Educational Experience

Chapter Twenty-Seven

We're in a brief "honeymoon phase" before the storm hits. Little islands of calm as the clouds gather. Drafting these moments has been a challenge, because Colt is usually in constant chaos. But it's fun to pull back, however briefly, and let him just...be...for a minute...

I felt Wyatt’s arms slide around my waist from behind and my body immediately relaxed back into hers. Blessed relief…

“I’m okay,” I said. Which was so obviously not true that I almost laughed right after I said it.

And she said, “Oh, I doubt that,” to let me know she was no fool, either.

“I am now, then,” I said. Partly true. In fact, mostly true. Her just being there was why.

Especially when I felt her kiss my spine—three quick little kisses that tingled in my gut. And then she laid her head against my back and the rush made my head spin like I’d inhaled some strong bud ‘way too hard. You know what I mean, right? That rookie hit that makes you stupid drunk.

She had that effect on me whenever I’d been away from her for a few minutes. I got all giddy and goofy--biggest thrill ride, ever, love. Especially when she murmured, “Talk to me,” into my skin.

Opened me like a door.

So I turned around and embraced her. And looked down into those big doe eyes that were soooo concerned I felt like a total ass for making her worry.

And I said, “It’s probably just all this heinous stuff that just happened.”

And she went, “Duh,” which made me laugh. I mean, this wise ass kid thing, she gives me, right? I leaned down to kiss her for that blessed comic relief.

And then I pulled back and said, “That’s some outfit you got on there.”

It was her turn to laugh. She had my t-shirt on. It was like a dress on her. A dress about ten sizes too big, of course. Probably couldn’t even find her own clothes. I’d sort of snatched them off her all frantic to get down skin to skin—who knew where they’d landed. They were probably all ripped up, too, wherever they were. For sure any buttons or zippers’d be destroyed.

But I loved the idea of her body in my shirt. That we were like that, now—it was symbolic in some way. Yeah, I knew we’d get around to trying to put a label on it. Trying to make “sense” of it and make it work in the real world without freaking people out. She would need that, for sure.

But at that moment, her body in my shirt said it all.

And she took my hands and said, “You need to rest a while.”

“Rested all afternoon!”

She gave me a poke in the belly button and said, “That was most assuredly not resting.”

“Point taken.”

She laughed at that, too. And grabbed my wrists and gave me a gentle tug.

“Humor me,” she said.

I let her pull me back to the bedroom. Onto the bed. Into her arms. And then I couldn’t believe I’d ever left her.

But I’d done that thing where you wake up startled—or something you’re dreaming about startles you awake, more like. And I was drenched in sweat. Dripping and shivery. Not like when you’re sick, but like…a panic attack or something.