Chapter 15 Eleven Years Earlier #2
I bring my lips to his, cutting off his words.
His lips are so soft, so pliant under my own as I kiss him gently, careful not to hurt the split in the corner of his mouth.
His hands grip my hips tighter and heat floods to my core like a pool of lava as Zayn gently deepens the kiss, tentatively exploring as he runs his warm tongue along the seam of my lips.
I melt into him. My chest moulds to his, and I slip deeper into his lap as I mirror his movements and send my tongue to meet his.
A shiver erupts down my spine. I can’t hear a thing over the whoosh of blood in my ears.
My skin feels hot, so hot that I get a sudden overwhelming urge to take layers of clothes off, but I don’t.
Instead, I wrap my arms tighter around Zayn’s neck until he can’t pull back from my grasp even if he wanted to, and before I know I’m even doing it, my tongue thrusts it’s way into his mouth.
Oh my God. This is happening. My first kiss.
It is even better than anything I could have ever imagined.
Amongst all the sorrow that weighs heavy between us, my heart tries to soar, fluttering so hard with little bursts of happiness that I can’t tell which feeling wins out.
In fact, as I start to unwittingly rock my pelvis against Zayn’s lap, I’m so overcome with emotion I can feel the pricks of tears behind my eyes.
What the heck is happening to me?
Shocked, I pull away from Zayn and we are both panting as though we just finished running cross-country. We stare at each other wide-eyed, and I put my hands on his chest to steady myself.
“Gia, are you okay?” He asks, and it takes me a moment to realise the concern in his pinched brows is caused by the fact I have tears leaking down my face.
“Oh my God,” I gasp, rushing to wipe my cheeks with the sleeve of my jumper.
“Yes, I’m okay. More than okay.” I sob through the now full-blown tears overflowing from my eyes.
“I’m crying because… I’m… happy?” I sob, and it doesn’t even sound convincing to my ears.
Zayn pulls back further and his hands move from my hips to my shoulders as he tries to steady me on his lap.
He ducks his head to look up into my eyes. “Are you sure?”
‘Yes,” I nod. “I think. It feels weird to be happy when you look like this.” I reach up and cradle his face. “I’m also sad.”
His jaw tightens under my palm as he turns away. “I hate that he ruined our first kiss for you.”
Panic floods me. “No.” I pull his face back to mine. “Nothing could ruin that. That kiss was…” My voice dies off as I struggle to find the words for how great that kiss was. My hands are still shaking from the intensity of it.
“I know,” he says, pulling me into his chest as he wraps his arms firmly around my back.
“Incredible,” I finish anyway, with my cheek pressed against his chest and his chin resting on my hair.
“I felt it too.”
We stay like that for a moment before it hits me that I am still very much sitting in Zayn’s lap, and a furious blush stains my cheeks. The lava in my belly hasn’t yet receded; in fact it only heats up more as I take in our positioning and that the only thing separating us there is our clothes.
Doing… that… wasn’t something I ever even thought about before I met Zayn. It was a distant thought. Something I wouldn’t think about until I met the right person.
Since I met Zayn? I’d be lying through my teeth if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind more than a few times.
I move off his lap, take a seat on the desk directly behind me so I face Zayn, my swinging legs between his spread ones.
His gaze hasn’t left my face, and I get the feeling he’s waiting to gauge my reaction to what just happened before he speaks.
Now I find the nerve to be shy, and I avert my eyes to my hands that I grasp in my lap. I don’t have any regrets what-so-ever, but I can’t believe I just did that.
“Now that’s what I call a distraction.”
I look up to find a huge, genuine smile planted on Zayn’s face.
He is smiling so wide I get a rare glimpse of his gorgeous dimples, and as my skin starts to tingle all over, I admit to myself in this moment that I am falling truly, madly, irrevocably in love with this boy, and kissing him just became my new favourite hobby.
Zayn and I have been together for three blissful months when a harrowing sustainability project on deforestation has me vowing to never buy a print copy of a book again.
One afternoon, after complaining all day that I have nothing new to read, Zayn takes me to the local library to borrow books.
While I’m skimming the fiction section for my latest read, Zayn disappears to the front desk to speak to the librarian and comes sauntering back ten minutes later with one of those rare, genuine smiles on his face that shows off his dimples.
“You’re looking at Redwood Library’s newest employee,” he smirks, surprising me by waving employment papers in front of my face, and I can’t help the proud beam that spreads across my lips. “I just asked the librarian if they’re hiring and she employed me on the spot.”
“Awesome! What perks are there to dating Redwood Library’s newest employee?” I ask, wrapping my arms around his torso and tilting my chin up to rest on his chest. “Surely I get to borrow all the newest books first?”
“Among other things I’m sure,” he chuckles, running his fingers through my long ponytail and ducking his head for a kiss.
Zayn doesn’t say it, but I know what getting a job means to him.
Suddenly he has his own money, albeit not much as he only works on weekends.
But he no longer needs to rely on his mum to remember to buy groceries before she spends her entire welfare cheque on drugs and alcohol.
He has a little bit more stability in his life.
He buys a new school uniform. He starts coming to school with a packed lunch.
He wears shoes that aren’t falling apart.
It isn’t much, but I can see the difference in him, and it makes my heart swell with pride.
It also means I can spend my weekends hanging with him at the library, and my parents are none the wiser thinking I’m studying extra hard for my upcoming exams.
In reality, I’m talking Zayn’s ear off while he puts returned books away, gossiping quietly in the bean-bag corner with Anna while I wait for Zayn to finish his shift. Or, my favourite times are when Zayn pulls me into a quiet corner and kisses me senseless while no one else is around.
“Remember when I said there would be perks to dating Redwood’s Library’s newest employee?” he says to me late one Saturday afternoon while I’m helping him put the last of his books away.
“I’m not dating Redwood Library’s newest employee,” I laugh as I reach up to return one of my old favourite Enid Blyton books to its rightful place.
“Unless I started dating Ben without realising it?” I nod down the aisle toward Ben, who started three weeks after Zayn and is currently vacuuming the floor with even less enthusiasm than me during one of mum’s cooking lessons.
“Ben wishes.” Zayn rolls his eyes with a grin. “Come.”
He pulls my hand and leads me down the aisle with a finger pressed to his lips, telling me to be quiet. I was being quiet, we are in a library for Christ’s sake. I can’t hold back my grin at his rare display of playfulness. I love my broody, mercurial Zayn, but I absolutely adore playful Zayn.
He stops when we’re two aisles over and turns to face me, backing me gently against the bookshelf.
“What are these perks you speak of?” I breathe, tilting my chin up to meet his dark eyes. Chills erupt over my skin when he reaches up and cups my face with his warm palm.
“I get to kiss my girlfriend amongst some of the most romantic words ever written,” he murmurs quietly, as he tilts his head down to mine like it doesn’t shake me to core to hear him call me his girlfriend for the first time ever.
Of course I know that’s what I am, but to hear it is a bliss so high it sends me to another planet.
“This is the poetry aisle,” he continues on a breath.
“We’re surrounded by people who wrote the words that describe how I feel about you. “
My heart thumps wildly in my chest as Zayn draws closer.
“Oh? Like who?” I ask, my words breathy as I focus on Zayn’s soft, full lips.
“Shakespeare. E.E. Cummings.”
“Cummings, eh?” I grin, and Zayn’s eyes flash mischievously in response. Playful Zayn is my new favourite. “What did Cummings have to say?”
“I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart. I am never without it. Anywhere I go you go, my dear, and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling.”
His voice is barely a whisper as his lips lightly graze against mine. I close my eyes as the tips of our noses touch. Shivers coat the bare skin of my arms as Zayn’s hands slowly, gently trace their way up.
“Tell me more.” I whisper into his lips.
“One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours?” He whispers back, “I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing you are my life.”
Before I have a chance to respond, his hands finish their ascent, gently holding my shoulders in place as he kisses me softly, our lips moulding perfectly against each other. It only lasts a moment before he pulls back again.
“If I know what love is, it is because of you.”
My face feels wet, and it’s only now I realise tears are flowing freely down my cheeks. I am in a dream that I never want to wake from.
“One more,” I say, my voice sounding shaky at best.
“I knew I loved you before I met you. I think I dreamed you into life.”
I pull back and my watery eyes fly open to see Zayn’s grinning face staring back at me. “You idiot,” I laugh, shoving him playfully in the chest. “I don’t remember reading poems by Savage Garden in English Lit. And now I’m going to have that song stuck in my head all day.”
“What?” He chuckles darkly as he tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s a classic.”
“Regardless,” I look up into his eyes and pulled him closer by his hips.
He obliges easily. “I feel like you’re trying to tell me something.
” My heart rate picks up even further until I’m sure he can see it pumping beneath the swell of my breast. He only tilts his head forward, the inky black strands of his hair falling haphazardly over his brow.
Without a doubt, his next words are the most romantic words I have ever, and will ever hear.
“I am trying to tell you something, Gianna. I love you.”