Chapter 21
PAIGE
· PRESENT DAY ·
Ian tugs me out of his car with a blindfold tied over my eyes. I’ve been wearing it since we left Ian’s apartment, so I’m pretty much as confused about where we are as I am about the state of my emotions.
Despite present company, Jordan pops into my mind for the thousandth time today. We held hands. Three nights ago, Jordan Miller and Paige Devons held hands. What is happening?
Well, nothing.
Nothing is happening, except that I keep remembering the way his fingers threaded between mine and how his thumb caressed my hand. I’d never seen him massage his mother’s hand like that before, and I would be freaked out if he ever did. But daring to think that he was purposefully holding my hand is a dangerous thought, one I’ve tried to steer clear of since leaving his mom’s house. I can’t tell what’s going on in his head, and I know better than to get my hopes up where he’s concerned.
Yes, our fingers may have interlaced, but when we pulled apart, he acted like nothing happened. He’d called me “friend” and noogied me. Noogied me!
It’s no secret that our lives are changing, and maybe taking my hand was Jordan’s way of holding onto the last threads of our friendship before it transforms altogether. Ugh, I don’t know. Jordan and I have known each other for almost seven years. If Jordan really does have feelings for me, I've given him one heck of a runway to get his feelings out into the open.
“Just a few more steps,” Ian says, guiding me with a hand at the small of my back.
I can hear leaves rustling in the wind and feel grass tickling the sides of my sandaled feet. We’re in a forest. I think. But that’s where my detective skills end. My brain is too fuzzy to think any more. Instead, I focus on how hot my skin feels. It’s a mild summer day, but I feel like an egg that’s been boiled and then air-fried. I tug at the hem of my shirt, flapping it discreetly to get some air flowing.
“A huge root is coming up, so make sure and take a big…”
I topple forward, but Ian catches me by my upper arms just before I faceplant.
“Found it,” I say, righting myself and awkwardly laughing off my lack of coordination.
“Sorry, just a few more steps, I promise.” Ian stands behind me and holds onto my upper arms like he’s going to use them to conduct a choir. “Now, reach out your hands.”
My fingers freeze. Suddenly, I feel like I’m on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and he’s telling me to stick my hands into a box of questionable items while my imagination conjures the worst possible outcome. I reach out hesitantly, waiting for my fingers to touch something gross, like a wet diaper, or king crab legs, or a live lizard. Jimmy’s done it all before, so you never know.
Instead, my fingers graze something rough and leathery. Now that I’m somewhat sure it's nothing that will bite me, my hand keeps moving, exploring its curve. It’s a… tire?
Ian takes off my blindfold, and my brain instantly matches the scene before me with one from our past. We’re at the old tire swing behind the library. The one Ian used to push me on after we got our books from our library runs. “Oh, wow,” I say. “I haven’t been back here since…”
Since you cheated on me. Yeah, I wasn’t going to finish that sentence. “This is so…” So much smaller than it used to feel . Gosh, I’m really knocking it out of the park today. “I love swings.” Apparently I’m a conversational genius.
Ian smiles and holds the tire swing to steady it so I can climb in, just like he used to when we were sixteen. It’s a sweet gesture, and I hike up the back of my pants with my belt loop before wiggling inside the hole. And I do mean wiggling. There’s nothing quite like a tire swing to tell you your sixteen-year-old butt is long gone. Eventually, I make it all the way into the swing, keeping a death grip on the rope connecting the tire to the tree.
“Ah! I forgot our books in the car,” Ian says.
“Books?” I ask, suddenly woozy from the climb into the tire.
“We couldn’t come to our tire swing without books, Pages.” He throws me a dashing smile. “I’ll be right back.”
Ian walks to the car, leaving me slowly turning in the swing like a pinata at a seven-year-old’s birthday party. The only problem is this pinata’s abs are on fire. How did I never notice the muscle strength that went into holding onto a tire-swing rope as a teenager?
I flex my hands one at a time before refreshing my hold on the rope. I swear I can still feel the heat on my fingers from where Jordan’s hand covered mine. I’ve never felt more attracted to someone just from a simple touch. It was like a million beads of sunlight skipping across my skin, sending my body into a haze I never wanted to leave.
“Okay, got them,” Ian says from behind me, startling me out of my daydream.
Right. Ian. Sweet, attentive Ian. He is real. He is here for me. For us. To see where we can go.
“For you, I have the one and only Jane Eyre .” Ian holds out the book like a fancy waiter offering me my entree.
“Ooo, a favorite.” At least, it was when I was in high school. I haven’t read Jane Eyre in a very long time.
For some reason, I feel a stab of annoyance at this incredibly kind gesture. Once again, we’ve resorted to activities the old Ian and Paige used to do. The more time I spend with Ian, the more I feel like our relationship is being fed by our past instead of the present.
I reach out and take the book with one hand, which makes my abs squeeze together like they’re huddling for a selfie. “And what will you be reading on this fine afternoon?”
“ A Tale of Two Cities ,” Ian says, flashing the cover in my direction.
I mock gasp. “No Brandon Sanderson? Who are you?” He used to consume anything Sanderson wrote. Something inside me lights up at this slight change to our old routine.
Ian smirks. “I’ve been on a classics streak lately.”
“Welcome to the dark side,” I say as he moves behind me.
Just like old times, Ian opens his book with one hand and pushes me on the swing with the other. A wave of nausea washes over me with every back-and-forth movement of the swing, but I do my best to ignore the feeling. I never got motion sickness before. Maybe I just need a moment to adjust.
I shuffle around in the tire and try to get a better grip on the rope so that I can open my book when two teenagers walk by.
“Aw, how cute. I want a boyfriend like that,” one of the girls says before they disappear into the library.
I think about Ian and me from their vantage point, and I can’t help but side with them. This was incredibly sweet of Ian, so why am I not swooning?
I finally get into a position where I can hold both the rope and my book open at the same time, but I read the first paragraph at least three times before my mind focuses on the gentle hand that’s making me swing like a pendulum. Jordan’s touch may have given me permanent goosebumps, but who’s to say holding Ian’s hand or even kissing him wouldn’t do the same? Up until now, we’ve barely even tapped the physical barrier. Maybe my reluctance in the physical department is holding me back from feeling more with Ian.
I make a split-second decision and drag my foot against the dirt below me so that I slowly spin sideways. When Ian’s hand flies up to push my back again, his hand swipes the air, causing him to look up from his book. As my gaze connects with his, I bite my lip and widen my eyes in the most flirtatious way I can, but I feel about as seductive as a Cabbage Patch Doll.
His eyebrows draw together. “Are you okay?”
“Oh.” I laugh, feeling a third-degree blush mark my cheeks. “Yeah.”
Should I be horrified that my come-hither face merits the words “Are you okay?” Yes, I should. But not right now. Right now, Ian and I are in the middle of something, or at least we will be if I can hold back my inner Cabbage Patch.
Out of the blue, Ian laughs. “You know, you used to make that face when…” Ian cuts off, looking suddenly nervous.
His nerves spark mine. “When what?”
He hesitates. “When you wanted me to kiss you.”
He must read my silence right, because before I know it, Ian steps toward me, one hand on the tire swing as the other tucks a strand of long brown hair behind my ear.
He is so close I can smell the woodsy scent of his body. Slowly, his lips quirk up in a half smile. “Do friends kiss?” he asks, his voice low and gravelly.
I give him a slight nod, then his lips are on mine. The kiss isn’t a bad one, but my mind starts to wander. I’m thinking about the sound of the rope tightening in my hands and about how my abs are burning so badly you could probably roast a marshmallow on them. Not exactly the kind of heat I was hoping for from this kiss.
When Ian pulls back, he smiles briefly, but something about his alert eyes and awkward stance makes me wonder if he feels the same way I do. If we were going off the fireworks scale, I would say that kiss had the explosive power of a single Pop-Its.
We’re both floundering for something to say, but when Ian steps back and lets go of the tire swing, I yelp in pain. Too late, I realize a chunk of my hair is caught on one of the buttons on Ian’s shirt. Ian and I both lean in to unlatch my hair when our heads butt. Ian yanks his head back so fast that my hair is pulled in his direction, dragging me and my body with it. My back hits the dirt ground with a thud as the tire swing sways above me.
Ian looks down at me in horror, but I barely notice his face because my eyes are glued to the strands of dark-brown hair that now dangle from his button.
Nothing says romance like giving a man a lock of your hair. I just didn’t quite imagine it going that way.
“Ow.” I put my hand over my head belatedly, keenly aware of where my hairs have been plucked. Suddenly, I feel sick, and I really wonder if I might puke.