“Oh, cool.” The prospect of that kind of privacy with Conrad all night long was almost more thrilling than the promise of stargazing. Thrilling and also daunting. Kissing was one thing, but I wasn’t sure I could compete with whatever skills his prior hookups had offered. Ingenuity, especially that kind, was hardly my strong suit. Pushing aside my reservations, I focused on what I was good at—logistics. “Your card was okay to make the reservation? Want me to get you cash when we’re back in Grand Junction?”
He made a face. “Yeah. Cash would be good. Hate how close I’m playing this. Just wanted to do something nice for you.”
“Financial realities don’t negate the niceness of your gesture,” I said reasonably.
That made him laugh. “See that’s why I l—like you. I get that being literal can be a challenge, but sometimes I like how simple you make things.”
“Yeah, well, I miss a lot of jokes and subtext,” I grumbled, not entirely sure I liked his compliment.
“Sorry. Not trying to say that it’s not hard. And I’ll just have to be more obvious. Luckily, I’ve never been that good at subtlety.” He turned, unmistakable intent in his expression, sunset reflected in his eyes, his gorgeous features more compelling to me than all the natural beauty surrounding us. And I didn’t have be the master of reading of social cues to know to pull him closer, to meet him halfway in a kiss that made my toes curl in my sneakers. He tasted sugary, like his citrusy soda but also something else, something I couldn’t name but that made him my new favorite flavor of everything. His lips were firm but supple, a contrast that I loved exploring. Learning from earlier, I used my tongue to outline their contours, memorizing their velvety feel and the way he moaned and held me tighter when I ventured into his mouth, in a way that had heat zooming all over my body, an almost giddy sort of pleasure.
Groaning low in his throat when I tried to repeat the move, he pulled away. “Better head out if we want to make our date with the stars.”
Date. I’d never had one of those, had nothing to compare it to, but the perfection of this day would be hard to beat. It had set a ridiculously high bar for all future encounters to try to live up to. Not that I wanted other encounters, some future with faceless people who weren’t Conrad. No. I only wanted this, right here and right now, even if there was no viable strategy for keeping him beyond this trip, beyond this brief moment in time.
* * *
“See, wasn’t it worth beating those losers to get here?” Conrad grinned from his perch next to me on the hood of the car. We’d parked on a tiny side road, no other cars or people for miles. Above us, a glittering canopy of infinite stars stretched like something out of an astronomy text. On multiple levels, I couldn’t believe I was actually here. “Look at these stars. If we’d gotten arrested in Denver, we never would have made it here.”
I wanted to quip about how if he hadn’t kissed me that morning, we wouldn’t be here either, with this wonderful rapport between us, a closeness I’d never had with another person. But I simply didn’t know how to find the words for that. So instead, I went with something else that had been on my mind since Denver.
“I’m not sure I liked how that game went.”
“What do you mean?” Conrad frowned, pausing midnibble on a handful of the caramel popcorn we’d brought with us.
“I didn’t like needing you. Not being able to win outright on my own. Needing your cards to bail me out.”
“Dude. That’s the whole point of teams, right? Working together. Needing each other. I needed the big, expensive stuff in your deck to make mine work better. If you hadn’t been able to put out rare cards with high scroll cost, then my deck wouldn’t have worked as well.”
I considered this. “I don’t like being dependent. Which I know seems converse to the rest of my life—living at home, listening to the moms’ ideas for my future. But I don’t like feeling like I’m not up to a challenge. I’ve had enough of that.”
“Join the freaking club.” He bumped shoulders with me. “If this last year has taught me anything, it’s that relying on others sucks. I get it. People aren’t often trustworthy either. They let you down. Jobs that were supposed to last don’t. Friends who were supposed to stick around leave.”
I wanted to promise him that I wouldn’t let him down, that I’d be different, that I’d be the one who stuck around. But I wasn’t sure I could keep that promise, so instead, I squeezed his hand.