Page 55 of One More Chance
Harper
Here’s what I know:The next three days are a dream. We don’t spend every waking minute together. It’s not some romance novel come to life. But it’s a dream. We text when we aren’t together, still playing our game, still getting to know the random nuances of each other. The evenings transform us, from our casual selves to something more romantic. A base desire sets in around dusk and I can’t turn it off. It’s as if he can’t either. We both seem to watch the clock, count down the minutes until we can tangle up together, unravel in each other.
It’s strange. I know it was never like this with Charles. Granted, we were so young when we started dating. Virgins have no carnal desires, and everything was so vanilla. With extra vanilla on top. And vanilla sprinkles. We never had sex outside the missionary position, we never displayed affection in public beyond holding hands or a kiss on the cheek, and we definitely never did any of the things I’ve done with Jensen over the last three days or am about to do again right now.
Jensen leads me out into the field of sunflowers. There are large paths running through the patches, and sometimes we allow guests to take walks through them, depending on the weather. However, it’s never at night like this.
He leads me by the hand, the other holding blankets tucked beneath his arm. The only sounds filling the air are our giggles and the crickets.
“Where are we going?” I whisper.
“You’ll see. I found it the other day,” Jensen says. “We’re almost there.”
A few more steps and he veers to the left, stepping through some sunflowers and into a clearing. It’s not on the path, but a patch of soft earth that was somehow missed during planting.
Jensen spreads out the two blankets he has, one on top of the other, and I look at him quizzically.
“Extra padding,” he teases.
I shake my head as I watch him lie down and place an arm under his head, then he pats the blanket next to him as he looks up at me. I crawl next to him, using his shoulder as a pillow as I follow the direction of his gaze up toward the sky.
For all the stars, it almost doesn’t feel like night. They’re shining so bright, they’re nearly lighting up the sky. I exhale deeply, letting all the air from my chest out until it feels like nothing is left.
“Almost kinda makes you feel like there’s nothing else in the world except us, huh?” Jensen’s whispered question against my hair sends a sharp spike of goosebumps down my spine and I curl my toes in.
“Almost.” I think about the last three days, how everyone’s pretty much left us alone, and the fact that we have to give it all up in a few hours. Because tomorrow it’s all about Lyla and Gentry. Which is fine, and completely the way it should be. I’ve never been happier for two people. After tomorrow, I’ll officially have a brother, and they’ll be living their happily ever after. But it reminds me that everything is on a clock. They leave for their honeymoon the next morning, and Jensen will leave to go back to his own life around the same time.
And I’ll be here.
Two more nights. That’s all I have. Then I’m back to no direction, no clue what I want, and no idea how to figure it out. Okay, that isn’t entirely true.
I want Jensen. Right now.
In the future? I don’t know.
I can only speak for now.
Running my fingers over his chest, I wrap my leg over his and dip my knee between his thighs. A soft groan escapes his throat.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“Time.”
“Like the song?” he asks. “By Hootie and the Blowfish?”
“The what?” I laugh.
Jensen belts out two lines of the song and I can’t control my giggling. He really puts on the theatrics. Even from a horizontal position, he’s giving it a good show.
“Stop, stop,” I whisper. “You’re going to make the dogs start barking.”
“You don’t want me to serenade you?” he says, feigning offense.
“Not that song, please,” I say, finally catching my breath.
“What song, then?” he asks.
Looking back up at the stars, I let my head fall back on his arm, giving thought to his question. “I don’t think I’d want to pick a specific one. I think I’d want you to pick one that reminds you of me. If that makes sense.”