“Nope.” I popped the ‘p’ and smiled.
He chuckled, leaning over to kiss me before heading back to the stove to prod the bacon.
“As for where we’re at — I don’t have a lot of expectations from you or us, not at this point. Just be honest with me. And bear with me, because I’m crazy.”
“I’ll always be honest with you, and I already know and love your crazy.”
“Yeah, but this is going to be a whole new level of crazy.” I thought about telling him about Will, but decided against it. I’d tell him eventually, but not less than twenty-four hours after he kissed me and while he was cooking me breakfast.
He shot me a smile. “Consider yourself bear-ed with.” He turned back to the skillet to crack the eggs, and I watched his back with wonder, half expecting him to break out in song or for woodland creatures to appear to help him cook.
His phone chimed with a text, still on the table by the door where he’d left it last night. When he walked over and looked, he sighed.
“What is it?”
“Kyle gave the two tickets next to us to twins he’s trying to bang.”
“Oh, God,” I said with a hint of dread, remembering the last game we went to.
“Should be interesting.”
“Hopefully it’s not as intense as last time, that redhead and her friend — the underage one who got trashed?”
“And subsequently kicked out.”
I laughed. “You can’t show your boobs to the jumbo camera without consequences.”
“The best was the look on your face.”
“Which also ended up on the jumbo camera.”
“Damn, I wish I’d been able to get to my phone in time to snap that.”
I shook my head, remembering the embarrassment. “I should have made you sit next to them.”
He put up his hands — one with a spatula in it — and said, “I mean, it’s not like most guys wouldn’t be thrilled to sit next to a nineteen-year-old drunk girl with an itchy trigger finger on her bra, but I’m glad it was you and not me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Like I said, you should have seen your face.”
I chuckled and rolled my eyes, picking up my coffee. “Gee, thanks. Maybe today won’t be so bad. Maybe I can help them take it easy on the booze.”
“I’ll wish you all the very best of luck with that,” he said as he plated our breakfast.
I watched him quietly, chasing the fleeting thought that maybe we’d just slip back into being friends. I imagined him just pretending like last night didn’t happen, but when he turned to me with the plates and sat down next to me and I looked in his eyes, at his smile, every doubt fell away.
We tucked into breakfast for a quiet moment, and I watched him furtively, trying not to stare. But as I absently nibbled my bacon, I thought about his arms, thought about the warmth of his body next to mine all night, thought about his kisses, so sweet and new and full of hope and promise. And the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted more.
“So,” he said after a little bit, “we have a couple of hours before we have to leave.”
“Are you a mind reader?” I asked with a small smile.
“Why?” He was amused, the corners of his lips curling.
“Because I was just thinking about how badly I wanted to kiss you.”
His smile broke open like sunshine. “Then maybe I am a mind reader, because I was thinking the same thing.”
DOUBLEMINT
Tyler
SHE WAS THE PRETTIEST THING I’d ever seen, sitting next to me that morning. Her hair was wavy and a little unkempt, like she’d just come from the beach, her brown eyes big and full of laughter behind her glasses, a high flush in her cheeks like she so often had. She could have been glowing for as happy as she looked.
We ate our breakfast, laughing and talking like we always do, but everything had changed. Everything, from the way she looked at me, the way she smiled. Hers was a smile I knew well, one I’d seen in a hundred versions, but the one she gave me then was one I’d only come to know the day before.
A jolt of excitement sprinted through me at the knowledge that I’d be kissing her the second she finished her eggs.
I didn’t waste any time, either. I scooped up her plate as soon as the last bite was gone, stacked it on mine, and took it to the sink. When I turned, she stood behind me bearing a shy smile.
It was the first time since we’d first kissed that we actually stood next to each other, stood so close. I’d never been with anyone so small — the top of her head barely came to my underarm, and when she hugged me, her arms slipped around my waist naturally. Her cheek was warm against the skin of my chest, and I ran my fingers through her hair, holding her against me, shifting to rock us slowly.
“It’s not as strange as I thought it would be,” she said.
“Us?”
“No. You being a giant.”
I chuckled, and when she looked up at me, propping her chin on my chest, I bent down to pick her up around the waist. Her arms wound around my neck, and I held her there, arms locked, keeping her close enough to kiss, though her feet were dangling a foot off the ground.
“The only thing I don’t like is that you’re so far away,” I said.
She giggled. “When you pick me up like this, I feel like a kid.”
“You’re not a kid,” I said gently. “And you know what you said yesterday? About not being a real girl? Well, you are. You’re the most real girl I’ve ever known.”