Cora Carmack - Finding It

I wanted to kiss him.

There was absolutely nothing I wanted more.

My eyes found his lips, and if ever gravity had been pulling me in one direction, that was it. I pulled up on my tiptoes, balancing a hand on his shoulder. Before I could even get close, he cleared his throat and took a step back.

Just do anything but that , apparently.

DAMN IT. WHY did I keep doing this to myself? That made twice I’d been rejected by him. Maybe more, considering I couldn’t remember half the time we’d spent together.

I could spend time with him without throwing myself at him. I could do that. Though, I didn’t particularly want to.

I sighed and looked away. Maybe a hundred yards away was a playground. He’d asked me what I wanted. And other than kissing him, that was what I wanted.

I wanted a way back to swings and slides and simplicity. A way back to when a butterfly could cheer me up, and a series of puddles could make my day. A way back to a time when happiness wasn’t something I had to search for … it just was.

So, I took off toward the playground, eyeing the swings and seesaw and merry-go-round. There were these bizarre ceramic creatures that were kind of like a cross between dinosaurs and Gumby. I made a beeline for the merry-go-round. I sprawled across the flat surface and waited for Hunt to arrive. He dropped both of our bags a few feet away and said, “This is what you want to do?”

I shrugged. It was option number two, but it worked.

“Well then, hold on.”

I gripped the metal bar closest to me, and he set me spinning. He pulled harder, and I spun faster. It was stupid and childish, but it definitely required no thinking.

“Faster,” I yelled.

Hunt gave one more big push, then jumped on the merry-go-round with me. It was moving so fast, he nearly missed, and he had to pull himself the rest of the way on. It was so strange to see him—masculine and reserved—struggling to stay on a merry-go-round. I burst out laughing. Once he managed to lie flat on his back, he laughed too. I lay back beside him, struggling to breathe through my hysterics. But every time I pictured him jumping onto that overgrown child’s toy, I descended into giggles again.

This funny thing happens when you graduate college. You hear so much about being an adult that you start to feel like you have to become a different person overnight, that growing up means being not you. And you concentrate so much on living up to the term “adult” that you forget growing up happens by living, not by sheer force of will.

Looking up at the tree branches spinning and spinning overhead accompanied by the pink and purple palette of the morning sky, I felt younger, or maybe just my age. We lay beside each other laughing at nothing and breathing in everything until the merry-go-round slowed to a stop.

His arm pressed again mine, and when I pulled myself up onto my side, I could feel in my gut that I knew what it was like to kiss this man. That I’d kissed him before. I couldn’t remember it. Not in images. But I could feel it. My body remembered.

Maybe the spinning had cleared my head a little too much because I said straight out, “You kissed me.”

“What?”

“Last night. You kissed me, didn’t you?”

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, resting his elbows on his knees. He gripped the back of his neck with one hand and said, “It was before I realized you’d been drugged. After that I didn’t … I wouldn’t.”

I knew it.

He grabbed one of the bars and slid off the merry-go-round. Without meeting my eyes, he looked around the playground and said, “What’s next?”

I let him change the subject, even though I wanted to push it. Instead, I let him push me on the swings, each touch to my back like a pulse of electricity.

We played on the seesaw, a physical representation of our time together if ever there was one. I gave Hunt my camera, and he took pictures of me sitting atop one of the huge ceramic dinosaurs. Carefully, I held onto the dinosaur’s head and stood up on its back.

For the first time, I looked out and saw the view on the non-Hunt side of the playground, and nearly toppled off dinosaur Gumby.

It was a panoramic vista of Prague, and it was unbelievable . The city was a sea of orange roofs outlined by a winding river and dotted with cathedral spires. Bridges stretched across the river, beautiful and strong. Here up on this random hill in a deserted playground, we had our own private view of the city. It was beautiful. And I had a feeling we never would have found it if we’d looked through guidebooks or searched on the Internet. We didn’t have to share this with other tourists. It belonged to us.

I slid off my dinosaur and made my way closer. A railing lined the edge of the walkway. Plants with small yellow blossoms sprouted everywhere, and other white blossoms like snowflakes dotted the path.

I stared, mesmerized.

“I think you found it,” Hunt said.

I spun, smiling, and leaned back against the railing. His steps stuttered, and he paused for a few moments. His eyes swept from me to the landscape at my back, then returned to me. His jaw went slack, and he blinked a few times. My smile widened.

“What did I find?”

It took him a few seconds to answer, but when he did a chill chased down my spine.

“A little piece of home.”

He was right. I felt lighter . It wasn’t quite the effortless happiness of college, but it was certainly the closest thing I’d felt in a long time. There was just one thing I couldn’t let go of.

“Why won’t you kiss me? You did it last night. Why not now?”

“I wasn’t thinking things through last night.”

“And you are now?”

He nodded.

“And what are you thinking?”

“That I want to keep you.”

“ Keep me?”

“Keep seeing you, I mean. I like you. I think we could have fun together. Have adventures together.”

“A kiss sounds like a pretty great adventure.”

“I think it’s smarter if we stay friends.”

“You promised to fill in the blanks from last night. This is a blank.”

“Kelsey—”

“It’s not that big a deal. It’s just a kiss.”

He gave me a dark look that made it hard to breathe. My lungs seemed to deflate, swathing around my heart. It was a very good thing there was a railing behind me, or I might have gone toppling backward.

He stalked forward, and I gripped the cold metal of the bar behind me.

“A trade, then.” He tipped his head down with a smile. “Give me a week. Travel with me for a week. If I can’t find the adventure you were looking for, then we’ll go our separate ways.”

I’d thought before that gravity pulled me toward Hunt, but it was more than that. He was the gravity. In that moment, he was the push and pull that held my universe together.

“One week for one kiss? That’s kind of a steep price.”

“That’s the deal.”

He was so close, my skin felt like it was humming. I could hear the beat of my heart in my ears like the flap of wings, speeding up, trying desperately to stay afloat.

“Okay. I’m in.”

His smile wasn’t just bright. It was illuminating . And for the way warmth spread through my skin, I would have believed that there were two suns in the sky.

Without even a peck, he turned and walked away. He picked up our bags from where we dropped them by the merry-go-round, and looked back at me.

“I said okay,” I called, wondering if somehow he’d misunderstood me.

“I’m going to kiss you, princess. But not now, not when you’re telling me to. Not when it’s just something you want to check off a list. I’ll kiss you when it counts.”