Calmly, Carefully, Completely (The Reed Brothers 3)

“He’s easy to like.”

She picks up the stick he left and feeds a marshmallow onto it. She holds it out to me. “Here you go, city boy. Your first marshmallow roasting.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I say, taking the stick from her. “You got one of my firsts.”

She freezes.

Shit. I made a mistake. “I was just kidding,” I rush to say. I’m watching her face, and she looks everywhere but at me in the firelight. “I shouldn’t have said that. Out loud.”

I haven’t stuck the marshmallow in the flames yet. She reaches out tentatively and wraps her hand around mine. She turns her wrist and moves my hand closer to the flames. “Like this,” she whispers. She’s trembling, but she doesn’t let go.

“Are you okay?” I ask softly.

She smiles at me in the darkness. “I’m fine.”

I draw in a breath. I don’t know how to ask. “No,” I say. She looks at me. “After that night. Are you okay after what happened that night?”

She stiffens beside me. “You do remember me,” she whispers.

“I think about you all the time, wondering what happened that night after you left.”

She exhales slowly, like she’s fortifying herself. “Thank you for what you did.”

“You’re welcome.” I don’t need her thanks, but I feel like she’s been waiting to tell me this. I watch as the marshmallow roasts, its creamy skin turning brown. A purple flame engulfs it, and she jerks our hands back, raising the marshmallow toward her lips so she can blow out the fire.

Her lips purse and she blows, and I feel it deep in the center of me. I want to kiss her so bad that I can already taste her. “I know I don’t know you, but I feel like I do. After that night, I feel like you’re a part of me.” My words are so foolish that I bite back any further stupidity that might fall from my lips.

“I feel the same way,” she says. “I don’t know if that makes you feel any more normal.”

At least I’m not alone in my thoughts. “I would give just about anything to kiss you right now,” I say softly. Shit. Did I say that out loud, too?

She smiles, but she still doesn’t look at me. She seems almost…regretful? “I would give just about anything for you not to,” she says quietly. She leans the stick so that the marshmallow is closest to me.

She may as well have punched me in the gut. It’s been two and a half years. “You haven’t let him steal everything from you, have you?” I hope she hasn’t. If she has, he wins. He raped her, and he took even more than that.

“I looked for you after that night,” she says.

“I asked my brothers to check up on you, when I went to prison,” I admit. I look into her eyes when they shoot up to meet mine. “Not in like a creepy stalkery way.”

She laughs. “You going to eat that?” she asks, nodding toward the marshmallow.

“It’s burned.” She doesn’t want to talk about that night, and that’s all right with me.

“Some people like them like that.” I watched enough kids eat charred marshmallows to know she’s telling the truth. “If you’re not going to eat it, I am.” She raises an eyebrow at me.

“Go for it, princess,” I say. She pulls it from the stick, peels off half the outer coating, and passes the rest to me. She talks around the hot goo.

“Try it,” she says.

I’d do just about anything she asked me to do right now.

I eat the marshmallow. “I don’t understand why people like these things. That wasn’t that great.”

“Tomorrow night, we’ll make s’mores.” She rubs her hands together like she’s excited.

“What the f**k’s a s’more?” I ask.

She laughs, throwing her head back. Her hair falls down her back, and I want to gather it up and wrap it around my hand to see if it’s as soft as it looks. “A s’more is a cooked marshmallow, a square of chocolate, and a graham cracker, pressed together to make a sandwich.”

“Anything is better with chocolate,” I say. My mom used to say that. I don’t know why I felt the need to make that comment out loud.

“True.” She doesn’t speak.

We’re quiet, the crackling flames the only sound aside from crickets and the occasional kid crying out to ask caregivers questions. Before, when I was with girls, it was all about trying to get them out of their clothes. It’s been two years since a woman has taken me inside her, and right this second, I can’t imagine enjoying that any more than what I’m doing right now.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable asking for a kiss,” I finally say.

She snorts. “At least you asked.”

“Glad you like that because I might keep asking until I get one.” She laughs as she shakes her head.

“You promised Gonzo you’d only put the moves on me when he’s around.”

“Let’s go wake him up, then.” I make like I’m going to get up, and she reaches for my hand to stop me. I feel that tremble again. I sit down, but this time, I’m a little closer to her.

She’s quiet for a moment. “This is nice,” she says.

I reach up to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear, and she flinches. “Do I scare you?” I ask. I did just get out of prison. But it’s more than that, I’m sure. With what happened to her, she probably has a lot of intense shit in her head.