Page 70 of Heartbeat

“And you thought I looked kind?”

“I did.”

I still hope you are.

He smiled, and then he shook his head. “I still can’t believe you don’t remember the meet.”

“Two years ago?”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded.

“It wasn’t my greatest moment, I’m afraid. Or year, for that matter.”

“Well, that’s when I first saw you. That’s actually sort of why I lost that day too.”

“Oh, you’re blaming me now?” I asked, feigning insult.

He huffed. “No, but in my defense, it did kind of play a part.”

“How so?”

He stopped and turned to me. “I remember when you walked out, I couldn’t look away.”

He took a step closer. “I watched as you warmed up, then you turned to the bleachers and there were tons of people cheering you on. They were the loudest people there. But…you didn’t acknowledge them in any way. You just turned and started looking at the water, so focused.”

It was so weird, listening to him talking about this event in my life I had absolutely no recollection of. For a moment, I considered mentioning how, at that particular time, I was probably too numb to focus on anything, so what he thought of as concentration was most likely just me having a flashback involving Liam.

I didn’t though. For two reasons. One, that day had, regardless of any role I may had played, caused some impression that was strong enough to make him smile as he recounted it to me, and two, his version of that day sounded better than anything I remembered feeling at the time.

“Next thing I knew,” he continued, “the buzzer went off, and we were in the water. I ran out of breath before the end of the first fifty yards.”

“You did?”

He slowly nodded, staring at my lips. I couldn’t get over his eyes, how dark the blue was. “You took it all.”

It was as though he’d made a conscious effort not to kiss me. He shook his head, snapping back from his flashback and started to walk again, this time with a sort of proud smile on his lips that was incredibly appealing.

“I, uh—why didn’t you tell me?” I asked him, while I still could focus. “Before we did anything that night, why didn’t you tell me you were…inexperienced?”

“Would it have mattered?”

“No, of course not. I just— I would’ve maybe tried to make it more special, I dunno.”

“You think I didn’t find it special?”

“No, but…was it special enough?”

He stopped again, and so did I.

And he fell silent.

That was it. That was all he did. He just stopped walking, turned to face me, and didn’t say another word. I didn’t know how else to explain it, but it was as though he’d purposefully fallen and remained silent for me to somehow see right through him, the way he seemed to be able do with me—so very easily.

It was one of those moments that can be so wondrous, in terms of how they can actually occur. For a second there, it seemed as though the city had gone quiet, as if all that surrounded us simply started to move in slow-motion. Even the lights had dimmed, for the only one that shone with any kind of real intensity was the one attached to the light-post directly above us. Somehow, there was time to think of all of that, take it all in, with incredible detail. Yet, at the same time, I found myself wishing for it all to go even slower.

There we were, catching each other’s eyes for what couldn’t have been more than a flicker of a second, but in that second, I was able to—for the first time—see him. It sounded insane; I’ve been doing nothing but notice him, everywhere, all the time. But I didn’t think I’d seen him properly yet. For instance, he was taller than me, but I hadn’t noticed before how my eyes, when I looked straight on, were directly aligned with his cleft chin, how my own chin was at the same level as the base of his neck.

How if he were to reach out, he could grab me by the wrists, and his arms were long enough to so that he could easily envelop my waist in such a way as to have my hands form an X across my back, with the tip of his fingers slightly touching my hip bones on either side.

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