Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
I lean into him and drop my head to his shoulder like I did so often when we were growing up. ”Oh, I don’t know. For a first kiss, I thought it was pretty perfect.”
He links our fingers together on his leg. “It was. I had high hopes for us after that kiss.”
“What did you hope?” I ask, my voice soft, hesitant, a careful tread.
“I hoped it was just the beginning. I hoped that I’d come back from camp for high school and we’d be…” He turns his head to look at me, and the intensity, the tenderness there is familiar because it’s always been there. I’ve seen it a million times and never fully knew what it was. How could I have then? “I hoped we’d be together.”
I don’t know what to say. It was a long time ago and we were so young, but I wanted him then as much as my fledgling heart knew how to want someone.
“Look, I don’t want to lose you again.” His fingers tightening around mine underscore his words. “If you decide you can’t…don’t want to…I want you in my life, Tru, even if it’s only as a friend. Just don’t leave me again.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I glance down at our linked hands and find a distraction sketched into his skin. “You have a tattoo.”
He turns his wrist over so I can see the Hebrew characters better.
תיקון עולם
“What is it?”
“Tikkum Olam. Basically, ‘repair the world.’ I started thinking about this concept when I had to do my Bar Mitzvah project. I went through that for Bubbe, but it actually did shape a lot about me as a man. I started YLA because I saw it as my contribution to make the world, at least one part of it, better.”
“I’m really proud of you, Ez. I knew you would be amazing, but what you’ve done for those kids, for those families? It’s life-changing.”
“You’re proud of me? I was in the airport waiting for a flight, and you came on one of those televisions in the gate waiting area, commentating for MSNBC or something. Some candidate. I almost missed my flight. They were shutting the doors, but I couldn’t move. It was my first time seeing you grown up. I was transfixed. I knew you’d be beautiful, but…” He shakes his head wonderingly. “And you were so fluent. So confident. Not a stutter in sight.”
“That took years to get rid of. And it comes back if I get really nervous. I still hate public speaking. I always made Lennix do that stuff as much as possible.”
“Something changed for me after that. I had known you were out there somewhere, but to see you? I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“When you showed up at Daddy’s funeral, I couldn’t believe it.” I chuckle. “I’m pretty sure I flung myself at you.”
“I was glad. I wanted to hug you, but it had been so long since we’d known each other, I wasn’t sure if there was protocol. And I imagine a lot of people you grew up with try to insinuate themselves into your life knowing you’re close to such important people.”
“You could never be a lot of people, Ez. There’s everyone else, and then there’s you.”
The look on his face is something hot and needy, ardent, mirroring what’s building inside of me. My heart swells in my chest, scraping against my rib cage, barely contained. This time, I don’t have to wonder who moves first.
It’s me.
I lean closer and press our lips together, eyes open and looking right into his. His glance, his frown, asks if I’m sure.
I’m not. How could I be?
But I close my eyes and deepen the kiss, a foolhardy fall I may pay for later. It’s not even all the rationalizations that spur me to kiss him again. I could tell myself they broke up and that Aiko moved on first, but none of that actually runs through my mind when our tongues wrap around each other and our sighs entwine. My mind, consumed with the taste and feel of him, shouts one word over and over, an insistent refrain.
Finally. Finally. Finally.
He lays me down back onto the trampoline, and in the dark, the netting makes a world of mesh and magic, population: us. Our kisses turn desperate. What was gentle grows urgent, and he’s clutching me, squeezing my leg, my arms, my ass. Exploring my body like a blind man seeing with his hands. The pressure is just right and too much and not nearly enough. I tear my mouth away, kiss his jaw, drag my lips down his neck. He sucks my earlobe, finding a direct lust line to my pussy. I squirm and whimper.
“You like that?” he breathes into the tiny cove between my neck and ear.