“It’s the same for me.” The night ticks soft around us. There are no people. No cars. No emergencies. No sounds. Just me and Alec in this tucked away space.
Alec’s lips move closer to my ear, his breath hot and quick. My neck warms, my insides twist in a spiral. “You’re pretty much all I think about.”
There is a rush of something like gratefulness for my love protected in his safe hands.
“Wait here,” he says.
“Where are you going?”
“Just outside for a second. Promise.”
A short, nervous laugh arrives. “Isn’t this how, like, every horror movie starts?”
He cracks his door open. “Trust me,” he says before exiting the car. He wrestles with something. A coat? A blanket? He pops the hood and I can’t see in front of us. My mind races until I see Alec at the tree line, the dark too dark to make out his movements. Then Alec opens my door, his beautiful face smiling for me. “Come outside.” He ushers me toward him with the sweep of his arm.
Relief waterfalls through me as I take his hand. But then, a shiver ripples. “It’s freezing out here.”
“Not for long.” Alec walks me to the edge of the forest and that’s when I see he’s spread a quilt onto the dropped pine needles. Two pillows rest at the top of the blanket. A bed in the woods. Alec lifts the quilt and invites me to tuck in. I’m surprised when my hands find heat.
“Is this . . . ?”
“An electric blanket.” I hear the grin stretch across his face.
“How do you have an electric blanket out in the middle of nowhere?”
“It’s a nerd trick I learned in shop. I jimmied the extension cord to run off the car battery. Get warm. I’ll be right back.” I watch him go to the trunk, drape another blanket over his arm. When he returns, he layers it over me and the weight is a luxury. He sets down the familiar picnic basket, takes off his coat and burrows in beside me.
“Ever moon-gazed before?”
“Not like this.”
“Good. I’d hate to be redundant.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“It’s full, you know. The moon.”
I look above the trees, find the white round, its paper skin. It sprays its light over us, as romantic as candlelight. “It’s beautiful.”
“Like you.” I pull his hand up, press it to my chest. He leans against the place of my heartbeat and studies my features, memorizing me. “I’m really glad I could be there for you. You know, with Finn and Gregg.”
“Me too. I can’t even tell you how much.” I smile under his stare and a new kind of warmth fills me. I hear a horn beep somewhere out on the road but it’s as if the sound comes from a different dimension. Like Alec and I are hidden in a pocket of forest made especially for us. “I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.” I trace the soft swell of his cheek.
He pushes into my touch. “I want it to be like that always. I want you to come to Michigan with me.”
My heart trips. “What?”
“I don’t want to be without you.”
I can’t stay here without him, but go to Michigan? “I can’t go to Michigan.”
“You haven’t been accepted to Boston College yet, right?”
A twist in my core. “No.”
“Promise me you’ll think about it then. You know, as a back-up plan or whatever. All I know is that the next four years will suck without you.”
Four years. It’s a lifetime.
“We’re good together, Zephyr. Maybe we shouldn’t leave that behind.”
But I’d be leaving other stuff behind. “I’ve never even considered going to college anywhere else. I visited the campus when I was a freshman and it was like I knew I belonged there. That it was my future. Have you ever felt that way?” I don’t tell him that shortly after Dad left, I toured the campus and had a panic attack walking into the library. How since then I haven’t felt totally big enough, strong enough, to claim my future. Until I met Alec.
He flattens his hand over my heart. “That’s kinda how I feel when I’m with you. Like, I don’t know . . . like it’s where I belong.”
“Yeah?”
A laugh tickles at his words. “I guess you could say you’re my Boston College.”
“Careful. That’s a bold statement.”
He smiles. “I know.”
Oh.
Alec moves on top of me, his body slicking with the precise grace of water.
His chest hovers over mine, our hearts building a staccato rhythm. And when he fills my mouth with his kiss, I want our heartbeats to sync. I want to forever be connected to this person. All at once he feels like my now, my future, my everything.