He made a face. “Lies. Total lies. I’m a brute, Cat. Always remember that.”
I shook my head, smiling. “I still don’t believe it. You’ve never been a brute with me.”
It seemed like we were joking, teasing each other, but he stopped walking. I ended up right in front of him. He touched the tip of my hair, spilling down over the front of my coat. “I was by leaving. But it wasn’t intentional. And you’re different anyway. I can’t ever hide my feelings from you.”
“I don’t want you to.” I put my palms flat on his chest, using my thumbs to play with the teeth of the zipper he wasn’t using. I wanted to move my hands inside the coat, to touch his chest, but I held back. I wanted him to kiss me, to take the initiative and lower his mouth to mine the way we both had been craving since the minute we’d first laid eyes on each other again weeks ago.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he raised his eyebrows and gave me a mischievous look. “I’m thinking that I’m about to beat you in a race to the rocks.”
It was a long-standing source of frustration for me. His legs were longer and he had always been faster. Plus I’d been a distance runner, not a great sprinter. He’d enjoyed teasing me, tweaking at my natural competitiveness, goading me into races down the hill that I could never win. But I had once, careening into his back with a final burst of energy. We’d tumbled down onto the grass together, laughing, kissing.
Then ten minutes later he had been inside me and I had thought I understood everything there ever was to know.
“That’s not a fair race,” I told him. “You have boots on. I’m wearing cute girl shoes with zero sole.”
“Not my problem.”
“Jerk.”
“Do you want me to be politically correct? Should I give you a head start? Take off my shoes.”
“Don’t do me any favors.” If Heath watched what he said, if he held back and was carefully polite, he wouldn’t be him any more. Besides, I liked the way he pushed me to be better, to try harder. With him, I’d always felt like anything was possible. “Last one there has to chop wood for the fireplace.”
Heath snorted. “I’d love to see you chopping wood.”
“Are you doubting me? Are you suggesting I can’t?” I teased.
But he didn’t laugh with me. He said, “I never doubt you. I think you’re capable of anything you set your mind to.”
It was unexpected flattery and it meant a lot to me. I swallowed hard, not sure what to say without sounding overly emotional.
But then he leaned forward, very close to me. I waited, expected to hear something even more flattering. A profession of love. That’s what I wanted anyway. But he murmured, “Go.”
The tone was so off from what you would expect for the start of a race that it took me a second to realize that he was backing up, grinning.
“Shit,” I said, scrambling to take off at an angle from where he was moving slowly.
He laughed, turning around and running. I had a microsecond start on him, but his legs were longer, stronger. My former strategy had always been to try to keep up with him, grabbing at the back of his shirt and messing with his arms to slow him down. But now I took a different tactic. Because I ran at an angle when he turned, I cut him off. He had to draw up short, swearing.
“Damn it, Cat, that’s not fair!”
Breathless already, I just yelled over my shoulder, “You can dish it out but you can’t take it!” I went careening down the hill, a good three feet ahead of him. It felt amazing to run, to fill my lungs with the cold air, to let go of my restraint, my sadness, and push myself.
Chancing a glance over my shoulder, I laughed, hair streaming behind me and catching across my nose and lips. I swiped at it and shrieked when Heath caught up to me and grabbed the back of the coat. Our positions were reversed for once and I liked the lead, but knowing how close he was made it more fun, exciting. I wanted him to catch me.
But I wanted to win more. I pushed harder, lungs full to bursting. When I reached the edge of the grass at the rocks, I came to a stop and gave him a triumphant smile. “Yes, I won! God, finally!”
He went a few feet past me. “This is the actual finish line.” He winked. “I win.”
“No, no, no. Bullshit.” I punched his arm. “You know the finish line is where the grass ends. That’s the way it always was and you can’t change the rules now.”
“No?” He sighed. “I guess you’re right. I’m chopping wood.”
“You don’t really have to,” I conceded immediately. “It was enough for me to have kicked your ass.”
Heath laughed. “Now you’re just bragging.” He sat down on the ground, keeping his knees raised, and resting his forearms there. “I missed it here. It smells good, doesn’t it? Nothing like the f**king desert. I never want to see sand ever again.”
“No beach vacation for you?” I asked lightly, dropping to the ground beside him. “Damn. I’ll have to cancel that trip to Hawaii I bought you for Christmas.”
““Aw, that’s so sweet of you. But I can’t accept it.” He nudged me with his knee.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, echoing his words from earlier, knowing he would understand I meant about being deployed.
But he gave the same answer I had. “No.”
It didn’t matter. I knew he would tell me when he wanted to or was ready, just like I would. We didn’t need words. I leaned against his shoulder, threading my arm through his. “Then we’ll go to Paris instead.” It was what we used to say, when we were joking about being poor, about the future. It had seemed the truly impossible dream. It still was. But now it didn’t have the bite and longing behind it that it had then. Now it just felt… unnecessary.
“I think we should stay here. Forever. It’s the only place I don’t feel trapped.”
Which was horribly ironic because Vinalhaven had always been the one place I did feel trapped.
But it was different now. I couldn’t explain why. Maybe because I was an adult. Or almost an adult. Maybe because my mother and her pitiful wandering were gone. Because there wasn’t a house full of wary foster siblings. I wasn’t sure why. But it felt less suffocating now.
Maybe it was just because instead of running away from Vinalhaven, I had run to it, and while I could have been sobbing into ice cream in my room back at school, I was instead sitting out by the water. Feeling okay.