Against every indication, I was a fairly practical girl. I knew that plan was not smart. I wasn’t an experienced climber, nor was I athletic, but I was also past the point of caring about what was smart. I just wanted to get inside of Jesse’s room.
If it wasn’t already documented somewhere, it needed to be: hormones had to be the leading cause of teenage injury.
The chimney was so close to my window I could touch it from where I sat on the window ledge, but the next part was the hardest. Giving up what was safe for what could be dangerous. Letting go of the known for the unknown was the scary part.
I closed my eyes, exhaled, gave myself an internal pep talk, then swung my leg over to the chimney.
My foot slid into a deep crevasse. One limb down, a mere three to go.
I exhaled again and reached out until my hand grabbed hold of a small stone. By that point, I was sweating, but I was halfway there and wouldn’t give up. I’d given up on so many things before; I wasn’t giving up tonight.
The next part, though, would be the hardest part. My left hand and foot were in place, but I couldn’t move my right hand or foot without moving both. Without leaving the safety of my perch. Before I could chicken out, I shook my right arm and leg to get the nerves out, then pivoted my core and swung both of them for the chimney.
I whimpered the next moment when I found myself hugging the chimney, all hands and feet in their own little nook or cranny. I’d done it. I’d taken the leap, and all that was left was the climb.
That part was easy. Hand, foot. Hand, foot. Slow and steady and, in what couldn’t have been more than a minute’s time, my head peeked into Jesse’s window. There was no sight of him, but the room was strangely shaped. I could only see a small portion of it from the window.
I tried to be quiet as I grabbed the windowsill and, with some creative maneuvering, I managed to crawl inside of his window noiselessly.
So it wasn’t exactly the grand entrance I’d wanted to make, but making it up that chimney without breaking my neck was the real performance. I took a few hesitant steps, still unable to see him. If I’d crawled up the whole way to find nothing but an empty room, I would not be a happy camper. The steep angles of the roof broke the attic up into a cluster of sharp angles and small spaces. The floors weren’t carpeted, just weathered, plank boards, and the walls weren’t drywalled, so insulation, wires, and cords were on display.
He might have only lived there for a few weeks, but the room was already permeated with his smell. The room wasn’t much, and I hadn’t even seen a bed yet, but I liked it already. It was clean, had plenty of character, and housed the guy I liked. That had the makings of possibly the best room in existence.
Two more steps deeper inside the room, and I saw him. My throat went dry at the same time my heart leapt higher than it had while I’d been out on that chimney. He was pacing at the side of his bed in the same pajamas he’d worn the night we spent together—which was more like saying he wore no pajamas—and looked like he was swishing something around in his mouth.
As soon as I took a step toward him, his head snapped up. When his eyes landed on me, they went soft for one moment before they went as wide as eyes could go.
He raised his arms at his sides, obviously a bit frantic, but he wasn’t saying much.
“I can’t read crazy hand signals,” I said, as he continued to wave at me, to the window, back to me. “Words are a safer bet.”
He gave me an exasperated look, lifted his finger, and gave a final swish of whatever was in his mouth before turning around and grabbing a cup. After setting the cup back on his dresser, he turned around. I noticed the plastic bottle of bright blue liquid beside the cup.
“Mouthwash?” I said, trying not to smile. “Someone wanting fresh breath for any particular reason?”
Jesse rushed by me and bee lined for the window. “Someone was wanting fresh breath for a very particular reason until a certain someone pulled a stunt that could have killed her.”
I was still smiling too much over the whole mouthwash thing to let his mood affect mine. “You mean the same stunt someone else performed a week ago that could have killed him?” I came up behind him and stopped when he was just out of arm’s reach. Given that he was wearing nothing but a pair of cut-off sweats, I didn’t trust myself to stop touching if I started.
“I’ve climbed that chimney a thousand different times, Rowen. That’s totally different.” He looked out the window again, and his body went more rigid.
“Well, I’m here now. Alive. In one piece.” I couldn’t pry my eyes from the deep seam running down his back. I wanted to trace it with my fingers. I wanted to taste it with my tongue . . .
I needed a sharp slap across the face and a cold shower. “So can we forget about how I got here and just enjoy that I am here?”
Jesse slipped his head back inside the window and turned to me slowly. His eyes were still anxious, but his mouth turned up just enough to let me know the worst of the storm had passed.
“You wouldn’t want that mouthwash to go to waste, would you?” I gave him a suggestive smile, and he took my suggestion. He crossed the distance between us until his chest was nearly right against mine. His hands moved into their favorite spot: at the curve of my waist, just above my hips.
“No, I wouldn’t want that,” he said, his eyes now clear. It was amazing how, with the right distraction, a girl could talk a guy back from the ledge every time.
“Well?” I said a few moments later. “Are you waiting for an invitation?”
And since he wasn’t moving fast enough, I clasped my hands around the back of his neck, lifted up on my toes, and brought my mouth to his.
“Sorry. I was waiting for an invitation,” he whispered in the space between our mouths.
I pressed my mouth to his. “Here it is,” I said when I pulled back.
Jesse’s eyes were still closed, but he smiled for a moment before he pulled me back to him. His hands tightened at my waist as our lips moved together. When our mouths parted and my tongue touched his, his hands tightened again. If he gripped me any harder, I’d pass out, so I gave him one last lingering kiss.
His eyes were still closed, and that smile had gone a little higher.
“Fresh mint?” I asked, still tasting the mint.
When he opened them, I saw how excited his eyes were. His pupils were dilated, and the irises were extra blue. “Spearmint.”
“Well, I approve whatever it is.” I couldn’t just taste him; I almost felt him. It made me want to actually feel him again.
“It seemed like you might have,” he said, looking smug.
“How was that for not ‘pushing you away’?” I lifted an eyebrow and grabbed hold of one of his hands.
“You were most definitely not pushing me away just now,” he said, staring at my mouth. “And I approve of that.”
I laughed and pulled him away from the window. The way he continued to stare at my mouth made everything from my waist down constrict. “I’m glad you approve because not pushing you away when you’re kissing me like that is really difficult for a girl to manage.”
He let me pull him along. I loved the sound of his bare feet padding along the old wooden boards. It was comforting, somehow.
“Why do you push people away, Rowen?” His voice was gentle, but of course the question hit me in anything but a gentle way.
I knew if Jesse and I would make it with any kind of duration, I needed to be honest about the dark pieces of my past I kept locked away. I knew the sooner, the better. If anyone could handle the demons of my past, it was Jesse.
I also knew that if Jesse had asked me the same question just weeks ago, I would have told him to go screw himself and made avoiding him a top priority. But a lot had changed in a few weeks.