Chapter 1: Stolen Marshmallows & Kisses
The third pebble clicked against the glass of Clem’s bedroom window.
Cale waited in the shadow of the giant sycamore, the damp night air cool on his skin. His heart thumped a steady, hopeful rhythm against his ribs. He’d seen her light on, a blue-hued glow behind the curtains of the house next door.
The window slid up with a soft scrape. Her head popped out, a silhouette crowned with a riot of blue that seemed to drink the moonlight. “Are you kidding me?” Clem whispered, but her voice was all smile. “What is this, a nineties movie?”
“The streaming options were weak,” Cale whispered back, holding up a paper bag. “I brought sour gummy worms and those pretzel nuggets you like.”
She disappeared for a second, then her screen pushed out. She shimmied through the opening, landing on the dew-slick grass with a quiet, solid thump. She was tiny, especially in her oversized band t-shirt and sleep shorts. Her eyes, even in the low light, held a curious, sparkling gleam.
“You know,” she said, brushing grass from her knees, “a text would have been less likely to give my mom a heart attack.”
“A text isn’t as fun.” He reached out, his fingers just brushing a strand of electric blue hair from her cheek. “And your mom sleeps like a boulder. I heard her snoring from the driveway.”
She fell into step beside him, their shoulders nearly touching as they cut across the property line to his backyard. The firepit was a sunken circle of glowing orange embers, pulsing like a heartbeat in the dark. The air was thick with the scent of burnt pine and night-blooming jasmine. Fireflies, sluggish with the late hour, made half-hearted arcs over the damp grass.
His hammock was strung between two pines at the edge of the light. He gestured to it. “Your chariot.”
Clem flopped into the woven fabric with a graceful lack of grace, making it sway wildly. She patted the space beside her. Cale climbed in more carefully, the old ropes groaning under their combined weight. The world tilted, and they settled, pressed together from shoulder to hip to ankle in the cozy cradle.
He opened the bag, the rustling loud in the quiet night. She took a gummy worm, stretching it absurdly long before nibbling its head off.
“Long day?” he asked.
She let out a sigh that seemed to come from her toes. “So long. Mom had me sanding this endless farmhouse table. My arms feel like jelly. And then the stain wasn’t absorbing right on one leg, and we had to, like, commune with the wood grain for an hour. It was a whole thing.” She tilted her head to look at him. His face was so close. The firelight etched the strong lines of his jaw, caught in the dense coils of his hair. “How was the joinery on that bookshelf?”
“Tight.” He smiled a little. “Squeak-free. It’ll last a hundred years.”
“Show-off.” She poked his side, and he squirmed, making the hammock dance again.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, passing the bag back and forth, watching the embers breathe. A log shifted, sending a small galaxy of sparks spiraling upward into the black.
“It’s nicer over here,” Clem said softly, her voice almost lost in the crackle.
“The hammock?”
“Everything.” She wasn’t looking at the fire anymore. She was looking at him. “It’s quieter. In a good way.”
He knew what she meant. His house was quiet because it was often empty, just him and his thoughts. But with her, the quiet wasn’t empty. It was full. It was the weight of her against his side, the sound of her breathing, the incredible focus of her attention when she looked at him like that—like he was a fascinating, complicated piece of wood grain she needed to figure out.
He stopped chewing. The world narrowed to the few inches between their faces. The playful energy between them shifted, deepened, charged by the shared silence and the flickering light. He could see the gold flecks in her dark eyes, the faint smear of blue paint still on her earlobe from work.
He lifted a hand, slowly, giving her all the time in the world to pull back. He traced that spot of paint on her ear with his thumb. Her breath hitched, just a tiny catch.
“Clem,” he whispered. It wasn’t a question. It was just her name, full of everything he’d been feeling since she’d tumbled into his life next door.
She answered by closing the distance herself.
Her lips were soft, and she tasted like sugar and salt and something uniquely, essentially her. It was a slow, searching kiss, devoid of panic or hurry. It was a discovery. His hand slid from her ear to cradle the back of her head, his fingers tangling in the incredible softness of her blue hair. Her hand came to rest on his chest, right over his hammering heart.
The hammock swayed gently, a lazy pendulum keeping time. The fire snapped. A late-rising firefly blinked right past them, a tiny witness.
When they finally parted, it was only by a whisper. Their foreheads stayed touching. Her eyes were still closed, her smile small and private.
“Wow,” she breathed.
“Yeah.” The word was rough. The cool, collected part of him was gone, replaced by a thrilling, vulnerable warmth.
She opened her eyes, and the look in them was so open, so trusting, it stole his breath all over again. She snuggled closer, tucking her head under his chin, her nose against his collarbone. He wrapped his arms around her, holding the entire precious, ridiculous, perfect weight of her.
They lay like that for a long time, watching the fire die completely into a bed of deep red ash. The world was just the sound of the trees, the scent of them, the impossible rightness of her in his arms.
“Cale?” Her voice was muffled against his shirt.
“Hmm?”
“You should probably sneak me back before the sun comes up and this turns into a really awkward explanation over the hedges.”
He chuckled, the vibration rumbling through both of them. “Probably.” He made no move to get up.
Another minute passed. The stars wheeled overhead.
“Cale?”
“Yeah, Clem?”
Her fingers tightened slightly on the fabric of his shirt. “Do it again tomorrow?”