Page 49 of Between the Lines
“Where does your brother live now?” I ask.
“Boston. He’s working through his oncology residency.”
I grin. “That’s amazing.”
“It is. I’m really proud of all that he’s accomplished, in spite of…”
He struggles to say those words again—that his parents are dead; that he and his brother are equally resilient.
“How old was he when it happened?”
“He was in middle school.”
“That had to have been so hard on both of you.”
I reach out. I can’t help it. He swallows around a lump in his throat, and when my fingers close around his hand, he exhales in relief that matches my own at the fact that he lets me.
“It absolutely was. I just wanted to be good for him. To raise him right. To makethemproud.”
“They havesomuch to be proud of. Look at you—assistant principal extraordinaire who put his brother through medical school?”
He chuckles and shakes his head. “That was all Cal. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Please. I’m sure you helped him with his homeworkat leastonce.”
Nathan blinks, a smile transforming on his face as he gets lost in thought. He tells a story about the first time he and his brother argued over a math assignment, and somehow, it softens him even more.
“When I told him that I’d signed my first contract to teach English, he told me, ‘Good thing it isn’t math; those kids would all fail.’”
“What a bully!” I laugh.
He smiles and sighs. “Can I tell you something?”
I nod.You can tell me anything as long as it keeps us here.
“I would endure college all over again, get my minor in math, and figure out this new curriculum if it meant I got to be back in the classroom.”
My heart is weighty with his admission. I lock it away, knowing I am its sole keeper.
The distance is gone from his eyes with that off his chest. He lifts his glasses and rubs his eyes, and sighs all the way down to his toes. I wonder if I’ve overstayed my welcome when it comes to stealing nuggets of information, but when he tilts his gaze back up toward mine, there is only relief there. Maybe he’s been keeping it all inside this whole time. Maybe he just needed somebody to ask the questions.
I can’t help myself when I lean in. I see his breathing slow when he clocks it, his eyes flutter closed for a second beneath his glasses.
“Tell me I shouldn’t kiss you right now, Claire.”
Ha. What a funny man he is.
“What if I don’t want to?” I tease, leaning across the center console.
He closes the distance, and my world falls into place with his lipson mine. Authors have described first kisses like fireworks and summer sunshine, or like a blazing inferno. But kissing Nathan Harding finally gives me a picture of what happened when God spoke the world into existence.
I see nothing but blinding white light, and at the same time, the bottom of his soul in those hazel eyes. I feel every single nerve in my body buzz to an awakening I didn’t know existed.
For the first time in my life, something feels right. Someonefeels right.
It takes only seconds for his tongue to press at the seam of my lips, for my hand to wind into his hair. He cups my chin in both hands, then kisses a path from my cheek to my throat, moaning as he sucks against my racing pulse. If heaven could be earth-side, we would be its sole occupants.
I’m about to climb over into his lap when my phone rattles inside the cup holder. We both sigh, parting reluctantly as I see that my mom is calling.