He smirks, his tongue coming out to wet his bottom lip before he says anything. “You’re being nosy again.”
Spinning back around, I flip him off over my shoulder, smiling to myself at his laugh. “You’re supposed to be my BEST friend. You should tell me everything anyway.”
He comes beside me, looping his arm over my shoulder to pull me into his side. “I am.” I eye him, waiting for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “Now, what are we eating?”
“You asked me to meet you, you decide.”
“How about…” He leans down, closer to my ear like he’s telling me a secret, eyeing a man leaning against a giant slushie stand that’s looking our way. “We get subs and sit on the beach while you tell me about the stars.”
“Sounds like a plan, Stan.” His eyes are still on the man when I look at him, and I tap his chest, making him look over at me. “Do you know him?”
He smiles, ignoring my question. “Laney Girl, if you don’t know my name by now, I don’t think we can be friends.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“My name is not Stan.”
I shake my head, pursing my lips through my smile. “You’re dumb.”
After getting our subs, we find a spot on the beach, just far enough away that it’s private, but close enough we can still see. “When do you start work?” I ask around a mouthful, eyeing Jessie next to me. He never elaborated on what he was doing, and that feels odd to me. What could he possibly be doing that he wouldn’t want to tell me? I couldn’t care less what he does for work.
“I already did.” He gestures toward the sky with his head, his eyes catching on my folded legs before meeting my gaze. “I thought you were telling me about the stars.”
With his face turned my way, his back is to the light, and his face is cast in shadows, hiding the blue of his eyes from me. I stare at him, letting myself sink into the comfort of the moment, smiling when he wiggles his brows at my silence. “What do you want to hear about?” I finally ask, wrapping what’s left of my sub to set off to the side.
“Anything. Everything. I just like hearing you talk.”
I smile at his remark, rolling my head back to look at the sky. “How about a story about the moon?” I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t look, keeping my eyes up.
“Perfect.” It’s a deep rumble that vibrates in my chest, warming the spots I only have for him, the heat of his fingers creeping along my skin where they rest near my thigh.
“The moon once had a lover named Keukuatsheu, and every night they would walk the skies together.” I look over at Jessie, smiling before looking back to the stars. “But there was another spirit that was jealous of their love and wanted the moon for himself. So he tricked Keukuatsheu, who left the spirit world in the shape of a wolf, not knowing that he could never come back.” I pause, feeling Jessie’s fingers brush along my leg. “Every night, Keukuatsheu, the wolf, looks up to the sky to see his moon and howls her name. Crying because he loves her, because he misses her, because every night he gets to see her, but no matter how hard he tries, she’s forever out of reach. Forever in his heart but not in his life.”
There’s a silence that stretches between us once I’m done, the lapping of the waves almost too loud for the moment. My innocent story hitting a chord that is still singing a melody I’m not ready to hear. One I’ve already memorized but can no longer sing. “Apparently, I should have stuck with a story about the stars.” I fake a smile, facing Jessie, breath catching in my rib cage when his thumb brushes along the bottom of my lip, just barely tracing the outline.
My fingers dig into the sand, my desperate attempt to reel things back to a manageable level. “Absolutely stunning.” It rumbles out of him like before, the words a grumbled sound of perfection, its vibrations shaking the chords in my chest.
“The story?” I know the answer, but my stupid mouth asks anyway. The thumping of my heart belaying what I already know, begging to hear an answer we shouldn’t care to hear.
“You.” It’s an aching kind of whisper. The kind that tugs at the loose strings of your heart, tightens a lump in your throat that you have to pull out with your teeth just to breathe.
Pulling my face from his touch, I’m immediately seized by the chill in the air, stomach heavy like I swallowed rocks. “Donatello is probably wondering when I’ll be home.”
Jessie’s face turns to stone at my words, his jaw ticking as he turns to grab our trash. I have no reason to feel guilty, but I do, hating the tension suddenly clutching my ankles like dead weights. “Do you need a ride home?” His face is still cold, but he smiles through it.
“No, I drove myself.” He nods, and I reach for my own trash, pulling it from his hand with a smile when he doesn’t willingly give it to me. “But you can walk me to my car.”
“I guess I could do that.” I roll my eyes at him, feet sinking in the sand as I make my way along the beach in the direction I parked. His stare is heavy on my skin, my attempt at changing the mood only slightly successful.
“You’re really going to be in the city for a while?” I ask over my shoulder, pretending I didn’t see Jessie’s eyes on my ass before they raised to mine.
“I am. You can’t
