A Secret Edge. Robin Reardon

saved my ass. After tryouts the other day, these two goons were waiting for me. Just over there.” I point with my twig to where I’d been accosted and then rescued, and Raj looks that way. “Robert had been looking for me to ask for my help. But I needed his first, and he gave it.”

      He looks at me. “Which goons are those? There are so many.”

      “Jimmy Walsh and Dane Caldwell. Two of my favorite goons.”

      “Dane jumps like a dog.”

      I have this image of a clumsy Saint Bernard throwing himself through the air and trying to land without hitting his heavy head on the ground.

      I reply, “And Jimmy runs like a rabbit. Ever notice how a rabbit stops and starts, and stops again? Jimmy’s fast, but—” I don’t have to finish. I can see Raj’s head nod in agreement.

      “You’re good,” he says.

      “You’re fantastic,” I counter, looking at him.

      He turns toward me, and then his hand reaches behind my neck. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t move. He kisses me. Lightly, sweetly.

      Something pops inside my head. Just as strange and wrong as it had felt kissing Meg last night? It feels every bit as perfect and right and oh, so fucking wonderful when it’s Raj’s lips on mine.

      Why couldn’t it have been you in that car last night? This is what I want to ask him. Where were you when I needed you? Where was your mouth, your face? Why wasn’t it your hand reaching for me?

      And then, alongside the tension, underneath the butterflies (yes, there they were!), there’s this feeling of relief. No more pretending.

      But I don’t know what to do with this. It’s what I’ve dreamed about, but now that it’s here…I hide behind words.

      “You move fast.”

      “We have to. We won’t get much time, and we won’t get any encouragement.”

      He waits just long enough to see if I have anything else to say, and then he pulls my face to his again. Before I know it, we’re lying on the ground, breathing hard, hands everywhere.

      I have to pull away. I’m not ready for this. I lean against the tree again, feeling shaky.

      “You okay?” he says, still lying on the ground near my feet.

      I try a smile, but it wobbles. “Yeah.”

      “Is this a new idea for you?”

      I shake my head. “No. Just a new reality.”

      “Sorry. I guess I thought you were—you know. Ready. You seem so confident.”

      “What?”

      “Like just now, at the fence. And in the tryouts. And when I saw you in the store. It was like you knew exactly what you were doing, what you wanted. I felt like the shy one.” He half sits up, leaning on an elbow. “And I’m not shy.”

      I laugh out loud. “No. I can tell. But if I seem confident, it’s because I’ve had to. It’s either that or run away all the time.”

      He nods, and I can tell he understands. “I chose aloof.”

      “You don’t seem aloof now.”

      He gets up onto his knees and moves toward me. “No.” He leans forward but stops before he touches my mouth, his lips so close I can almost feel them move. “Do you want me to be?”

      “No.”

      This time the kiss isn’t just a light, sweet test. This time he doesn’t wait to see what I’ll say, to see what I want. He knows.

      It’s funny, but when you’re in the right place with the right person doing something like this, it’s so different from how it had been for me last night. I’d had to remind myself that I was supposed to reach for Meg. With Raj, I don’t think about reaching. I just reach. I want him as close to me as I can get him. Did I open my mouth, or did it just land against his that way? Did I reach for him with my tongue, or has it always been twisted together with his like this?

      He pulls his mouth away from mine, and at first I want to shout No! More! But then he buries his face against my neck and kisses and bites and moistens every inch of skin he can reach. Somehow I’ve pulled his clothing open at the back of his waist, and one hand moves up while the other moves down.

      And then his mouth is on mine again. Hell, it’s practically in mine.

      This is joy. This is rapture. This is the way it’s supposed to feel.

      In the end we don’t do much more than lie on the ground, touching each other’s faces, kissing from time to time. I don’t want the sun to set. Or the temperature to fall. Or my dinner to be ready, or my aunt and uncle to be waiting. I chuckle.

      “What?” he wants to know, smiling at me.

      “It’s my aunt. She has this policy where she meets my friends before I’m allowed to go anywhere with them. But she doesn’t know about you!” I’m laughing now, holding my sides, rolling around. Bits of twigs are poking at me through my clothing, and it feels good. Everything feels good.

      Raj waits until I’m still and then kisses me again. “Should she?”

      “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d say. ‘Aunt Audrey, I’d like you to meet Nagaraju Burugapalli. Now may I go and roll around in the woods with him?’ Can you see it?”

      His face is hovering over mine. I can barely see it in the dusky light. But I can see he’s smiling.

      “Kiss me again,” I beg.

      He does.