holding back because his knowing about it won’t change it. I’m protecting him.
But it still sucks.
Around twelve thirty or so, his window suddenly jerks open. I’m so startled — I’d been half asleep — that I almost fall off the roof, but a strong arm grabs me and hauls me back over the edge.
“Hi there,” Tucker says brightly, like we’re bumping into each other on the street.
“Uh, hi.”
“Nice night for stalking,” he observes.
“No. I was—”
“Get your butt in here, Carrots.”
I climb awkwardly into his room. He puts on a T-shirt and sits cross-legged on the bed, looking at me.
“It’s not stalking if you’re happy to see me?” I suggest tremulously.
“How long have you been out there?”
“How long have you known I was there?”
“About an hour,” he says. He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re a crazy girl, you know that?”
“I’m starting to figure that out about myself.”
“So why are you really here?” He pats the spot on the bed next to him, and I sit. He slings an arm around me.
“I wanted to see you,” I say as I curl into his side. “It was a long and lonely weekend and I didn’t get to see you much at school today.”
“Oh, right. How was camping? I don’t think I’ve ever been camping in the snow,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Sounds chilly.”
“It wasn’t exactly in the snow.” Then I tell him about the congregation. Not everything, exactly, not about hell or the Black Wings or Mr. Phibbs as an angel-blood, but I tell him most of it. I know my mom wouldn’t approve. Christian wouldn’t approve. Of course Angela wouldn’t approve. The congregation is confidential, she said, like I should take this entire weekend and put a big old CONFIDENTIAL stamp across it.
I tell him anyway. Because I’m not ready to set up my own secret identity just yet, not from Tucker. Because the one thing I know for sure is that I love him. Because if I’m honest about one thing it makes me feel slightly better about not telling him about other things.
He takes the news of the congregation pretty well.
“Sounds like church camp,” he says.
“More like a family reunion,” I say.
He leans over and kisses me, a soft, featherlight kiss that only catches the side of my mouth, but still leaves me breathless.
“I missed you,” he says.
“I missed you, too.”
I curl my arms around his neck and kiss him, and everything goes away but this moment, his lips on mine, seeking, his hands in my hair, drawing me in, our bodies together on the bed, realigning to get closer, his fingers on the buttons of my shirt.
I can’t let him die.
“You’re so warm,” he murmurs.
I feel warm. I feel like I could burst into flame, simultaneously light and heavy, and time is slowing down, like I am seeing everything frame by frame. Tucker’s face hovering above my own, a tiny mole just below his ear that I never noticed before, the shadows we’re making on the ceiling, the dimple appearing in his cheek as he smiles, the way his heartbeat is speeding up, his breath. And I can feel what he’s feeling too, on the edges of my mind: love, the way he thrills to the feel of my skin under his hands, my smell filling his head—
“Clara,” he says, breathing hard as he pulls away.
“It’s okay,” I say then, drawing his head down to mine again, pressing my cheek to his, our lips not quite touching, our breath on each other’s faces. “I know you have your ideas about this, and I think that’s sweet, but. . what if this is all the happiness we get? What if this is our chance, before everything changes? What if this is it? Shouldn’t we just. . live?” This time when we kiss, it’s different. There’s an urgency that wasn’t there before. He pauses to pull his shirt over his head, revealing all that golden brown skin, his rodeo/farm/work hard-physical- labor-all-his-life muscles. He’s beautiful, I think, so crazy beautiful it almost hurts to look at him, and I close my eyes and lift my arms over my head and let him take my shirt off too. The cool air hits my skin, and I shiver, I quake, and Tucker runs his calloused fingertips gently along the top of my shoulder, strumming over my bra strap, across the line of my collarbone and up my neck, ending below my chin where he tips my head up to kiss me again.
This is really going to happen, I think. Me and Tucker. Right now.
My heart is beating so fast, skimming more than beating, like a hummingbird’s wings in my chest, my breath coming in shudders like I’m cold, like I’m scared, but I’m neither. I love him. I love him, I love him — the words have a pulse of their own.
Suddenly he freezes.
“What?” I whisper.
“You’re glowing.” He sits up abruptly.
