Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Actually, the way he was gazing at me, I felt the kind of beautiful you just always knew you were, no matter what your hair looked like or your outfit or whatever.
You could be in the throes of delirium from a bad flu, sweaty and nasally, raw-nosed and croaky, having a wracking cough, and Darius would look at you like that.
No.
Look at me like that.
Oh my.
He guided me to a place among some aspen trees, the wind sifting through the silver-dollar-sized leaves, making a kind of soft music that was the perfect soundtrack to this adventure.
There I found, after he shrugged off his backpack and put down the cooler, I’d been right. He pulled out a blanket and spread it on the ground then gestured for me to sit.
He sat with me, and out of the cooler came some sodas and bottles of water, sandwiches, then from the backpack came a big bag of chips and some homemade cookies.
He’d even remembered to bring napkins.
“Mom made the cookies for us,” he told me as he set them on the blanket.
Okay, so maybe his mom reminded him to bring napkins.
But when he shared this, I felt something strange. Strange and beautiful.
Because he said that not like it was simply a fact, or with any nuance he was embarrassed about his mom making him cookies to take on his date, but like he was proud of it.
It was then it hit me. One of the reasons I liked him (outside of him being so cute, and tall, and his lashes so perfect).
He just knew who he was.
I had no idea who I was. I didn’t know anyone our age that knew who they were.
But Darius did.
He knew the perfect place to take a first date and he loved his mom and didn’t care who knew it.
Having these thoughts, something was happening. Something fierce and frightening and wonderful, all at once, and I wasn’t feeling it because I was out with the cutest, most popular boy in school.
“That’s sweet,” I replied, but my voice was husky with the thoughts I was thinking and the things I was feeling.
He smiled at me then unwrapped his sandwich.
He took a bite, chewed, swallowed, then looked again to me while I was chewing my own bite. “I want you to know that it’s only ever been Lee, Eddie, Hank and me that have come up here.”
In other words, this wasn’t his normal date spot, where he took girls to impress them with his romantic sensibilities and picnic-packing capabilities in an effort to get into their pants.
It was a spot for him and his buddies.
And me.
Lord.
There they were, more things I was feeling. Lots more. Oodles more.
And they were all awesome.
“Oh,” was all I could think to say.
“Yeah,” he replied, that smile still in place, a tease in his voice. “Oh.”
“It’s beautiful,” I told him.
“I know,” he said, not taking his gaze from me.
I pressed my lips together because he wasn’t talking about the meadow, and knowing I was correct earlier, that Darius thought I was beautiful, pushed its way to the top of my feelings, and that feeling felt amazing.
“Eat,” he encouraged, “So we can get into the fun stuff.”
I wasn’t sure what he considered “the fun stuff.”
I just knew, with a sense that was fierce and frightening and wonderful, whatever it was, I wanted to do it with Darius.
* * * *
“The fun stuff,” it would turn out, was lying on our backs and watching the clouds drift by.
You might not think this was fun…as such.
But lying on my back beside Darius, our fingers linked and resting where he’d pulled them, on his flat belly, our arms pressed together, both our knees bent (and every once in a while, he’d move his leg and bump it against mine, which was adorable and electrifying, both at the same time), talking and watching the clouds drift by was the best time I’d ever had in my life.
“Do you ever try to see things in the clouds?” I asked. “Like dragons or elephants?”
“Do you see something like that?”
I lifted my free hand (because, straight up, I wasn’t letting go of his, no way, no how) and pointed. “Well, that one kinda looks like a T-Rex.”
“Which one?”
I looped my finger. “That one.”
“I don’t see it.”
I turned my head on the blanket and looked at his profile. “Maybe squint?”
He squinted. It was adorable too.
I started giggling.
He turned his head to look at me, his lips moving like he was fighting a smile, before he asked, “Are you messing with me?”
“No,” I lied. “I totally see a dinosaur.”
Something changed in his eyes, and suddenly, he let my hand go as he turned to his side and got up on a forearm.
For the second time on that mountain, my breath caught, this time because of the expression on his face.