Our Hearts Knew Better (Our Hearts #1)

More Than Zero

I didn’t see Levi after that day as soon as I’d wanted to. He was still texting me but he still hadn’t come for me.

But it was like he knew I had to see him, because the moment I realized I was waiting again and asked him flat out the next time he’d be wandering, he told me that same night.

Our eyes met the second I popped my head out my window. His breathing was the slightest bit labored as he looked up at me, like he had rushed to get here. Like he had to see me too. So many thoughts seemed to shift along his face, until finally, his mouth stretched into his beautiful smile, and a twinge touched my cheeks for how swiftly I smiled back.

He had a plan for us. A plan he wouldn’t tell me about. He wanted to show me.

I stepped onto the Gilligan like I had that first night, this time sliding my hand into Levi’s when he offered it to me. Ten Decembers was playing. The song was different, but my next breath was shaky smooth the moment I heard Kai Coleman’s croon.

Now I knew Levi saw our favorite band as ours, too, and I was happy I kept them to us.

Making myself at home, I walked to the mini fridge for a soda, guessing he was recreating our first meeting, or just wanted to hang out here again. Which my insides were already giddy over. But when I noticed he wasn’t waiting to do the same or getting comfortable on a bench seat, I froze as my insides felt like they were going to jump through my skin.

Levi was moving around, and I realized as he disconnected the boat from the dock that his plan was something entirely new.

“We can’t sail at night,” I blurted, a question in my voice. And I almost repeated myself, but as more of a reminder, an urge to stop him in my hesitance. I wanted to sail with Levi. Probably more than I’d wanted anything since I first stood in this spot. But sailing at night was dangerous and my head wouldn’t even let me imagine him in any kind of peril.

He had his back to me as he continued to move and prep, and I spied the jolt of his silent laughter. “You don’t have to worry,” he assured me, hearing the feeling, and connecting us with a soft stare to make sure it landed. “We’re not going out far.”

I stepped closer to him as bells rang in my head, a ding-ding-ding for what this meant. “We’re going out,” I blurted again, through an exhale, as the first firework, the first spark of hope I was right lit up inside me.

There was a pause in Levi’s movements, a blink at my words, like he took them a different way, as I suddenly did.

Were there pictures in his head of us dating too? For this moment?

The answer came in the way he connected us with another stare, this one with more weight. In the way he held us like this through so many thuds of my heart before he whispered, “We’re going out.”

Then he walked over to me and added, with his determination, “You should see the fireworks on the bay.”

My heart melted and I wanted to launch myself at him. I wanted him to hug me until his scent fused with mine and I could keep him with me in bed tonight once this moment passed too.

Every moment came and every moment went.

I didn’t want them to go.

Levi smiled, this one like we shared a secret, the curve in his lips so inviting. “It’s a rite of passage.”

My giddiness simmered a laugh out of me, and a shimmy, pulling a laugh out of him. “Won’t we wake people up?”

“My dad thought of that too.” He ducked down then came back up with a firework in each hand as I thought, his dad’s letting us do this . “That’s why I only have two.” His face did that scrunch, when he felt regret or shame, and I quickly assured him.

“That’s more than zero.” I flushed with my appreciation and his lips curved again, that spark in his eyes.

“So your parents know about me?” I asked once Levi returned to prepping.

“Yep,” he said, a forced casualness in his tone that made me snicker.

No way Levi talked about me with his parents.

With the two most important people in his life, he talked about me .

“Good impression?” The nerves in my tone were all natural.

After a stalled moment, when Levi took the helm, he told me, “They love you.” And I shimmied as he steered us a bit farther out on the water.

I watched the first firework after he set it off, a gasp parting my lips as the sky exploded with color.

One color.

Green.

I watched Levi as he set off the second, more shades of green washing over us, the boat, and the water, as Ten Decembers soundtracked this moment. He kept his eyes up, but his throat bobbed the longer I studied him, as I soaked in all these wonderful things he was doing for me. How he remembered even the smallest details, and he didn’t hide from that, even inside his way of being not obvious.

My chest squeezed as I wanted to squeeze him.

So, after the pops and the greens faded out, and we were back in the white bay light, I slid my arm through his, my fingers grazing along his back until my hand rested on his waist. He was both soft and firm as I pressed myself against him.

It was a side hug, but I was still feeling him. I was still letting him know how much this meant to me.

He hesitated in hugging me back, his arm moving up slowly, sending a shiver through my skin, even with the barrier of my shirt.

My reaction pressed me more against him, and that’s when his hand found my hip, heavy and strong and heating me up.

I wondered if I was affecting him in the same way.

He didn’t shiver, but his fingers did dig into me, the slightest bit.

Then he released me with a breath, mine just as big as we returned our hands to ourselves.

“I loved that,” I said, my voice thick, with a beam up at the sky, not sure which I loved most, watching the fireworks with him or having his hand on me.

But they both thrilled my heart the same.

“If you want more, we can do this again,” Levi told me, with a similar thickness in his voice, and that determination that sounded like my no fucks . No fucks given for waking people up if I wanted more fireworks.

What about the touching too? Can we do that again?

I did want more. I wanted it all.

And I was too deep now to ever let this go.