Page 25 of When the Night is Over

“It’ll come right back to you.”

“You think?” she asks absently. I’m looking at her now and she’s looking right back at me.

“Definitely.” He’s nodding his head like an eager beaver. “I’ll teach you.”

She turns to look at him. “Um, maybe?”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Charlotte, you got a minute?” I’m speaking to her, but my eyes are now trained on this boy. He instinctively takes a step back.

I watch her throat move as she swallows. I want to put her at ease, assure her that I’m just as nervous as she is. She looks to the boy and smiles before looking back to me. “Um, sure.”

I gesture with my head for us to walk. I want to be away from everyone’s eyes, from their judgement, away from the people who know about the ties that bind the Masons to the Wades.

“Do you need a drink?” I ask as an afterthought, looking back towards the keg.

She looks into her full cup. “No.” Dumping the beer onto the ground, she says, “It’s warm.”

“You’ve been holding that same cup for nearly an hour…Bound to happen.”

I see the hint of a smile. “You’ve been watching me drink, ornotdrink?”

“Yeah,” I say, because the gig is up. “I’ve been watching you.”

Now the smile is bigger, but she looks away, cheeks flushed, uncertain. Charlotte is beautiful. She’s got gloss on her lips and her hair is falling down and across her back. In just jeans and a light sweater, she outshines all the other girls here tonight. We stop just about fifty feet away from the pack, but it’s quieter out here and darker. She sits down on a large rock and I take a seat next to her.

“It’s kind of messed up that you’ve got full access to my sappy innermost thoughts,” I say, nudging her foot with mine. “That you have everything in writing…In your possession.”

“It’s not sappy to me.” After a pause, she asks, “Did you mean it?”

I look right at her, but she only gives me her profile. “I don’t know,” I confess, and she lowers her head in response. “I mean, it’s how I feel but it doesn’t make sense. I don’t know you all that well. We’ve barely spoken to one another, we’ve never hung out, never been in the same classes. But…” I trail off, fixing my gaze on a rusted can that rests by my feet.

“But?” she presses.

“I can’t stop thinking about you. I actually try to put you out of my mind, force myself to look away. I’ve even done things to push you away, to make you to believe that I hate you.”

Charlotte lets out a cheerless laugh. “You did a good job on that last one. You’re very convincing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not proud of it.”

She gets up slowly and kicks at the twigs and pebbles in her way as she attempts to put a bit of distance between us, but I follow. She leans back against a tree, studying me for a moment. “If this is just some kind of guilt or misplaced sense of, I don’t know, you feeling like you have to go on protecting me because of what happened last weekend—”

“You know I wrote the letter before any of that.”

“But you—”

“I want to kiss you, Charlotte. Can I?”

There’s a charged energy source flowing through my system. I’m literally buzzing as I close the foot that separates us. “Tell me no, I’ll understand.” She says nothing, doesn’t turn away. “Can I?” I ask again as I lean my head in close to hers. I can feel her breath on my cheek and I can feel my own heart thumping. She nods, and for that I’m grateful. I lick the seam of her lips, tasting the cherry flavored gloss as I open her mouth with mine.

I’ve kissed before. I’ve traded innocent pecks with my hands at my sides, twisted my tongue around another’s as hands explored, and I’ve mashed lips in a frenzy as clothes came off.

This is different.

This, just being close to her and kissing her gently as my hands rest on her hips, is possibly the greatest high I’ve ever known. Her head is tipped back, eyes closed and expression soft as she returns the kiss. I feel alive, every nerve ending stirring when she snakes her arms around my neck and begins to twist her fingers through my hair. I hear myself moan when her chest presses into mine, but I’m too lost in it to care or feel embarrassed. And she’s up on her toes now, the motion pulling me closer still. As much as I want to drag her in and fit every groove of us together, I know it isn’t right. I sense Charlotte will freely give what I want to take, and I won’t let that happen. Pulling back just a fraction, I rest my forehead against hers.

“I’m sorry.”

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