Page 31 of Once Upon a Star

Was she flirting with me? She couldn’t be? Could she? I wanted to see if she was. I followed her into the kitchen. She leaned on the kitchen counter by the sink and looked at me. I moved to the island and leaned on it and held her gaze. “What sort of activities do you have in mind?” I asked.

She immediately blushed, telling me she was thinking what I was hoping. I was thankful for the island covering my front, otherwise I might have embarrassed myself. Just her suggestions and flirtations could turn me on. Though, just looking at the woman could turn me on.

I held her gaze, waiting for her to answer me. She blushed deeper and wouldn’t look at me. I knew she was hoping I would drop the subject. I wasn’t going to let her off that easily. She was the one who had opened this up. I wanted to see how far she would take it.

“Wine? We could drink some wine,” she suggested after a few moments of silence.

“We didn’t get to finish the last bottle, as someone fell asleep so early last night,” I teased.

“Early? It was after midnight by the time we went to bed. I had a long day, and someone decided to make a fire and give me a nice soothing glass of wine. Really, if anyone is to blame for me falling asleep, it’s you,” she countered.

“Then maybe we shouldn’t have any wine. I don’t want you falling asleep on me again and ruining our chance to do all these fun activities you mentioned.”

“Oh, I’m awake now. The hike, the rain, the day really invigorated me. Wine doesn’t normally put me to sleep. Does it you?” she teased.

“No. Whiskey, maybe, but it takes a lot. I tried Jaeger when I was in college and that didn’t go well,” I said.

“Does anyone have a good experience with Jaeger?” Ara countered.

“I take it you didn’t?”

She didn’t answer me but took the wine out of the fridge and poured us both a glass. “We shouldn’t drink too much. We might need to brave the elements to get something to eat. I’m not sure if we can get anything delivered this far out,” Ara said and poured the last of the wine into two glasses.

“Grace said there should be some food in the freezer,” I said.

“I didn’t take you for the frozen food kind of guy,” Ara teased.

“Check what’s in there. I don’t think it’s frozen food,” I countered.

Ara gave me a questioning look but opened the freezer and let out a shock cry. “No way!” she exclaimed.

“What? Is something in there?” I teased.

She shot me a look over her shoulder and pulled out the pizza from Gino’s. She held it gingerly as if it was a precious object and was afraid it was going to break. She placed the cardboard box on the counter,

She opened the box and let out a squeal of happiness. I had ordered her favorite, tomato, green pepper, and sausage. She smiled up at me as if she was surprised I remembered. I wanted to tell her I remembered everything about her. She looked lovingly at the pizza as if she was afraid to touch it.

“It isn’t going to attack you. It’s just pizza,” I said, though I was enjoying watching how much she appreciated the pizza.

She covered the pizza with her hands as if she was protecting it. “Shhhh. Don’t say that. The pizza will hear you.”

“Really? The pizza will hear me? You do understand me saying it’s a pizza isn’t the worst thing we’re going to do to it tonight.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, shocked, and confused.

“We’re going to put it in the oven and cut it into pieces. Not the nicest thing to do, don’t you think?”

“For the pizza, no? For us? Definitely.”

On the last night at camp, they would order pizza from Gino’s, a local joint. It had become the favorite night for all the campers and staff alike. It was sad to know the session at camp was coming to an end but the staff tried to make the best of it. The pizza was one way; along with a campfire and award ceremony.

It was after one of those campfires that Ara and I had shared our first kiss. Whenever I thought about camp and most especially that pizza joint, I thought about our kiss. By the slight blush on Ara’s face, she was thinking about it, too. It hadn’t been the reason I had asked Grace to get us a pizza, and I was glad that Ara had remembered.

Being with Ara in the place where we had first met and fell in love had been harder than I had thought. I was glad we still had two more days but I wasn’t sure how my body was going to feel once we left. I wanted her; I had from the moment we met and that wasn’t going to change. I had hurt her and that was something I knew I had to make up for. I had wanted to talk about it but she hadn’t. I wasn’t going to push her, even if it was slowly killing me. I knew we couldn’t move forward physically until we discussed our past. I just hoped that she would be open to having that discussion soon.

“Do you want to cook it? Are you hungry? We can eat something else if you want,” I suggested.

“Bite your tongue,” Ara said and turned on the oven.