s a lot, so I totally understand if you’re not on board with it, but everything will be paid for if you’re worried about expenses.”
That wasn’t what I was worried about. Yet somehow, even with all the delusional disaster talk, a calm settles over me like the gentle suspension of waves over a shore of sun-warmed sand—sand I could feel curling between my toes a week from now. And I think it’s solely because of Fulton. Like, his presencesedatesme, which is ironic considering he’s noticeably nervous.
He hands me his phone so I can input my contact information, and it takes everything in me not to accidentally drop it while he’s watching my every move. When I give him his phone back, I’m aware that he doesn’t ask for mine.
Just say yes, Shiloh. You’ve had a crush on this guy for four years. Don’t you think it’s time you finally did something about it?
But even as those words linger on the tip of my tongue, I don’t say what I’m dying to say, and instead of taking that leap out of my comfort zone, I hold my hand out for a fucking handshake. A handshake! Of all things.
I’d keel over from embarrassment if my body wasn’t still trying to comprehend the unthinkable that I’ve just subjected us both to witness. My hand—slightly shaky and way sweatierthan usual—just kind of protrudes between our bodies, waiting for some concession that’ll allow me to slam the door in his face as soon as possible.
Being stuck on a beach with Fulton, in our swimwear, sticking it out for the long haul, is bound to be the most reckless decision I’ve ever considered. The last time I was intimate with someone was my ex, and that was nearly four years ago.
Not to mention that nobody—and I meannobody—has had the effect that Fulton does on my psyche. Even the thought of touching him in any capacity (and yes, I do mean a handshake) makes me inexplicably lightheaded. I don’t trust myself around him. Just look at him! He’s so gorgeous that it shouldn’t be possible for someone like him to exist—with his perfectly proportioned features and his hard hockey muscles and his boyish smile that makes everything south of the border tingle.
After minutes of contemplation—or shock, I really don’t know—Fulton shakes my hand, and we both maintain an unnerving amount of eye contact with each other.
His weighted stare cuts through me, and I feel electricity sizzle between our fingers, imploring me to step closer and give him a real goodbye—a goodbye of the lip variation that definitelywon’tmake him regret asking me to be trapped in an aerodynamic metal can with him.
“I’ll get back to you,” I mumble, curbing those animalistic cravings with a too-wide smile. I can feel Revlon’s eyes on me, and I can practically hear her screaming at me to take life by the balls.
