Chapter 24
EVERETT
O h no.
For a little bit, I’d managed to forget the tension. Daring Jahnvi to do something had helped everything feel like old times again. We were lost in the competition and all was good. But then of course I had to ruin it.
“Oh, um.” Jahnvi fought for words as she noticed how close I was. I had managed to keep myself from squishing her by bracing a hand on either side of her shoulders. I loomed over her.
“Oh! I am so sorry,” I whispered. Speaking at a normal volume didn’t seem right in this context because I knew that the little puffs of air I was exhaling in the middle of my words were falling on her lips.
And I knew she was aware of it too.
How could I tell? Because she was staring. She was staring right at my lips.
That did it. All of the weird, confusing feelings I’d felt when she was painting my nails came roaring back. My chest and lower stomach lit on fire and my eyes couldn’t keep looking into hers.
I felt myself look at her lips too.
I saw her throat move as she gulped nervously. That action shook me awake; it made me realize how nervous she was. Nervous means uncomfortable, right? And it would be very rude of me to make anyone uncomfortable. I blinked and looked away at the grass.
Holy, shit. What was I doing?
“I am so, so sorry Jahnvi. Here, let me...” As I moved my hand away from her shoulder in an attempt to get back up, she grasped my wrist with her hand. She was keeping me in place.
Jahnvi seemed surprised at the movement too. She looked back up at me, her eyes wide with a mix of fear, excitement, and disbelief. She was holding me in place, and she was also looking at me expectantly.
She was waiting for me.
And, when she noticed that I was too frozen to do anything, she did it for me.
Her chest rose and pressed against mine a little as she took a big breath. Her hand rose and cupped my cheek. I felt her hand tremble a little.
My heartbeat was so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else.
Using her elbow, she rose up to meet me but stopped right when we were close enough to feel the warmth radiating off our faces. By that time, my eyes had closed and all I could feel and hear was her soft breaths.
Was it finally happening—?
“James! You out here man?”
I felt Jahnvi’s entire body jerk under me as someone called out. We were behind my truck, and the voice was coming from the other side, so we were hidden for now. My eyes snapped open and I jumped up and walked away from Jahnvi and toward the voice.
I could feel her warmth slowly retract from my body.
One of the owners wanted to talk to me about finalizing the amount of supplies I needed for the order. From what I gathered, some problem had happened with his supplier, and he was running short on turmeric powder.
But my mind was far, far away.
Losing the warmth of her body that quickly was...disappointing. She’d almost kissed me at that moment and every single little daydream that I’d had about her and her lips had almost become a reality. That realization made my brain feel fuzzy.
I had been that close.
“...that make sense?”
“Uh. Yeah. Got it, understood. Thanks,” I said and smiled, trying to hide the fact that I had not paid attention to a single word he’d uttered. Turning around, I found that Jahnvi had already gone inside again.
I exhaled and kicked at some mushrooms growing out of the grass.
Jahnvi had her back turned to me when I stepped inside the humid storage room. She was pretending to read the label of a sack on the ground. I could tell she was pretending because she was holding the label upside down.
I grabbed another sack, trying to make my footsteps as loud as possible without it being obvious. She was well aware of my presence; she was just choosing not to acknowledge me.
I wanted her to acknowledge me.
No, I needed her to acknowledge me.
But what was I supposed to say? What magical word or sentence was I supposed to think of that would miraculously make her want to come running back? How was I supposed to erase the past five minutes?
I cleared my throat and looked up at her. Nope, she was still focused on her upside-down label. I closed my eyes, disappointed, and willed the words to come to me.
“The last time we kissed, why did you ignore me the day after?” I asked, my hoarse voice barely audible over the loud furnace.
I didn’t exactly know why I was asking this, of all things.
I should have been telling her how for weeks after the kiss, I had gone to bed thinking of her.
I should have been telling her that when she wore that red ribbon, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
I should have been telling her that when Anthony made up rumors in the ninth grade about her being a “weirdo stalker” and made her cry, I tripped him in the hallway and broke his nose.
But this was the question my mind decided to choose.
Jahnvi was quiet for a second before scoffing, her back still to me. “Seriously?”
“Well yeah. I...well you already know how I feel about you,” Oh SHIT I just went there; just keep talking, “And I think I know how you feel about me too. So, why didn’t you put your insults away for one day?” I finished with a stronger tone.
“Because I was damn near crying.” Jahnvi finally turned, her eye contact causing my heart to leap out of my chest. Her cheeks had turned a brilliant shade of pink that showed even against her brown skin, “A-are you kidding, Everett? You don’t remember?”
“Remember what ?”
She turned away again, crossing her arms and looking up at the ceiling, “You were all over Tammy that afternoon . God! I don’t even remember what I was going to tell you, but I walked into the cafeteria, and you were practically sitting in her lap.”
And I kissed Tammy that evening . Of course, I couldn’t tell her that.
Jahnvi faced me again, eyes with fresh tears.
“Do you know how that made me feel? After my first fucking kiss? You make me want to”—She wiped her tears, groaning—“to choke you to death! Of course I like you; I think I’ve known for a very long time.
But you never make it easy. You look at me like I’m the light of your life one minute, but then you have a new girlfriend the next.
Everett, I’ve never had a boyfriend! You make me feel so. ..gross.”
“Jahnvi—”
“Gross, ugly, creepy.” She was crying hard now. “I’m such a loser, huh? The guy I’ve liked for years will date every girl in our grade except me. Girls like Rose too. Skinny, tall, blond. So, you tell me! Why don’t you want me?”
Silence.
Because, how the fuck was I supposed to answer that question? If only she knew everything I was feeling.
She sobbed again, and without thinking, I engulfed her in my arms. I was hugging her. And to my surprise, she hugged me back.
People might argue that engulf is the wrong word since she only came up to my chest. Her arms only covered a small portion of my waist. But engulf was the perfect word to explain her hug.
The warmth radiating from her body that I had felt before was slowly spreading across my chest. She fit inside my arms in such a perfect way.
I closed my considerably larger arms around her shoulders, pressing her against my chest. Bending myself down, I brought my face close to her ear since resting my head on her shoulder was too far of a bend.
I exhaled, my mind going haywire as I felt her squeeze even harder around my waist and press her face deeper into my chest.
She felt amazing.
But Jahnvi was Jahnvi and she pushed me away after a few steadier breaths. “I’m still waiting on an answer.”