I turned to Cricket. “Your work?”
Her cheeks flushed an enticing vermillion. Oh, Cricket. You would be so smart not to blush again.
“Yeah,” she answered simply.
She seemed embarrassed, adding to how attractive I found her, and studied the ground with her hands tucked behind her back. She fought a smile while I fought to keep my hands at my side.
She made herself busy by clearing a stool covered in scrap metal. She cleared her throat nervously and presented the stool to me before rounding the table she’d been working at when I discovered her.
I sat, my legs spread and hung both my arms over the back of the stool. Her eyes widened when she turned my direction and I almost laughed out loud. I unnerved her. Click.
“Cricket Hunt, show me your stuff.”
Her head whipped my direction. “Excuse me?”
“Your sculptures?”
“Oh,” she giggled, “sure. Uh,” she began and stiffened her back, “but first you have to promise not to laugh at any of them.”
“Cross my heart,” I told her, making the motion my thumb.
She sighed, deciding something then with conviction she marched over to a shelf tucked into a narrow corner of the cabin. She stretched high, trying to reach one on the top shelf but she was too short. She made a movement to find something to stand on, but I stopped her.
“I’ll get it,” I told her, slinking off the stool and stalking toward her.
She made a movement to make way for me, feinting left then right, but I blocked her in. She looked up at me and it set my heart racing. I studied her face for a moment, unable not to.
“Which one?” I asked softly.
“Th-that one,” she explained, her eyes trained on the sculpture at the far top left.
I reached over her and our bodies grazed from the proximity, sending shivers up my spine. I had never felt shivers before, not before Cricket. Not like that. Never like that.
I picked the piece up and brought it down to chest level for me, eye level for her. “This one,” I breathed.
“That’s the one,” she confirmed, not even glancing at the sculpture.
Her eyes were trained on my lips. She irresponsibly licked her own before drawing her bottom lip under her top teeth. I winced at the pain it caused me, a shot of pure fire blasted from the tips of my toes to the top of my head only to settle in the hollow of my stomach. It was a good burn though. Too good.
I uprooted my weighted feet and somehow walked away from her, but not before glancing back once more. I found Cricket had briefly sagged into the wall beside her before finding her bearings again. Click.
The fire continued to burn in my belly, knowing that if I really wanted to, I could steal a kiss. I knew if I did, though, she’d be all in then, all passion and hands, but just as quickly she’d be all out, an iron door slammed shut over the one I’d built the day we’d taken Bridge to the doctor. The one I erected only to immediately search out the weakest part. The part I shoved a boot through the second I saw Cricket Hunt in knee-highs and high-waisted shorts. And the last thing I wanted to do was create emotional distance from the very girl who sent me flying to the moon every time she licked her lips, smiled or crinkled her nose.
I set the piece down on the table and found my seat and position, sitting as I had before, as if nothing with lightning-like intensity had just transpired in that small nook. She sat in the stool on the other side of the table and watched me for a moment.
Finally, she spoke. “So,” she said, before clearing her throat, “this is, uh, one of the first pieces I made.”
I sat up, already engrossed, leaning forward and casually placing my forearms on the table. I hoped I fooled her. She inexplicably inclined forward as well, as if incapable of doing anything else.
“Yeah, so, anyway, I had just learned to weld and the work is shoddy, but it’s my proudest piece. I made it all by myself with no one’s help, and I poured myself into it.”
“It’s stunning,” I told her.
She smiled her clever smile and I almost lost my cool. “No, it’s not, but thank you.”
“It’s visually stunning, Cricket.”
Instead of continually denying it, like most girls do, Cricket said, “Thank you, Spencer.”
That kind of confidence is unbelievably sexy.
“How did you learn to weld?” I asked her.
“Pop Pop taught me. We live on a ranch. It was an inevitability. There’s always something to weld around here.”
I smiled at her.
“Tell me something.”
“What would you like to know?” she asked.
“Anything. Anything at all that you want me to know,” I told her.
She laughed quietly. “I shouldn’t care that you know anything about me, Spencer.”
“And? Do you, or don’t you?”
She shook her head. “This is dangerous,” she said, uneasy.
“We’re just talking,” I lied.
She sighed, pausing for a moment, gauging whether she wanted to open up to me. In the end, she said, “I don’t want to live here forever.”
Her face bunched as if bracing for a hit.
I laughed. “And?”
She cracked open one eye and warily peered my direction. “I can’t believe I said it out loud,” she giggled, as if she couldn’t help herself. She looked at me fully. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“Where do you want to go?”