Page 59 of Heart Check
We’re both fully clothed still, but it doesn’t feel like it. Every inch of my skin is on fire. I press closer, my back arching, and the solidity of him beneath me sends a fresh bolt of electricity all the way to my toes. God, if I let this go on much longer, we’re going to get busted for something really indecent. Because I don’t know if I can control myself around this guy.
I let myself kiss him once, twice, three more times. They’re long and lingering, but with more space between each one, pulling back and back. He lets out a sad little sigh, withdrawing his hands from under my shirt. I stay there on his lap for a long minute, my breathing slowing, staring into those dark eyes. It’s amazing how comfortable it feels.
“That was quite a first date,” I finally say.
He laughs, chest rumbling below me, and smiles a shit-eating grin. I know I wear a matching one. “Yeah,” he says. “Are you sure it has to end?”
Reluctantly, I roll back across the console and into the passenger seat. “This was… amazing,” I say, my face ablaze.Mouth dry, blood still pounding, I blurt, “But I also haven’t, um, done this much before? So I think I need to stop here for tonight.”
My words hang in the air for a moment, and my blush deepens from the vulnerability. As if everything we just did wasn’t wonderfully terrifying enough, now I have tocommunicateabout it?
But it’s only a split second before Dawson says, “Of course. Whatever you want.” He reaches out for my hand with a smile, stroking my thumb reassuringly, and we sit there in companionable silence for a minute. Clearly neither of us is quite ready to say goodnight yet.
I barely even notice the cold.
An unknowable amount of time passes in a haze of hormones and endorphins and post-make-out peace before I remember to check the call I silenced out of pure, unabated lust.
Marissa. And she sent a follow-up text.
Um, Liv said you and Dawson were all over each other at Skate Night????
20.DAWSON
Harper’s face gets weird asshe looks at her phone. I’m still coming down from the feeling of her straddling me, all that soft hair falling around my face, her hands braced on my chest—but even through my current haze, my skin prickles in unease. I’m not used to seeing that much regret on a girl’s face after kissing her.
She’s frowning, her shoulders suddenly tense, hunched over her phone. The darkness around the car presses heavily at the windows.
I do my best to compose myself, even though all I want to do is grab her to kiss her again. Honestly, I have to adjust my pants a little. Harper in my lap was… a lot.
But something is obviously wrong, so this is not the time to be thinking about a repeat.
“What’s going on?” I ask, my voice raspy. I clear my throat.
“Um.” Harper looks up at me, biting her lip in that way that drives me crazy.Not the time, Dawson.“Marissa found out we were at Skate Night together.”
“Hamilton Lakes, most effective gossip machine in the Midwest. Especially when yours truly is involved,” I try tojoke. But the hurt blooms in my chest. Why is she acting like her friend finding out about us is a bad thing? Is it about that whole homecoming situation freshman year still? “Why didn’t you tell her yourself?”
Harper looks away from me, out the window, and the pit in my stomach grows. “I knew Marissa was working on next week’s edition of theHeraldtonight. I didn’t think I’d have to broach it with her yet.”
“Broachit?” I reel back. “You broach conversations with your parents about your curfew. With your coach, discussing the dude who’s late for practice every day and isn’t taking games seriously. With a girl you’re going to break up with.” I have to swallow past the growing lump in my throat. “You don’t broach good news.”
A few minutes ago, the car was warm and cozy. I’d just had the best first date of my life, skating with the girl I can’t stop thinking about, and it finally seemed like she was into me, too. I caught myself counting her smiles, and then I lost track because there were so many.
Now it’s hard to imagine Harper smiling again tonight, and the car is suddenly freezing cold. Is she serious?
“I’m sorry,” she says, running frustrated fingers through her hair. Like she’s trying to smooth away what we just did together. “I just didn’t want to make it this wholethingyet.”
“What do you mean, a whole thing? Like, you wanted to date me insecret?” Heat rises in my face, on my neck.
“Well, obviously not.” Harper huffs. “We just held hands in front of half the school. But I wasn’t quite ready to, you know,announceit to people. Explain it. I was worried about what Marissa might think, okay? Because of…” She wavesan ambiguous, devastating hand. “Everything.I wanted to be sure this would last, you know?”
The heat of my embarrassment burns so intensely it’s almost icy. Suddenly everything that happened tonight is cast in a different light. I’m used to girls wanting to date me for some kind of social clout or popularity. Not used to them wanting to keep me asecretbecause they’reashamedof me.
Even the idea is ridiculous. But Harper’s hated me for a long time—over a miscommunication that’s not even myfault—and maybe that’s not as easy to get over as I thought. Everything she’s said over the last few days—about having fun hanging out, about respecting the team and the game, understanding why we care so much—is drowned out by everything she’s said over the last fewyears. Stuck-up. Self-centered. Selfish. Clinging to the best years of our lives before we’re washed up.
Maybe it only hits so hard because I worry that she’s right. That one day I’m going to wake up and realize all my talent’s gone, that I didn’t capitalize on it in time, and that I’m not worth anything without it.
Maybe it’s because I feel like everything I have, I need toearn. Deserve. Prove myself worthy of.
