“I hope so.” She brushed her fingertips across my collarbone. “Or you could stay with me at Cloverleigh if you want. Even if it’s just temporary.”
“Chloe, if I move in with you, I’m never going to want to leave.”
“Really?”
“Really. I mean, you’ll be there all the time cooking for me, doing my laundry, ironing my shirts—”
She smacked me on the chest. “Very funny.”
“I’m teasing.” Grabbing her arms, I flipped her onto her back. Kissed her lips. “I’m never going to want to leave because I love you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. There’s nothing I don’t want to share, and I can’t believe I wasted so much time.” I kissed her again. “I don’t want to waste any more.”
Slipping her arms free, she looped them around my neck and wrapped her legs around me. “You’re making me want to risk the squeaky bed,” she whispered.
“We could.” I moved my mouth across her cheek to her ear. “Or we could go into my closet, where I first kissed you.”
She went completely still. “You remember.”
“Of course I remember. Who forgets their first kiss?”
“It wasn’t really a kiss.”
I pulled back and looked down at her. “Um, our lips touched. Also our tongues.”
“And we decided it was so disgusting, we’d never kiss anyone else again.”
“We were pretty young.” I pictured her at that age—pigtailed and gap-toothed. Dimpled cheeks.
“We had to be, what, six?” she wondered.
“If that.”
She laughed. “I never told a soul about it.”
“Me neither. I think I tried to block it entirely from my memory. I was so grossed out.”
“And yet it was your idea,” she said.
“No, it wasn’t. It was yours.”
“No way.” She shook her head. “You brought it up. I’m positive.”
“I might have brought it up, but you suggested we do it.”
“I did not!”
“How about we agree to disagree? After all, there’s no way to know for sure, and you and I will argue forever.” I slanted my mouth over hers again, stroking her tongue with mine. “But I definitely think we need a new memory for that closet.”
“You didn’t put a rubber snake in there, did you?”
“No. But I do have a one-eyed trouser—”
“No snake jokes, please. Especially if you’re trying to turn me on.”
“Is that a yes to the closet?”
“You know me,” she whispered, reaching between us to stroke my erection. “I’ve always loved trouble.”
In the end, we didn’t make it to the closet, and the bed made a horrendous amount of noise. I convinced Chloe our parents deserved it for throwing us together so much, and Gran was ninety and hard of hearing anyway.
Afterward, as we snuggled up again beneath the blankets, I had to laugh.
“What’s funny?” she asked, stifling a yawn.
“Everything. This. Us. The fact that twenty-some years ago we were sitting in that closet over there swearing we’d never kiss anyone again, let alone each other.”
“It is pretty amazing. We’ve come a long way. It makes me happy to think of it.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Me too. You think if we could go back in time and tell those two kids in the closet what would happen in the future they’d believe us?”
She laughed and cuddled closer. “Not a chance.”
26
Chloe
THEN
“Have you ever touched tongues with anyone?” Oliver asked.
We were six, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his closet, hiding so we didn’t have to go downstairs for dinner. We had a giant bag of Better Made potato chips, a couple cans of Vernor’s ginger ale, a box of chocolate covered strawberries, and a thick slice of maple fudge. We figured that was all the food groups. The closet door was shut, but thankfully we had a flashlight, which threw a cone of light at the ceiling.
“Ew, no,” I said, crunching on a chip. “Have you?”
“No.” He slurped from his can of Vernor’s and then burped.
Boys were so gross.
“But I’ve seen it,” he went on. “On a TV show.”
“Was it grown ups?” I asked.
“It was, like, teenagers,” he said.
“Huh.” I ate another chip. “Is that what teenagers do?”
“I think so.” He munched on the fudge, taking a bite out of the slab. “Want some?”
“Sure.”
Oliver broke off a piece and handed it to me. As it dissolved in my mouth, I started thinking about what another person’s tongue would actually taste like. “I wonder what it’s like. Touching tongues with someone.”
“Me too.”
“It’s probably really disgusting, but maybe we should try it. Then we’d know for sure.”
“Okay. Stick out your tongue.”
“Hold on. I have to swallow.” I took a drink of ginger ale. “Now I’m ready.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I stuck my tongue out and waited as Oliver leaned toward me, presumably with his tongue out too. But he missed my mouth and ended up licking my cheek.
“Gross,” I said, wiping my cheek with my sleeve.
“Sorry, my eyes were closed. I’ll try again.”
I shut mine again, and suddenly I felt his hands on my shoulders and his lips touching mine. He hadn’t left me any time to prepare! Quickly I poked my tongue between our lips and he did the same. His was warm and firm and I could sort of taste ginger ale. Altogether the sensation was pretty slimy and disgusting.
After less than half a second, we broke apart.
“Ew,” we both said at the same time.
He wiped his tongue with the bottom of his T-shirt.
I licked my sleeve to get rid of his spit. “That was blech. I’m never doing that again.”
“Me neither.”
With that decided, we went back to eating our snacks.
“Even if I get married, if my husband wants to kiss, I’m saying no,” I announced.
Oliver snorted. “Don’t worry, no one will want to marry you.”
“No one will want to marry you, either,” I told him.
“Good. Girls are stupid.”
“You’re stupid.”
“At least I’m not a chicken.”
“I’m not a chicken!”
At that moment, the door to the closet flew open and our mothers stood there with their hands on their hips. “There you are!” Aunt Nell shouted. “We’ve been looking everywhere.”
“You’re late for dinner,” my mother added. “And what’s all that junk you’re eating?”
“Whose idea was this?” Aunt Nell crossed her arms and tapped her toe. “Oliver? Chloe? I’m listening.”
Oliver and I exchanged a look, during which we tacitly agreed not to tattle on each other. We were both at fault—it had been his idea to skip dinner and mine to raid the pantry.
“Come out of that closet right now,” my mom demanded. “And go clean up for dinner.”