Page 164 of Reckless
He looked at me the way he always did when he was deciding not whether to tell the truth, but how nakedly to do it.Then he said, “I use it when I mean I’m happy.”
I stepped closer until my free hand could flatten lightly against his chest and I felt the steady beat there under my palm.
“You should probably say that,” I whispered.
“Which part.”
“The part where you’re happy.”
“I’m happy.”
My chest cracked open.“Say it again.”
He laughed softly.“Kelly.”
“What.I’m collecting evidence.”
“Evidence of what.”
“That this is real.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth.He smiled then.
And because all the most treacherous things in my life came from honesty and moonlight and this man’s mouth, he said, “Yes.”
We had been moving toward this before either of us could say the word and that should have scared me more.Instead it made me feel impossibly, stupidly lucky.
He bent and kissed me there by the water, not with the hunger of the beach, not with the demolished urgency of the cave, not even with the emotional intensity of the library or the sidewalk.
His hand came to the side of my face.Mine stayed on his chest.The harbor lights glittered.Someone in the distance laughed.A boat bell clinked once somewhere out in the dark.
The world looked like the kind of place two people in love might belong, and for the first time, I let myself believe we did.
