Hot
Summer was flying by. I almost wanted it to run out of steam so I could sit in these moments longer. But the faster the days, the sooner I was out from under my dad’s roof.
I was coming into my own and he still looked away from me. He didn’t want to see his daughter grow up. But he couldn’t stop life. He couldn’t stop mine and he couldn’t stop me anymore.
He shut himself in his bedroom a lot—his new office—and one morning, after my shower, I heard the sounds of Mom’s favorite country songs coming low from behind the door.
Dad was deathly quiet, and I tried to imagine his big smile—like during our dancing moments that were without depth but still those only smiles I had—as he gatekept my mom, now with her music, but the memories or the love or the ingrained sympathy had me imagining him in tears. Alone.
Like he’d left me.
I’d cried some more after that big breakdown at the tracks, cocooned under the covers in my bed, and I didn’t always succeed in keeping quiet my sweet-and-sour emotions. I didn’t succeed in keeping quiet about anything anymore, especially in my dad’s silence, that he still gave me, while I soaked my pillow.
I couldn’t attract any of his attention.
So, I dropped my hand from his doorknob.
My first cooking date with Levi and his mom came with my new hair. The products Isolde passed on to me really helped to bring out my curls with much, much less frizz. They were springy, but in a flowy type of way. Soft, not too tight. Not at all sticky or crunchy like I feared the products would make them. And their brown color was darker.
For the first time, I saw my hair as beautiful. I still couldn’t quit touching the strands, but now, with awe. I couldn’t believe that all I needed was some product to make me look so…cute.
This was my makeover moment. The one where no one realized how hot I was until I took off my glasses.
In my real case, though, when I tamed my mane.
I finally knew what it was like to feel myself .
Levi smiled when he saw me in my new do, but it wasn’t exactly a new smile.
His jaw didn’t drop.
He didn’t ask me to be his girlfriend right on the spot.
The scene was wrong.
Music wasn’t playing and I wasn’t moving in slow motion.
In this real case, his reaction anchored more of my instincts.
He liked me. Me. Every me, in every way.
But I still twitched for more. So I prompted him as we walked through his front door. “How does it look? How do I look? Better than great? Like hot?” I was attempting to tease, but pushed way too hard to hear him call me hot . And when we both paused, his steps a few in front of mine, my hand started swatting those invisible bugs in the air. “Nothing.”
A half smile built on his lips as his brows lifted at my word choice. Nothing. Nevermind. Same difference. Blergh.
Then his eyes trailed along my curls, my warm face. “Just as great,” he murmured, then spun on his heels, his response putting a jump in mine as I hurried after him—then almost collided into him as he stopped and added over his shoulder, “And hot. Very hot.” The rasp in his throat raised every hair on my skin, those goosebumps that are always, always from him.
My follow this time was more of a sway, my body hot as I floated through a field of flowers, like the ones Isolde had centered on their kitchen table, inside all the ingredients we needed to make her prized spaghetti squash.
I needed a repeat of that dish, because it took me to Nirvana.
And Levi was right. Keeping chicken wings plain to dip in the sauce was best. Barbecue sauce, stressed specifically. The mouth-gasms were insane, and like my sailing for the first time, he leaned into me, his eyes enthused on my first bite.
Besides those meals, it was Levi who taught me specifics and Isolde who taught me basics. I grew to know their kitchen better than I’d known any of my own, and we shared so much delicious food. Like a full family.
And that was a feeling I needed to keep my heart the most whole it could be when I was ready to make the banana nut bread.
Levi’s mom’s was familiar enough and delicious enough, so it was enough.
Levi and I wanted each other to have the first bite, and we play fought back and forth. But he had to be the taste tester when my determined fingers hovered at his mouth with a piece pinched between them. It was a kiss I wanted to be mine, but I still got to feel his lips when his mouth opened and closed around my fingers to get the bite. And when the moment blinked by, I acknowledged that was the point.
Levi’s lips were soft. Warm. Perfect.
He chewed slowly through his just as soft and warmed and perfect dimple, rolling his tongue to catch a stray crumb, as he sliced into another piece of the bread.
That picture was painted on my brain for days after, nights of dreaming the bread was replaced by my lips, and Levi kissed me right there next to the teal colored oven mitts.
I did say I kind of never wanted to imagine things again that I couldn’t also experience, but I would experience this. I felt it deep, happening somewhere on the horizon.
I was ready for my first kiss, ready for the boy.
Levi.
And there were so many signals passing between the two of us that we both wanted him to be the one to give it to me.
I would occasionally place my fingers to my lips, clinging to the feeling of his from the memory, while I waited for the right moment.
With us, it would manifest itself. They always did.