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.”
Hunt took one look at the hostel name—the Madhouse—and raised an eyebrow at me. He may not have been convinced, but when we entered and I saw the Jack Kerouac quote across the wall, I knew it was perfect.
I read aloud. “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
I might have gotten a little caught up in my performance. I was an actor after all. But sometimes someone else just gets the words so right that you feel like they read them off your own heart.
Hunt’s eyes stayed fixed on me, and he reached out, but didn’t touch me. His hand hovered like I was an artifact, a work of art that would be compromised by the brush of his skin. Still looking at me, he dropped his hand and said, “Two beds, please.”
We settled into a coed room with six other beds, and I tried not to think about the fact that his bed was right by mine. That if we both reached out in the middle of the night, our fingers would touch. We locked up our things, even though everyone else in the hostel was already out for the day, and he said, “What now?”
I could have asked to find Jenny. But seeing as we were alone, I saw a better opportunity. I moved to sit beside him on his bunk, close enough that my knee touched his when I turned to face him.
“That’s your decision,” I said. “You’ve got me for one week.” I leaned back on my hands, and watched his eyes dip down to my body. “So, Jackson, what are you going to do with me?”
He touched his fingers to his chin, and his gaze swept over me.
“I’ve got a few ideas.”
“Yeah?”
“I do.”
He bent over me, and my elbows shook. Low on my spine, a tingling sensation spread. It reminded me of when you shake a can of soda. You know what will happen as soon as you open it. You can somehow sense all the built-up energy inside, but the idea of opening it is just too tempting.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea, too,” I said.
He hummed, and the scruff on his chin just barely grazed my collarbone. My head fell back, and his breath roamed free across the skin of my neck. His lips brushed across my pulse point in an almost kiss, and all my muscles locked up tight. His mouth moved to hover above my ear, and my arms shook so badly I expected them to give out any second.
He hummed again, and I could feel the vibration against my skin even though we weren’t touching.