by M. A. Hinkle
Now I saw the benefit of Felix-dumping: you could run away before he said anything back. But he was still holding my hands—actually holding them. At some point, he’d laced his fingers with mine, and he was stroking the outside of my palm. Not absently. To touch. “Are you done?”
I nodded, my turn to frown. His expression had shifted, but I couldn’t decide how, whether he was closer or farther away. “Yeah. I’m still practicing the art of getting an entire five-paragraph essay out in one breath. Give me time.”
He smiled then—incredulously, so it wasn’t my half-assed attempt at a joke. No, he was in his own head. But something in his eyes made my breath catch. I couldn’t have taken my gaze from his face if I wanted to. “Wow.” His tone threw me because it sounded…wondering. “We are both really bad at this.” He laughed, bending over our joined hands.
I wanted to say something cynical, but I still felt a catch in my throat, waiting for something to happen—something good. I’d forgotten the way hope felt. “You’re just figuring this out?” I kept my tone dry on purpose, but my voice cracked.
Felix lifted his head, and his eyes met mine, and they were bright and shining, the same as all those times during the play, when we were too caught up in our own brilliance to bullshit each other. Only now for no other reason than I was here with him.
“No, but—” He took a step closer to me, so our legs brushed. “I’ve been stewing over this for weeks, even before Morgan turned me down. Why it was so easy to talk to you. Why I didn’t worry about stuff when I was with you. Why I wanted you around.”
And now my heart was pounding. I couldn’t come up with a stupid metaphor to describe it; I was lucky I had any room left to think when he was watching me that way.
He took a breath before speaking more words. Another first. “I guess—I guess I really like you? And I just noticed now?”
“Believe me when I say this is far from the most ridiculous part of the story,” I said, but I was breathless.
Felix blushed—the kind that made not only his face red, but his ears too. It was goddamn adorable, and I could gaze at it as much as I wanted. “You don’t have to rub it in. I mean, it’d be nice if this whole crush thing came along with an explanation of where I fit in, but no, apparently I’m going to be a question mark my entire life, and—”
“Felix.” He stopped, his eyes moving back to my face. I nudged him with my knee to get him to step back. Then I stood. I slid my hands out of his so I could do what I’d thought about for too long: Cup his face in my hands. Run my fingers over the blush still lingering in his cheeks. He swallowed; one hand came up tentatively to rest on my waist as though we were dancing again.
When I was sure he wasn’t going to say anything more, I continued. “Ordinarily, I would gladly sit and listen to you figure this out. There is almost nothing I want more in the world.”
He got his cue. Guess we’d learned something after all. “What do you want more?”
“I want to kiss you. Will you let me?” He nodded, his hand tightening in my hoodie. “Then close your eyes.” He did so. I took a moment to consider him because I wanted to remember this. Then I kissed him three times: once in the hollow under each eye, and then on his lips. He surged up to meet me, throwing his arms around my neck, and I took my hands away from his face so I could hold him up.
I broke the kiss and set him down, slowly.
“Wow.” He laced his hands together at the base of my neck. “We could have been doing this the whole time.”
I had to take in a breath before I trusted myself to talk and not kiss him again. “The good news is we can keep doing it.” He stared at me without answering. “If you want to, I mean. I know you’ve still got a lot of things to figure out, but so do I, and there’s nobody else I’d rather do it with. I’ve got a lot of work to do, but—” I pressed my forehead to his. “Goddammit, you’re rubbing off on me.”
Felix chuckled and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Oh no, you might tell people how you’re feeling instead of hoping it’ll all go away. And I might face my fears instead of pretending everything is kittens and rainbows. What a horrible world.”
“Awful,” I agreed. “The good thing is if I keep kissing you, neither of us have to talk at all.”
I kissed him again before he could reply. Knowing us, we’d never get to it otherwise.
About the Author
M.A. Hinkle swears a lot and makes jokes at inappropriate times, so she writes about characters who do the same thing. She’s also worked as an editor and proofreader for the last eight years, critiquing everything from graduate school applications to romance novels.
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SkysongMA
Twitter: @SkysongMA
Website: www.Maryannehinkle.com
Other books by this author
Cherrywood Grove Series
Death of a Bachelor (Book One)
Also Available from NineStar Press
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