Page 24 of That Moment
“Little Dipper,” he says, pointing toward the sister constellation.
“That’s right, that one was always your favorite. What is it that you’d always say about it? It’s not the size, it’s the motion in the ocean?” I giggle, his eyes narrowing at me.
“You’re still a fucking brat, you know that?”
“Proudly.” I look back up at those stars before I say something else. “And that one is?—”
“Trouble,” he murmurs.
I lower my arm. He isn’t looking at the sky.
We both sit there for what feels like minutes, but I know it’s just time standing still, like it always does when I’m around him. I turn my gaze back up to the sky, silence settling back between us.
“Do you remember our first kiss?” I ask without looking at him.
He chokes on a laugh and coughs into his fist. “What—our only kiss?”
I shrug. “Semantics.”
His knee bumps mine. “Of course I remember. Spin the bottle. Old hayloft. Your cousins cheated.”
“They did not.”
“Milly nudged that bottle with her toe like a pro. I still owe her for that.”
“She did?” He nods with a laugh.
“You were thirteen.” He groans, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “Jesus. I was fifteen. Who let us play that game?”
“Every bored teenager ever played that game,” I nudge his shoulder. “Relax. It was nothing, stop acting like it was traumatizing.”
His voice drops, low and rough. “Wasn’t just nothin’.”
Heat spills through me, slow and molten. I pretend to study the sky again so he can’t watch the way I react. The memory sharpens: his mouth careful, the hay dust floating like glitter, our friends hooting below us while my heart broke the sound barrier in my chest.
“It was my first,” I admit quietly.
His breath catches. “First…kiss?”
“Mhmm.” I angle a look at him, letting the admission hang. “You never knew that, did you?”
He stares at me. “No. You didn’t act like it was your first. Hay dust in your hair. You didn’t blink.”
I reach over and steal his bottle of beer, lifting it slowly so my wrist brushes his fingers. “You were terrible, by the way.”
He makes an outraged sound. “I was not.”
“You were,” I say, absolutely lying. I take a small sip, the cold bite of beer refreshing. “You kissed me like you thought I might break.”
His mouth quirks. “You looked like you might. Big eyes staring at me the entire time.”
“I was thirteen, nobody told me you were supposed to close them.” I set the bottle back into his palm and watch his hand swallow the neck. “Maybe we should try again. You know… see if we’ve improved.”
He tips his head back to the stars and groans, a low, unguarded sound that slides right down my spine. “Fuck, Adrienne.”
“What?” I play innocent.
He drags a hand slowly over the rough stubble of his jaw, breathes out slowly like he’s counting to ten. “You know damn well what.”
