Page 112 of Only After We Met

“I like that. Seven: cut your hair or dye it pink.”

“Yeah, but not right now. I’d like to do that at some important moment, you know. So the physical change represents an internal one. I’ve always wanted one of those haircuts French girls have, with the straight lines.”

“You’d look good like that. Now for the important one.”

“I don’t even want you to say it out loud.”

“Eight: start a small publisher.”

“Could we drop it for a minute? Seriously, I promise I’m not avoiding the subject, but I’m drunk right now, I’m happy, and look—I can make an angel in the sand just like when it snows!” She started moving her arms up and down.

I laughed. I wanted to tell her I’d spent lots of nights with lots of girls on the beach, but never one like her. Never with a person Icould just be with, without hiding, without putting on that quiet-guy act everyone else knew so well.

Because Ginger brought out the best in me.

She made me not want anything more.

“What about the next one?”

“Have a cat that loves me?”

“Are you worried about getting one that hates you?”

“Of course. I’ll get one from a shelter if I ever have a stable job and my own place and all that. Do you realize, it’s as though I’ve never done anything worthwhile in my entire life? I feel like I’m starting from zero.”

“Is that bad?” I turned to her.

“I guess not, given the situation…”

“Last one.”

“That sangria was delicious.”

“Don’t change the subject. Falling in love for real.”

“Look at you, talking about falling in love!”

I sat up and looked at her. She was so relaxed…so happy…at the foot of the moon. Her clothes wrinkled, her hair mussed, just a few inches away…too close. Way too close… I sank my fingers into the sand, trying to suppress my desire for her.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“What don’t you get?”

“The last part.For real. What does that mean? You’ve never actually been in love?” I heard her breathe deeply, her eyes still staring into the heavens.

“Maybe. Maybe love and being in love aren’t the same thing. What I want is to be crazy about someone. I want it to hurt not totouch them. I want to feel a tingle in my stomach, and I want to do it two or three times a day, and I want to have eyes for him alone. You know, the intensity of those first months, before your emotions calm down and routine sets in…”

I gulped. My heart was shouting at me.

My fingers sank deeper into the sand.

A kiss that never happened got lost among those words.

58

Rhys

“Fuck, Ginger. I told you that you were going to get burned.”