Page 51 of Forget Me Not
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not just acting tough because I’m here, right?” Her eyes darted back and forth between his, searching for a lie.
“I promise,” he murmured, grabbing her wrists and stepping flush against her, “I’m fine and I’ll be fine.”
Syve sucked in a breath, and he almost regretted acting on impulse—but then she glanced at his lips—there and back, so quickly he could have missed it if he had blinked. Bastien closed the distance and pressed his lips to hers, gently, an invitation she gingerly accepted. When her eyes fluttered shut, his followed suit.
Just as he parted his lips for her, she gasped and jumped back.
“No. No, I’m sorry. I can’t, I’m sorry,” she stammered, one hand covering her mouth, the other wrapping around her middle.
Shit.
“Syve, it’s okay—that’s on me. I’m sorry. It’s okay, you don’t need to apologize.” He took a step back, giving her more space. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“I just…I’m married? I can’t…” She was spiraling; he recognized that.
He diverted. “How did you meet?” When she blinked up at him, perplexed, he amended, “Your husband? How did you meet?”
“Oh.” She paused and took a deep breath. “College. We met in college. Erhard was here as an exchange student and he just…never left,” she scoffed with a smile. “He called his parents a few weeks after we met and told them he was applying for citizenship so that he could stay here with his future wife. We weren’t even dating then.” She shook her head. “His parents were already pissed that he wasn’t staying home to run the farm, pursuing a cartography degree instead of milking cows, but then to say he wasn’t coming home?” She grimaced. “I never did win them over...Made it worse when I wouldn’t let them take him home to be buried in the family plot…” Her face fell.
“Cartography? Like, maps? I thought he was a photographer?” He asked, shifting the subject again.
“Yeah, actually he did both. He worked for the state as a cartographer and freelanced as a photographer on the side. That’s why we moved here—” she waved her arm around her, “—the state job. I didn’t care where we lived and then Aimi followed without question.”
She relaxed a little, and he relished that she could still talk normally with him. He was going to spend the rest of his life feeling obtuse for misreading the situation, but at least she did not seem entirely repulsed by him.
Syve shivered, he resisted the urge to go to her to lend his body heat. Instead, he said, “We should head back before it gets dark.”
She looked at the sky like she had not noticed the sun was setting.
“You shift first—you’ll be warmer. I’ll pack the clothes away and then we can head back?”
Five minutes later, Bas had the pack back under the logs, and they were running side by side through the darkening forest.
Syve
Aimisettledontothegreen couch next to Syve, handing over one of the two mugs she was holding. Syve took the proffered drink in both hands, bringing the steaming cup up to inhale the aroma deeply, eyes fluttering closed.
“I swear if you ever stop making coffee, I’ll cry,” Syve groaned.
Aimi shot her a smug look over the edge of her own mug.
“So…” Syve continued, “I went over to Bastien’s house on Saturday…”
With a shocked hum and a dramatic head tilt that almost landed her blonde pigtail in hercoffee, Aimi demanded, “Excuse me? Why am I only hearing about this now? OnMonday?”
Her incredulous tone rose an octave with each question.
“Bitch, spill the beans! Ha, get it?” She raised her mug between them, grinning, “Beans?”
Syve playfully swatted her friend, rolling her eyes and complaining about her bad jokes, then launched into the recap of her weekend.
“Hekissedyou?!” Aimi shrieked, causing most of the patrons to glance in their direction.
“Shut up!” Syve scolded, using her eyes to gesture toward the rest of the mostly full cafe. “For real though, I just told you I managed to turn into an animal on purpose, and you can’t get past that one little detail?”
“Little?!” She was still squawking a solid thirty decibels higher than she needed to be.
Syve sighed deeply. “Yes, he kissed me. It was a mistake, and he apologized—can we move on please?”
