Heart Waves (7 page)

“Damage control.
My mom wanted to know why I wasn’t with Grace.” I patted the lounge next to me for him to sit.

Reece settled himself on the side of the chair, his feet planted firmly on the ground facing me. “Don’t think I forgot,” he had a smug look on his face.

“Forgot what?” I asked innocently.  

“That you haven’t answered me. What’s the real reason you didn’t want to go out with me tonight.”

“Okay, fine,” I felt annoyed he wouldn’t just let it drop.
“Your girlfriend.
I mean ex-girlfriend.” I rolled my eyes. “I know you want her back. I felt it. And I don’t want to be a summer rebound you use to get over her.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you.” He sounded sincere, like he really meant what he said. But I wasn’t that gullible. After all, he was Mike’s friend.

“And I have your word on that right?” I smirked.

He sat silent for a minute, but I could see in the look of consternation he wore, the wheels of his mind spinning.

“Haven’t you ever been wrong? I mean with the fortune telling?”

I pressed my lips tight into a thin line and shook my head. “I honestly don’t know. No one ever comes up and says, ‘you suck,’ or ‘you got it all wrong.’  Except for that jerk who cheated on his girlfriend. And clearly I hit the nail on the head with that one.”

We both smiled at the memory.

“I don’t normally predict things, just lottery numbers thirty seconds before they’re picked. Usually it’s what’s going on with the person at the moment, like what they’re feeling, or things about their character.”

He took a deep breath before asking me the next question. His eyes were downcast as he twisted the ring on his finger. “Have you ever found yourself involved in the reading?
A part of it?
The way you were in mine?”

“Never.
That was the first time.”

“Is it possible you were overwhelmed by whatever you felt and misinterpreted it?” His solemn eyes turned playful. “After all, I seem to have that effect on you,” he joked.

I didn’t answer immediately. I knew what he wanted to hear, but I couldn’t give it to him. “No.”

“Can the future change?”  

“I guess. I’m no expert, and besides, there’s no exact science to it as far as I know.”

He pulled the ring off his finger, reached for my hand and placed it in my palm. My heart zoomed in the erratic way it did every time we made contact. I closed my eyes and felt
a healing
warmth spreading throughout my body, affection and compassion, an overabundance of love and happiness.
Perfection.

I felt myself tremble as my skin tingled against it, an undying attraction and blinding flames burning fiercely. I couldn’t keep myself from
smiling,
I never felt anything so pure, or magnificent.

The ring itself seemed to be charged with white electricity, blinding and dangerous, lethal.
Overwhelming fear.
Searing pain.
Indescribable, life-altering heartache.

I opened my eyes. My vision blurred from squeezing them so tight. I handed him back the ring.

“Well?” he asked anxiously.

“It’s the same.”

“It can’t be.” He argued. “I don’t want anything to do with Rebecca.”

I nodded. “That part changed. But the end result is the same.” I searched for a way to simplify it quickly. “The pain and sadness are still there.
Only stronger.
As if they’ve been magnified.”
    

He covered his face with his hands and rubbed his forehead. “That doesn’t sound like Romeo and Juliet.”

“I didn’t know you were looking for a love story. If you are, that might not be the one you want to emulate,” I tried to joke.

He reached for my hand and rubbed it between both of his. I didn’t realize I felt a chill, until he sent a heating rod through my body just by holding my hand.

“What if the heartache is because you’re fighting this, whatever is going on between us, so hard?”

“I’m being safe. Smart.” I argued.

“How do you figure?” He sounded exasperated.

“You saw me and you thought I could distract you,” I said with more attitude than I should have.

“Sort of.”
He looked down, and then focused his eyes on mine, captivating me, entrancing me with his hypnotic power. “I saw you and something happened. I don’t know exactly what, or how to explain it. Your eyes burned into mine. I felt like you looked into my soul and knew everything about me. From that moment, Rebecca began to fade.”

He could talk a good game. I had to tread
carefully,
I so wanted to believe him.

“You asked Mike about me and he said you had no shot. He threw the gauntlet down, you accepted. Game on.”

He shook his head, “There is no game.”

“Where Mike and guys are concerned, there is always a game.”

“What kind of guys have you gone out with? Is that why I make you so nervous?”

“You don’t make me nervous.” I lied.

“Really?
Because every time I touch you, you flinch. Last night you had a full-blown panic attack when you thought I would kiss you.”

“I did not.” Deny, deny, deny.

“So then it doesn’t bother you when I get close to you?” he asked, moving from his lounge onto the side of mine.

I moved over to the edge, as far as I could without falling off.

“Of course it doesn’t,” I snickered knowing he would see through my lie.

“And if I want a better look at your face,” he took one hand off mine, and leaned forward to brush my hair back behind my ear, making me shudder. “You are perfectly fine with that, too?”

Déjà vu.
I had to hold it together. I didn’t want him to win. No matter how good it felt to be with him or how wonderful he promised to be, I knew in the end when he left my life, it would tear me up, shred my heart, and I didn’t want to feel that pain.

With only inches between us, he searched my eyes in silence. Neither of us moved. His eyes dropped to my lips and I saw him moving closer. Before I had time to panic or protest his lips brushed ever so softly against mine.

“And if I kiss you,” his voice, full of seductive allure, was a little more than a whisper, “you’re perfectly fine.”

But I wasn’t perfectly fine and he knew it. Every cell of my body woke and yearned for more. More tingling and heat from his hands, more of the brilliant sparks of light he just caused, all out more.

He knew I wouldn’t want to stop at just a tender brush of his lips. That was his point. He wanted to prove once he roused the sleeping dragon within, I’d be hungry, ravenous for more. And he was right.

I lifted my head and decided to meet his lips again. He didn’t let me. Reece pulled away just enough to keep the slightest bit of distance between us. My heart stung like he squeezed and wrung it with his hands. Disappointment flashed across my face or in
my eyes, because his lips curled into a soft smile. He found the reaction he’d been looking for and looked smug again.       

“What if you give me a chance, give us a chance to see what happens?” he whispered over the cricket chorus, his forehead leaning against mine. “What if we go out? Just you and me, on one date, and see what happens.”

I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to. I lost the will to fight; I just wanted to surrender. I didn’t want to flee from his arms. I wanted them wrapped tight around me. I didn’t want to turn from his lips, I wanted to possess them. No matter how precarious I thought our future together was, I wanted to live it, to feel every nuance of it.

“Okay, fine. I’ll go out with you.”

The doorbell rang. I didn’t know which way to run. Reece stood on the other side the door, and while I’d been wild with anticipation since the previous evening, thinking of nothing else, I knew this would be my last chance to turn and walk away.
My last chance to keep my heart from breaking.
I just couldn’t decide which was stronger, my need for self-preservation, or my overwhelming desire to be with him.

Frozen with indecision, I did nothing until my father let him in and I darted into the bathroom for a quick, last minute, once over.

What does one wear for a Sunday afternoon first date? I hoped my white tee shirt and denim
skort
were okay. I didn’t want to be underdressed, and I had absolutely no idea where we were going. And my hair! I pulled it up one last time, just to let it fall again past my shoulders. I felt as ready as I could be.

“Jenna,” my father called.

I walked down the half flight of steps leading from the upstairs bedrooms to the main floor, and then another half flight to the lower level where Reece stood in hall speaking with my dad.

As our eyes met I realized I’d never seen him in bright daylight before. Every time we’d been together, it had been at night, under the moon and stars, or dim lighting. Seeing him with the rays of the sun splaying through the door behind him, he appeared to be a celestial offering.

For a moment I lost my voice. He looked so striking and perfect in his khaki shorts and v neck tee, every hair in place, his eyes shining.      

“Hi,” I said breaking up the conversation, and glad to do so before my father started his, “Do you mind if I run a security check on you,” spiel. 

“Hello.” He smiled and I felt the room brighten.

I liked the approving look in Reece’s warm honey eyes as they fell on me. I didn’t realize until now the full intensity of his eyes, or how they could make me melt.

“Any idea when you’ll be home?” my father asked.

“I’ll have her home by nine, sir,” Reece answered, shaking my father’s hand.

Nine o’clock, that gave us six hours all by ourselves. Six hours for a first date!  All of a sudden my chest felt heavy. I tried not to panic. How were we going to fill that much time?

“Ready?” Reece turned his attention back to me and smiled again, easing my anxiety and setting my pulse racing.

“Ready,” I agreed. What reason did I have to delay? Why not just jump, take the free fall and hope it wouldn’t leave me splattered on the cement like a raw egg? It was time to go for it and enjoy the thrill rising inside me.

*                       *                       *

Reece pulled his seatbelt down into the buckle, “We’re going to have a great time. I promise.” He started the car and pulled away.

I didn’t respond. I looked over at him, and wondered at what point exactly I relinquished my control. He looked so arrogant and full of himself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked glancing over, his smile fading. “You look upset.”

“Nothing.”
I had to think quickly and throw a wrench his way to wipe that look of triumph off his face. “But, last night you proved I can’t trust you.”

His brow creased and became serious again.
“How?”

“What happened to, ‘You have to tell me you want it?’”

His eyes scrunched up, his lips pursed together. I stared thinking he looked incredibly sexy. I waited for him to catch on.

“Oh, the kiss?”
He grinned, like I just told a really funny joke.

“Yes the kiss.” I tried my hardest to mimic his voice, sound angry, and keep a straight face all at the same time, and failed miserably.

“That was hardly a kiss,” he countered.

“Our lips touched, it counts,” I went back at him, biting my bottom lip to try and keep from smiling.

He shook his head. “Seriously, if that’s what you consider a kiss, you are in for quite a surprise.”

Wonderful.
Now I had images racing through my head, and heat surging through my body. I should have kept quiet. While Reece’s mouth kept moving, I couldn’t hear what he said, I just imagined his lips on mine and how much better his idea of a kiss would be than what we shared the previous evening.

“The point is you gave your word.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” He paused. “That was when I thought you were physically afraid of me.”

“All that counts is you went back on it.”

He still looked amused. “It’s a simple misunderstanding. You think it was a kiss, I think it was a tease, a preview, like a movie trailer. It doesn’t count.”

A coming attraction?
Was he for real? Did girls really buy into this? If I were any indication, the answer was clear: absolutely!

“Of course it counts,” I couldn’t just let him off the hook, or acknowledge I couldn’t wait for the main feature.

“I said that because you were shaking,” he began to explain. “And the closer I got, the more nervous you seemed. I wanted you to feel safe and secure.” 

I shifted in my seat serious once again. “What changed?”