Chapter One #2
When he slid onto the blanket beside me, he didn’t say a word. He just pressed his cold knee against mine, stealing my body heat without asking.
I let him.
“Happy birthday,” I said, my voice lower than I intended.
He smiled, lips barely parted, like he knew I’d been rehearsing it for months. “Thanks,” he said, and leaned in closer.
I waited.
I’d always been good at waiting, but this time it felt like the last second before the starting pistol—a stillness that was pure hunger and terror, all wrapped together.
He reached out and took my hand. Just like that. His fingers were small, but strong, and he squeezed until I looked at him. When I did, he was already grinning.
“Did you think I wasn’t going to find you out here?” he said.
I shrugged. “Could’ve gone either way.”
He rolled his eyes, but didn’t let go. “You’re terrible at surprises,” he said, and I felt myself smiling, despite everything.
Maybe so. But there was one left.
I let my free hand drift to my back pocket, feeling the bracelet there, ready. I didn’t pull it out yet. There would be a right moment.
And I’d know it when it came.
Levi sat so close, I could count every pale freckle on the bridge of his nose.
The river ran thick with yesterday’s rain, and morning sunlight caught on its surface, flicking silver patterns up onto his face.
He sipped coffee from the thermos I’d brought, cradling the cup between both hands like it was a talisman that might save him from whatever storm was brewing behind his eyes.
He kept glancing at me, quick, almost shy, but the kind of shy you wear after you’ve made up your mind to stop hiding.
We didn’t talk for the first few minutes. I watched the rise and fall of his chest, the anxious tapping of his thumb against the cup, the way his toes curled in his sneakers every time he braced himself to say something and changed his mind.
“You know, most people just do birthday cake,” he finally said, his voice a little hoarse from sleep.
“This is, like, Martha Stewart level.” He gestured at the spread on the blanket: fruit, cold sandwiches, a pile of Levi’s favorite cheese crackers, everything packaged in neat containers.
He smirked, but the compliment was real.
“Martha Stewart’s got nothing on me,” I said, letting my own mouth tilt up in something close to a grin. “I bet she never wrestled a coyote for the last slice of peach pie.”
Levi snorted, then let out a laugh he couldn’t reel back in. The sound made the hairs on my arms stand up. He tucked a strand of sunlight blonde hair behind his ear, then bit down on his lower lip. I watched the edge of his teeth whiten against the pink, then disappear.
“Did you?” he asked, wide-eyed and earnest.
“Not telling,” I said, and he made a face, then looked away. But he was still smiling, and the tension in his shoulders softened, just a notch.
He leaned forward, arms braced around his knees, and rocked back and forth. The wind set the trees whispering overhead, and for a while, all you could hear was the hush of the creek and the steady drum of his foot against the ground.
“You remember the first time you brought me out here?” he said, almost as if he was asking permission.
I nodded.
“It was freezing. I think my balls actually receded into my spleen.”
“They recovered,” I said.
He laughed again, and this time the color rose high in his cheeks. “You made me a fire, then let me sit there by myself for, like, three hours while you—” he looked up at me, a flash of challenge in his eyes “—went and fixed a broken fence.”
“I was giving you space.”
“I know,” he said. “It was weird. Nobody ever did that for me before.”
He didn’t have to say more. I knew exactly how it was to crave quiet, to need space so badly you’d invent emergencies just to escape a room full of people.
Levi wasn’t like that, not really, but he’d had years of living in other people’s noise, so he took to silence like it was an animal you could pet if you were gentle.
He turned his cup in his hands, spinning it slow, so the handle lined up with his thumb every time. He kept doing it, over and over. Not an accident. He wanted me to notice.
He wanted me to ask what was on his mind.
I let the moment stretch until the tension almost snapped. Then, as casual as I could, I said, “You seem nervous. Birthday trauma or something else?”
He swallowed. His throat bobbed. I watched the way the muscle slid under his skin. “Something else,” he admitted, barely audible.
I turned my body to face him, one knee up, forearm draped over it. He mirrored me, which made his knee touch mine. His skin was so warm, it was like he ran a fever only I could detect.
I waited.
He looked up, blue eyes electric in the sunlight. “Are you going to give it to me?” he asked, and my pulse did something it hadn’t done in a decade: it tripped.
I let myself stare for a second too long. “You sure you’re ready for it?” I asked. My voice sounded rough, even to me.
He nodded, adam’s apple jumping. “I think I’ve been ready for a long time.”
I reached into my back pocket and held the bracelet out, the leather curled in my palm like a living thing.
It was nothing fancy—no gemstones or metal, just simple brown leather, the name pressed inside with steady hands and too much care.
He stared at it, the shape of it, then at my wrist, where his own name glimmered in black letters: “Sunshine.”
I caught his hand and pressed the bracelet into it. He didn’t pull away. In fact, he leaned in closer, so our knees touched and our hands overlapped.
“This is yours,” I said. “You can say no. But if you put it on, it means—” I faltered, the words sticking in my throat like they’d never learned to travel that far.
He looked up at me, his mouth parted, soft and hungry. “Means what?”
“Means you’re mine,” I said, flat and certain, like I was stating the weight of a two-by-four or the year the house was built. “Have been, since you walked onto this farm, but only if you want it.”
He didn’t blink. He just stared at me, the moment winding tighter and tighter. Then, with a trembling thumb, he unfastened the snap and wrapped the bracelet around his own wrist. His hands shook, but he got it done, then flexed his arm as if he wanted to make sure it fit.
He stared at the new jewelry on his body for a long time. Then, almost like he was in a trance, he reached out and touched the bracelet on my wrist. His fingers were cold, but the spot where they landed seared.
I saw it the second he decided. His eyes got wet at the edges, but he didn’t look away. “What happens now?” he asked, and there was hope and terror and a thousand other things in his voice.
I closed the distance between us, so close our foreheads nearly touched. I cupped his jaw in my hand, felt the faint stubble along his chin, the barely-there tremor that ran through his body when I pulled him closer.
“Now,” I said, “I kiss you.”
He gasped, but it wasn’t fear. It was more like he’d been holding his breath since the day we met and finally remembered how to use his lungs.
I kissed him. Not tentative, not sweet. I’d waited two years and I wasn’t about to pretend otherwise. He kissed back, desperate, hands clutching the front of my shirt like he was worried I’d change my mind if he let go.
I shifted so he was nearly in my lap, his body fitting against mine in a way that felt both familiar and new. The taste of him was coffee and nervous adrenaline and something bright, something that lived under his skin and was finally, finally allowed out.
When I pulled away, he stared at me, pupils blown wide, lips parted and red. “You okay?” I asked, thumb grazing the side of his neck.
He nodded, so hard his hair fell into his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, voice gone breathless. “Yeah, I’m—fuck. I’m really good, actually.”
I let myself laugh, a low rumble that shook his shoulders. “You want to stop?”
He shook his head, then ducked it so he was hiding against my chest. “Not unless you want to.”
“Not in this lifetime,” I said, and he laughed, muffled against my shirt.
I held him for a while. We didn’t talk. We didn’t have to. The sun kept climbing, and the air got warmer, and the river ran on like it hadn’t just watched two idiots make the best mistake of their lives.
When he finally sat up, he wiped his eyes and tried to glare at me. It didn’t work. He looked too happy.
“So, what do I call you now?” he asked, playful, but also not. He twirled the bracelet around his wrist, letting the name show.
“Same as always,” I said. “Just louder.”
He laughed, then leaned in and kissed me again, quick and sharp. It felt like an electric shock, all the way down to my feet.
After that, we sat together, shoulder to shoulder, picking at cold chicken and watching the sky. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be anywhere but here.
And I knew, for certain, that neither did he.