“Like love,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. It was a statement, one he punctuated with a turn in my direction, with a stare down into my eyes that felt like a piercing needle.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Like love.”
Emery wouldn’t take his eyes off me, not even when I blushed and looked away, or when I found his unwavering gaze once more, my breath suddenly hard to catch.
“It’s such a shame,” he finally said, voice as smooth and calm as the sky above us. “That you’ve never been really kissed.”
“It is?” I breathed.
His Adam’s apple bobbed once in his throat as he nodded, stepping closer to me, and the hands that were in his pockets had somehow found their way to my neck. They crawled up, framing my face, his thumbs by my ears as his fingers curled into my hair. My mind rushed like the waterfalls we’d seen earlier, my heart racing along with it, our breaths meeting between us in a mixture of white puffs.
I expected him to ask, or to maybe change his mind halfway through, but Emery was steady and sure as he leaned down, his eyes not leaving mine until our mouths connected.
And in that moment, with that kiss, everything changed.
We both inhaled the moment our lips touched, and I stepped into him, my arms wrapping around his middle. I pushed up onto my toes, desperate to get closer, to get more — of his lips, of his breath, of his warmth, of him. When I opened my mouth, his tongue swept inside, and I didn’t even try to fight the moan that came next. That moan made Emery grip my hair, tugging it lightly, just enough to tilt my head back and allow him better access.
He wanted more, too.
My first kiss wasn’t anything like I thought it’d be. I didn’t see fireworks or feel butterflies in my stomach. No, I saw the stars, and the mountains, and the rushing water. I saw messy script writing and a wet t-shirt stuck to muscular arms. And I felt fire, hot and burning in my core, my breath more like steam than just an exhale into a cold night. I felt warm hands and cool lips, thick sweaters and thin inhibitions, and when he finally pulled back, his forehead pressed to mine, I felt empty and elated all at once.
“Wow,” I breathed, my hands still fisted in his sweater. “Was that… is kissing always like that?”
Emery swallowed, the muscle over his jaw flexing as he shook his head slightly. “Never.”
We were both quiet a moment, my thoughts still going faster than I could keep up with. I wasn’t sure if it was the high or the kiss anymore. When Emery pulled all the way back, his hands brushing down the sides of my arms before he hooked his hands with mine, I asked the only question that was clear above the rest of the noise.
“Can we do it again?”
So, we did, all night long. Emery wrapped us up together in the same sleeping bag, our bodies hot and slick as he kissed me like it was his job, like it was number one on his hopes and dreams list. He didn’t lift my shirt, or sneak a hand down my sweat pants, or thrust his hard on against me, though I knew it was there. I could feel it even when he tried to hide it from me.
He kissed me like it was a privilege, like he didn’t want to rush, like we had forever.
I think I knew even then that we didn’t.
I woke up alone in the sleeping bag the next morning, rubbing my eyes with a slight ache behind them. I felt around on the floor of the tent until I found my glasses, and when I pushed them into place, every moment from last night rushed back all at once.
A smile found my lips as I closed my eyes, remembering the feel of his hands, the taste of his lips, the sounds he made when we were both driving each other so crazy it was unbearable. When I opened my eyes again, Emery was in the opening of the tent, watching me with a lazy smile.
“Good morning.”
“It really is,” I said, and his smile grew.
“Glen and I are going to go for a morning hike around the park, probably get some firewood. I figured I’d take Kalo to get some of her energy out. You want to come?”
My leg protested with a strong, tingling ache before I could even open my mouth to answer.
“I’m a little sore from yesterday, so I think I’ll stay back.”
He eyed my leg, a flash of concern on his face, but I smiled to assure him I was fine.
“Okay. Nora is making breakfast burritos. And there’s coffee.”
I hummed at that. “I’ll be out in a sec. Have fun on your hike.”
Emery’s eyes trailed over me, the strap of my layering tank top slid off one shoulder, my legs still covered by the sleeping bag. When his gaze found mine again, I knew my blush was like a neon sign, and he just smirked before letting the tent flap close.
I bit my lip, falling back into the sleeping bag with a puff, my stomach giddy, heart fluttering.
What does this mean?
It was a question I didn’t let myself ask last night, at least not out loud, but it was sounding in my head on repeat now that the morning light was shining. I’d never been kissed before. Emery knew that, and he kissed me. He was my first kiss. That had to mean something, right?
Or was it just for fun? Was it just Emery being him, kissing girls like it was no big deal, like everything would be normal the next day?
Were we just friends?
Were we even that?
My smile faded when I realized we’d known each other for less than a week, and here I was getting butterflies over a make-out session. He probably did this all the time — he probably usually did more.
Desperate for reassurance, I eyed the tent opening before pulling Emery’s journal out of his bag and into my lap. I heard his voice fade along with Glen’s, and even though my heart thumped with a mixture of adrenaline and guilt, I opened to the last page.
But there was nothing new.
Of course, he hadn’t written about it yet. When would he have had time?
But I needed something, needed his words, needed to be inside that beautiful brain of his. So, I flipped back toward the beginning, reading an entry not too long after the one about that day.
I stopped taking my medicine.
Marni knows, but my parents don’t. They think it’s the only way to save me from myself, to dope me up to the point of basically not living at all. Marni gets it, she knows why I don’t want to take them. She still thinks I should, but doesn’t press me to. She says it’s my choice. My parents make me feel like I don’t have any of those, anymore.
Grams has been on medicine all her life, the exact kind they prescribed me. She said she doesn’t know how she would have survived as a mother, as a wife, without them. But after Gramps died, she stopped taking them.
I liked her better then.
Maybe she’s a little crazy, maybe she talks about darker things than most preferred — but she’s here. She’s alive, and alert, and real. Uncensored. I appreciate that.
So, when I told her about not taking my pills anymore, she didn’t judge me, either.
She told me how to get rid of them and make it look like I was taking them when I wasn’t.
Anyway, I stopped taking my medicine, and I feel a little better and a little worse. Dad wants me to step up in the business, and I’m trying, but my heart isn’t in it. My heart isn’t in anything.
When I was little, I used to love the swings. It was the only place I wanted to be on the playground. I spent my entire recess on the swings. I loved that feeling, of flying, of falling. Marni said I should focus on things that make me happy, so I went to the park today. I went to the swings.
They don’t make me happy anymore.
Maybe today is just a bad day.
“Whatcha reading?”
I jumped at the sound of Nora’s voice, tossing Emery’s journal across the tent like it’d bitten me. One eyebrow raised on her face as I pressed a hand flat to my chest.
“Sorry, you startled me,” I said on a laugh, crawling out of the sleeping bag to retrieve his journal. I tucked it back into his bag, but when I faced Nora again, I saw suspicion all over her face. “Just the map
we have for the trip, figuring out the next stop. We’re thinking Rio Grande National Park.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, eyeing me. “Great park, definitely worth the stop.” She paused, her lips rolling like she was tasting her next words before she said them. “I’ve got coffee and breakfast out here. Care to join an old woman?”
“I’d love to. Let me put something warmer on and I’ll be right out.”
She nodded once, eyes flicking to Emery’s journal before she ducked out of the tent. I cursed under my breath, dressing quickly and pulling my hair up into a messy knot on top of my head before joining her by the fire.
Nora poured me a fresh cup of coffee, adding a little pumpkin spice flavored creamer to it before handing me the steaming mug. I inhaled the scent, a wide smile finding my lips.
Fall.
“There was one summer when I thought Glen was being unfaithful,” Nora said, and I nearly choked on my coffee.
I managed to swallow it down, giving her my full attention, not sure where that confession came from. “Really?”
She nodded, sipping from her own mug. “It was dreadful. We were young, married only a few years, and those years were rough. In fact, the first five years of our marriage were the hardest. But I didn’t know there would be brighter days then, and I thought he had found comfort in another woman.” Nora shook her head. “I went crazy, badgering him about where he was when he wasn’t home, listening from the other room when he was on the phone, even following him once.”
I didn’t know what to say, or why she was telling me the story, so I stayed quiet, drinking my coffee.
“He wasn’t. Cheating, that is.” She smiled then. “No, he was planning a surprise party for our fourth wedding anniversary, and it was one of my best friends he was talking to on the phone so late at night. He was helpless when it came to planning anything, still is,” she added with a chuckle. “So my friend Barbara helped him. When I found out, when they surprised me, I burst into tears. Not for the party though, but for the fact that he was still mine.”
I smiled a little then, hands wrapped around my mug.
“Sometimes, we have to trust the ones we love, the ones who love us, even when it’s hard to do.” Her eyes skirted to my tent, to the journal, before they found mine. “Because even though marriage brings us together as a unit, there are still two individuals who make that whole. And they need to be able to have their own things, their own time, their own privacy.”
She said the last word with a raise of her eyebrows, and I flushed, lowering my coffee until it rested on my knee.
“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” I admitted, glancing around us to make sure he wasn’t around. I couldn’t tell her that I barely knew him, that I wanted to, that I knew more than I should because I’d snooped already and now I couldn’t stop. “He’s just… his mind is complicated. Sometimes I read just to know him more.”
“I know it seems impossible, but you have to have patience, Cooper.”
I felt like I was getting a scolding from a mother I’d never had, and I dropped my head.
“There may be things he hasn’t told you yet. Hell, there may be things he will never tell you. But you don’t get to decide which thoughts are which, or when you get to learn more about him, or when that trust goes deeper than where it is already. You only get to be there for the ride, holding on, showing him you’re not going anywhere. And every now and then, you’ll get to see inside him — really see inside him — and you’ll cherish it. And your love will grow. And you’ll realize why you waited.”
I nodded, thumb tracing the black porcelain of my mug. “You’re right.” It was all I could manage without telling her the entire situation, because even though she was speaking to me as if I were his wife, I heard it as his friend — as his new friend.
I hadn’t earned those script confessions yet.
“Thanks, Nora.”
She smiled then, lifting her mug and tilting it toward me from across the fire. “Unsolicited advice is my forte, sweetie. Now, drink your coffee before it gets cold.”
The conversation was easy and light after that, and we were laughing when the guys returned. Glen swooped down to kiss Nora’s forehead as soon as they reached us and Kalo licked my cheek with the same enthusiasm, but Emery disappeared straight into the tent. When I followed, he wouldn’t look at me. He just started packing, saying we should get on the road.
When I asked if everything was okay, he assured me it was, but that assurance wasn’t sealed with a kiss or a hug or even a smile.
We couldn’t thank Glen and Nora enough for their hospitality as we loaded up the car and hugged them goodbye, exchanging numbers to keep in touch. Emery seemed back to normal in front of them, but as soon as we headed toward the car, he handed me the keys, climbing into the passenger seat and pulling his hoodie up over his head as Kalo climbed over him into the backseat.
It was a bad day.
I didn’t need to ask this time, or pry, or beg him to talk. I knew from the look on his face, from the way he desperately tore his bag apart for his journal, letting it rest in his lap, pen at the ready.
So, I fired up the engine, ready to drive in silence. But before we pulled away, I reached out with a shaky hand, my cold fingers finding his wrist.
He stiffened.
When he didn’t pull away, I slid down farther, and he turned his hand up, letting me lace my fingers with his for just a moment, just long enough to squeeze and let him know I was there.
Then, I pulled my hand back, put the car in drive, and we were on the road again.
It wasn’t just a bad day.
It was a really, really bad day.
The warmth and playfulness I’d felt from Emery the past two days was completely gone, replaced by a shell, by skin stretched over bones and hollow eyes and lips that didn’t open.
I knew the drive would be long and quiet, so I just listened to the radio for the four hours until we made it to Rio Grande. But even when we were there, surrounded by another natural wonder in Colorado, Emery didn’t seem to care.
We did a short hike through the park, but he didn’t talk, didn’t hold my hand, didn’t even offer to hold Kalo’s leash. So, once we made it back to the car, I didn’t even ask if he wanted to stay for the night, just loaded us all back in and settled in for a long night drive to the Grand Canyon.
Emery held onto his journal the entire time, but didn’t write down a single word.
It was almost midnight by the time I pulled us into one of the historic hotels near the Grand Canyon, and Emery just stood beside me with our bags as I checked us in. The only sound he’d made all day came when I tried to put the room on my card and he simply said, “No,” before shoving his own card forward.
The room was small, and Emery dropped his bag on the bed, stripping his shirt off and immediately making his way to the bathroom. It locked with a click behind him and I exhaled long and loud, flopping down onto my bed with Kalo already at my feet, ready to be fed. I rubbed her ears, stretching out my muscles that were tight from driving all day. I hadn’t even had the time to do yoga that morning, since Emery had been so eager to get on the road, and I felt the difference — not just physically, but mentally, too.
When Kalo was fed and watered, I rummaged through my bag, pulling out the last set of clean sleep clothes I had and laying them on the bed. Emery emerged not too long after, steam billowing out around him as he dried his hair with one towel, the other tied around his waist. I swallowed as I watched the water droplets drip down his chest and over his tight abdomen, but he didn’t notice.
He wouldn’t look at me.
I was quiet as he sat on the edge of his bed, clicking through his phone. But after a few minutes had passed, I was ready to break the silence, so I cleared my throat, gathering my clothes off the bed.
“After we check out the canyon tomorrow, I think I’m going to do a load of laundry. The concierge said they have a little laundromat on site.” Emery didn’t respond,
nor did he seem like he was even listening, his fingers still working over the keys on his phone. “Want me to add any of your clothes in with mine?”
“Sure.”
I nodded, heart stinging from his icy response. “You okay?”
He huffed at that, tossing his phone on the bedside dresser with a loud thud before his eyes finally met mine. They were hard as stone. “Fine.”
I think part of him saw the hurt in my eyes in that moment, because he forced a long breath, running a hand roughly through his hair and tearing his gaze away. I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t — he just stared at the floor where his bare feet rubbed against the carpet.
Swallowing, I held my head as high as I could, adjusting my clothes in my arm. “Okay. I’m going to take a shower.”
I took my time, washing my stump and soaking my sore muscles in the bathtub for a while before draining the water and running the shower. The hot water stung a little as it hit my back, but still I stood beneath the stream on one leg, holding onto the bar at the back of the shower for balance.
Maybe he’s regretting last night. Maybe I’m a terrible kisser and now he’s thinking about how stuck he is with me. Maybe I said something when I was high, something I don’t remember. Maybe he just doesn’t like me.
My mind raced until the water ran cold, and I stepped out of the tub with a heavy sigh, knowing it was no use. I wasn’t exactly an expert in depression, but I knew enough to understand that whatever he was going through today, it wasn’t because of me. There was a war raging inside that head of his tonight, and only he could see it. Only he could fight.
But only if he wanted to.
Emery was already asleep by the time I let myself out of the bathroom, so I hopped on one leg over to the bed, finding balance on the desk along the wall as I did. I laid my prosthesis beside the bed, set an alarm for seven so I could get up to do yoga before we went for our hike, and then I curled in beside Kalo and turned down the light, praying tomorrow would bring Emery back to me.
Summer Romance Box Set: 3 Bestselling Stand-Alone Romances: Weightless, Revelry, and On the Way to You Page 69
