I dropped my hand and gave her a quick look.
"Levi," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say that."
"What did you mean to say?" I asked quietly. This time, I wouldn't overlook it. This time, I wouldn't swallow down my pride so she didn't feel bad for saying something shitty.
Joss took a deep breath and knit her fingers together in her lap. For a second, she stared down at them, then lifted her eyes up to mine.
"I don't know how I feel." She blinked, shook her head a couple of times. "Right now. On this … date or whatever. I don't know how to feel about the fact that it's you. And you know me better than anyone, Levi."
My hands ached to touch her, to cup her face and pull her into my arms because she looked so miserable as she said it.
"Why do you say that like it's a bad thing?" I asked.
When she didn't answer my earnestly spoken question, I turned and faced her. One arm stretched along the back of the seat, the other hung on the top of the wheel, and between us, the stretch of the seat bench seemed like it was a mile long.
Joss was breathing fast, her lips closed and tight with tension. She was so beautiful, even with the bright sheen of fear and uncertainty surrounding her. Big feelings had always been terrifying to Joss, so her inability to answer right away didn't surprise me. It didn't even really scare me.
I drummed fingers on the steering wheel and took a deep breath. "Because the way I see it, Sonic, there's no way in the world it can be a bad thing." I kept my voice easy, my tone steady, and my body casual and loose. "The worst part of going on a date with someone new is that you have no idea if it's going to be the longest two hours of your life, or if you'll walk out of that dinner feeling like you met the person you're going to marry."
Her eyes watched me, guarded and wary.
Evening sky over the edge of the Smoky Mountains blue.
In that wariness, I knew that this was my moment. Her fear, strange as it might have seemed, was exactly what I needed to feel like I could take a step, just one single step over the clearly defined line of our friendship.
If she'd fallen into our normal rhythms, if she'd acted like herself right away, I might not have felt so certain about what I needed to do.
"So I'll tell you, Jocelyn Marie, I'll tell you exactly why there couldn't be a thing better in the world than the fact that you know me as well as you do and I know you in the same way."
Her throat, elegant and graceful, worked in a visible swallow, but she stayed silent.
"Because you know that when I say something to you, it's the truth, even if it's hard to hear. Even if it scares the hell out of you, you know that I'd rather rip my tongue out than tell you something that's a lie."
She blinked, and her jaw worked back and forth.
I licked my lips and lifted my hand from the back of the seat. Framing her face were a few curls, the ones that escaped the confines of whatever she'd done to it. I touched one, and she held herself so still that I almost smiled. The hair was soft, and the way it coiled around itself made me want to pull it straight just to watch it spring back into place.
Her chest lifted on a sharp inhale while I stared at the one curl.
"Do you know what the first thing was that I noticed about you?" I asked.
Joss shook her head slowly, one short back and forth motion as she held herself in place. Okay, I guess I'd be narrating this one solo.
"It was your hair." I slid my thumb and forefinger along the curl and stretched it gently, smiling when it bounced back. "I remember, like it happened yesterday, seeing you come into the gym that first day. It looked like your hair was exploding from the top of your head."
She exhaled a laugh. That little puff of air had my shoulders relaxing.
"It was your eyes next," I continued. I moved my thumb from her hair to the soft patch of skin underneath the edge of her lower lashes. "I've never, not in my entire life, been as intimidated as I was when you spoke to me the first time and turned those eyes right on me."
"Seriously?" she whispered.
I gave her a self-deprecating smile. "Seriously. Don't you remember the ass-kicking you gave me?"
"Maybe." But her smile, bright and sweet and fast, told me she remembered.
"I was stumbling over my words, couldn't even think of what I wanted to say because I couldn't stop staring. You were so fast, so graceful, so confident, I felt like I had a brick tied to my tongue for all the good it did me."
Joss shifted on the bench, lifting herself up a couple of inches so she could angle her legs toward me. "I don't remember you sounding awkward."
I swallowed. "I asked you out to dinner when we were done playing."
She nodded, her eyes turning sad. "And I said no."
I nodded back. "Do you remember what you said next?"
Her chin tipped up, and she inhaled slowly. "I said I could use a friend, though."
My thumb moved from the skin around her eyes, traced the sculpted edge of her high cheekbone, then touched the soft downy lobe of her ear, which made her shiver. She was so soft everywhere.
"Being your friend has been the greatest part of my life," I told her. "And even though I very much wanted to take you out for dinner just like this
