CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Avonlea – Twelve Years Ago
Ishould’ve broken up with Ian before coming to Skye because it’s been a tortuous six weeks trying to keep myself from kissing Jamie. But I didn’t want to be the one wishing there could be more with him all summer while he had some girl back in America…
Yet, here I am, still wishing there could be more but not feeling right about ending things with Ian over the phone. Not that we’ve spoken much, since he’s been at rugby camp most of the summer.
I know Jamie wants to kiss me too. It’s clear in the way he looks at me. Even Grannie has noticed, considering her warning of putting an end to us spending so much time together if she finds out there’s been any funny business going on.
Noted.
She does know about Ian, though she disapproves and had words with Mum and Dad when they mentioned it before leaving.
She and Papa have always been old-fashioned, bordering on archaic.
Mum told me she never officially dated in secondary school because they forbade it.
Not that she didn’t sneak off with boys. She just hid it from them.
She and Dad never wanted that for our relationship, so they’ve always had an open-door policy with me. They want me to feel comfortable telling them anything. And I do.
I told them about Jamie’s and my kiss two summers ago. They’ve known about every boy I’ve dated since and met them all. They’d rather know what I’m doing than have me hiding it.
But Grannie and Papa… They only tolerate the amount of time Jamie and I spend together each summer because Mum and Dad insist they’re okay with it, and because they respect Aileen and Angus.
As soon as Jamie told Angus that I was planning on attending culinary school, he took it as a personal challenge to get me ready. He’s had me in the kitchen almost as much as Jamie has had me out on adventures—much to poor Jamie’s chagrin.
It’s been fun to be part of the kitchen and the other staff knows me now and don’t seem to mind having me as a sort of apprentice.
Today Angus has me helping with the Scotch Pies and left me to get the dough ready. I’m rolling it out on the worktop when the door behind me squeaks open and Jamie walks in.
My face flushes red hot at the sight of him in a fitted T-shirt and running shorts, and a grin cracks wide across my face. It’s an instantaneous reaction, uncontrollable, just like the butterflies I feel in my stomach.
His green eyes sparkle under the fluorescent lights of the kitchen as they take me in, and then he barks out a laugh. I’ve stopped missing the boyish chuckles—because this manly laugh is something that reverberates through my entire body.
“What?” I ask, hands going to my hips.
His strides are sure as he closes the distance between us, continuing to laugh. He stops just in front of me, making me look up to keep our eye contact, and then lifts both hands to my face.
On the outside, I freeze, but everything inside me goes haywire at his proximity, his touch. His palms frame my face and his thumbs gently brush across my cheekbones in a caress that makes me melt.
His smile is tilted up on just one side now. When he pulls his hands away, there’s flour dusted over the pads of both thumbs. I turn the same color of his hair and bite my lip, tasting flour there too. I must really be a mess.
“Did you lose a fight with a bag of flour or did I miss a food fight?” His voice is low and a little rough.
“Har har,” I mock-laugh back at him, but I can barely breathe. He’s so close. So so close.
“Ah, come on, Avi. I’m just kidding. You look cute.”
Tingling warmth floods my system. Cute isn’t hot, but it’s a compliment from Jamie nonetheless.
“Cute, huh?” I ask, and surreptitiously reach behind me to swipe my hand through the flour on the counter. Before he can react, I smear the white powder across his face and feel a zip of added excitement when my fingers trail lightly over his lips.
They pop open in shock, the white smeared across them.
Then he moves. I try to dodge away, but he’s too fast, one arm snaking around my waist to restrain me and the other reaching behind me to the same pile of discarded flour.
He brings his fingers right in front of my face and I watch them—waiting.
“Don’t. You. Dare.” I emphasize each word, but even with my impending doom, I can’t stop smiling. His smile is wide too, his eyes bright and his excitement all too palpable.
He brings his fingers together and then flicks them. I squeeze my eyes shut as the dusting of flour hits my face. In the fleeting moment while they’re closed, I feel his mouth on mine.
The kiss is hot and fierce. The press of his lips and his body are the only things I can feel. I never want it to stop, but he pulls away and it’s over as fast as it began.
“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have.” His breaths are ragged as he steps away. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, Avi.”
I reach for him, but he takes another step back. Puts as much distance between us as the kitchen will allow until he’s bracing his hands on the far counter, the skin stretched over his knuckles glowing.
“Jamie…” I don’t know what to say. My body is vibrating from just that simple kiss and my mind can’t catch up.
“I’m sorry, Avi.” He shakes his head, looking down at his shoes before raking both hands through his hair and weaving streaks of flour through it.
“It’s… it’s okay.” My body finally figures out it can move and I take a step toward him only to have his head snap up to look at me and stop me in my tracks.
“It’s not okay. You have a boyfriend. God, I shouldn’t… I lost my mind there for a second or something. We can just pretend it didn’t happen. Just forget it. Aye?”
I should tell him I wanted him to kiss me, take on some of the blame. It’s not all his fault when I was flirting first. When I started it. But before I can even get a word in, he walks out of the kitchen.
Under my breath, I finally get the words out: “I don’t want to forget it happened.”
And I don’t. Even when he acts like he has.
For our last three days together, we don’t touch and we don’t talk about the kiss. He hugs me on the final day before I get in the car to leave, but it’s different. It’s perfunctory, restrained. Nothing like the hug I want from him. Nothing like the kiss I wish he could give me.
As we drive away, I tell my parents everything, and by the time we get home, I’m ready to break things off with Ian.
Never has a single one of his kisses made me feel the way Jamie’s did.
Even at sixteen, I know I don’t want to settle for one thing if what I really want is something else, and it’s not fair to Ian either.
I resolve to be single next summer no matter what, and I’ll just have to hope Jamie is too… And maybe, just maybe, we can finally have more than one kiss.