He’stouchingme.
My ankle.
He’s touching,grippingmy ankle.
And before I can process that, he lifts my foot and places it on his thigh. My arms shoot up and fly, landing on his shoulders. All of this happens so fast, like in a second or two, that it feels like magic.
Or maybe it’s him.
Hefeels like magic.
The heat of his fingers around my ankle and the roughness of his summer skin feel like magic. Or the fact that everything about him is so hard and muscular, the slant of his shoulders, the bulge in his thigh.
He is all… boy.
Hard and heated and muscled. Masculine.
He’s the first guy I’ve touched like this. Or who’s touchedmelike this.
“What are you doing?”
I know I won’t get an answer though.
Because he’s busy elsewhere.
His entire focus is on my foot.
So I focus on it as well and what I see makes me fist his t-shirt — gosh it’s so soft — all tight and hard. He’s wrapping something around my ankle, that shiny thing that he’d gotten out of his pocket. Which makes me realize what it is.
“An anklet,” I whisper.
I watch in fascination as he — his big and strong fingers — deftly closes a very delicate and fragile-looking clasp as he puts his gift on me. When he’s done and I feel it rustling against my skin, my toes curl again. “You’re giving me an anklet.”
Finally he looks up. “So you can’t sneak up on me again.”
I swallow, my curled toes flexing. “I didn’t though. You caught me last time.”
His reddish-brown eyes flash with the memory. “I did, yeah.”
My fingers in his t-shirt tighten even more. “It’s beautiful.”
Just like the fireworks last year.
Just like his eyes, his face,him.
“Yeah,” he whispers back and I know, Iknowfor a fact, that he isn’t talking about the anklet.
He’s talking about me.
Me.
Exactly like last time.
“Is that why,” I swallow, “you came here tonight? To give me a birthday gift.”
He did, didn’t he?
Running into him wasn’t a coincidence.