“Oh, now you’re rehashing the past?” Dylan says, her voice rising. “Unbelievable.”
“It just happened an hour ago,” I yell back.
“I told you I was sorry,” she snaps back. “Besides, don’t you have to do jail time to even be considered for professional sports? Having a police record will only make you more credible as an athlete,” she says.
I glare at her. “I’m laughing hysterically right now,” I say, my mouth tight. She turns and looks back at the fire.
I blow out an aggravated sigh. I’m done with fighting. It doesn’t even feel like a fight, more like frustrated foreplay. My instincts are telling me one thing and my brain is telling me another. It’s a push and pull game in my mind.
I pace back and forth. The world is spinning. My mind is screaming with all the words I want to say but they’re trapped in my throat. YOU’RE PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL AND ADDICTIVE AND AMAZING AND I CAN’T TURN THIS OFF. I CAN’T ESCAPE YOU. I CAN’T GET OVER YOU. I’M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU. But I can’t say this out loud so I shout the frustrated abridged version instead.
“You’re insane!”
Dylan watches me. Her face is calm and there’s a trace of a smile on her lips. “I love you too, Gray,” she says.
My heart reacts to her words by jabbing against my ribs. “That’s not what I said.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. “Isn’t that what you want to say, and you can’t? Isn’t that what you’re always fighting when we’re together?”
“We’ve been apart for more than a year, and now you’re suddenly back in my life for one weekend. You can’t say you love me,” I argue.
She studies my face carefully. “I know you better than anyone. I can tell by the way your lips are tightening up and your eyes are narrowing that you know I’m right and it’s pissing you off.”
The firelight is doing strange things with her face. Especially her eyes. I can’t read what she’s thinking. I look at her and suddenly I believe in something. I feel like I’m looking at Fate and Timing and Luck all moving into one tangible space.
I head towards her and get down on my knees in front of her. Everything feels like slow motion. Even my heartbeat is pausing for breath. Movement has new meaning, every touch has complexity. Nothing is easy and it’s too easy.
I push her down on the ground and lie over her. My face is inches from hers. I can feel her chest rising against mine. I can smell her smoky hair and skin.
“This is when you should stop me,” I warn her.
She answers me by leaning forward and pulling my neck down closer. My lips crash into hers and my body follows and then my heart. I pin her body to the ground and my mouth makes up for a lack of words. It spills out all the truth.
I lean away and take a deep, shaky breath and go back for more. Our tongues collide and I want to pull away but I can’t. Her mouth is a high and it’s getting me off.
She pulls her hands around my neck and my hand moves across her chest and down to her waist. Her hands move inside my shirt and slowly work their way down and play at the waistband of my shorts.
She’s sucking on my bottom lip and I run my tongue over her top lip as if we’ve been starving for each other. My fingers slowly trace along her jaw and up to her cheek and back down again to her chin. I’ve been waiting so long just to touch her face.
I’m breathing harder and I run my hand over her chest and push my way under her t-shirt but I can’t get enough of her skin so I start to lift it over her chest. I move my arm around her back to unfasten her bra and she reaches her hand all the way down my shorts, under my boxers, and I gasp.
We suddenly hear gravel crunching in the distance. Dylan tugs her shirt down and I glance up to see a couple walking by our campsite. A flashlight beam is guiding their way.
I dip my head down to Dylan’s neck and press my lips into her skin.
“So much for your lousy avoidance plans,” Dylan says, her breaths deep. She always reads my mind. She bites on the bottom of my ear and it makes me groan with frustration.
“I don’t know why I bother,” I say, my voice gruff, my heart slamming against my ribs. It doesn’t matter. Hands can still go places that eyes can’t. I press my mouth against hers and her teeth lightly graze my tongue and I’m lost in her crazy world full of twisting paths. It’s my favorite journey.
***
It’s hours later and I’m still awake, looking up at a ceiling of stars. Dylan is wearing my hooded sweatshirt and she’s curled up in a ball next to me. Her head is on my chest and my arm is around her shoulder. The air is cold; it carries faint traces of fall. A whisper of sunlight edges into the sky. I can almost feel the earth spinning on its axis, always looking for the sun, attracted by her golden light. I close my eyes.