“Hey…” I touched
Holly’s cheek after rolling over on my stomach in the sand. “What are you
thinking about?”
Her face held all the signs of some
deep thinking though she was trying to give off the appearances of someone
relaxing on the beach. “Nothing…why?”
“You just look…pensive.”
She gave me half a smile. “I have
some questions.”
I glanced around at the near empty
slab of beach we were currently occupying. I doubted anyone would hear us, but
I still didn’t want to take any chances. “Maybe it could wait…until we’re on
the boat…?”
“It’s not those kind of questions,”
she said quickly.
Okay, so not the CIA stuff.
Something else. “I’ll give you twenty questions…how about that?”
“Perfect.” We propped ourselves up
on one elbow so our bodies were nearly pressed together. “Promise you’ll answer
honestly? I’m so done with being told what I want to hear rather than the
truth.”
My heart was already racing. “I’ll
be honest or I won’t answer, deal?”
She nodded and glanced down at her
hands. “Did you plan it? Our first date? Kissing me…any of that?”
Honest…be honest. “No…none of it.
Adam told me about you and David breaking up earlier that day and then I was
completely confused. I didn’t know what to do because it scared me…getting what
I wanted. Then at the club, I tried not to look at you and then I even debated
a random hook up just to get all those thoughts out of my head.” Holly laughed
under breath. “And then suddenly I was dragging you out of there and eating
dinner and then all I could think about was not letting the evening end.” She
lifted her eyes to look at me. “That’s how it always felt with you. I tried to
go on with my normal stuff and then somehow I’d just end up wherever you were.
Before now, I’ve never let myself think about what that meant. I’m sorry I’m
such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” she said,
giving me a sad smile. I let out a breath waiting for a more difficult
question. I could feel it coming. “So…since that night we first kissed…you
haven’t…you weren’t with anyone else?”
I had to pause and then I felt like
a huge dick because she was holding her breath, waiting. My problems was that
all the versions of Holly…all the relationships blended together and it felt
I’d been with a bunch of girls, but it was all the same one. “No…no one else.
Which might actually be a record for me.” I took a deep breath. “But I have to
be honest and tell you I didn’t plan that. I didn’t get tempted and think about
how you’d get pissed off. I just thought about you so much that there wasn’t
room for anyone else. With everything Adam and I had going on…”
Her eyes had gotten all watery and
she looked down at her hands again, a couple tears falling onto my fingers. “I
can’t believe you…Jackson Meyer, the guy Brook told me would never make good
boyfriend material.”
“She probably had good reason for
saying that,” I admitted, swallowing the doubt forming in the back of my
throat. “Hol, I’m sorry…there’s so much I love about being with you. So much. I
could live on those memories alone for a hundred years and not get sick of
them…not want anyone else. But I was too stupid to put that together in my head
and form it into words that I could actually say to you. I know you must hate
my version of a relationship--”
She shook her head immediately and
leaned forward, kissing me on the mouth. “You’re way is better than mine. It’s
the most real thing I’ve ever had…you are, anyway.”
And now I couldn’t do anything but
kiss her, over and over saying, “I love you” between kisses. I wanted to do
this forever, I wanted to wake up every morning for the rest of my life to the
sound of Holly’s deep, sleepy breathes and feel her hair tickling my face, her
head buried between my shoulder and my neck. And since I had just become aware
of this, maybe I needed to find a way to put words to it. Something that said,
“I’ll give you tomorrow…I’ll give you more than just today.”
“Does it scare you?” I asked her.
“The fact that everything’s different now? We’ve ditched the carefree attitudes?”
“I’m not afraid of you.” She grinned
and pressed her hands against my chest, forcing me roll onto my back. “And it
wouldn’t have mattered what you told me today…even if you’ve hooked up with a
dozen girls since kissing me that first time. Like you said, everything’s
different now.”
I reached up and tucked her hair
behind her ears, then rested my hands on her face. “Yes, it is.”
RETURN TO VORTEX HOMEPAGE
