I start laughing with her, uncontrollably, to the point that my sides began to ache. What made it even funnier were the odd looks we received from everyone around us. Then, once we gathered ourselves, Kennedy looked up at me with a wide smile, placed her hands on her hips, and struck a pose.

“How do I look?”

“Sweet,” I replied. I stepped toward her and brushed my finger along her bottom lip, where ice cream was dripping. I did it without thought. My body simply moved toward hers as if there was a magnetic pull. I couldn’t step away. My eyes were fixated on her mouth as she slowly slid her tongue across her bottom lip, tasting the ice cream coating her skin.

I wanted to taste it, too. I wanted to revel in the sweetness on her lips.

Somehow I grew closer, and Kennedy’s messy hands lay against my chest, resting over my messy heart. Her eyes were on me, and I wondered if she could feel it—the crazy beating that resided inside me.

“Jax…”

“Yeah?”

“Are you thinking…?”

“Yeah. And you’re thinking…?”

“Uh-huh.”

Within seconds, her lips were on mine, and I kissed her hard, as if I’d been waiting all these years to rediscover her mouth on mine. She tugged on my shirt, pulling me in. Everything around us went silent as I began losing myself in her kiss, in her lips, her tongue, her heartbeats.

So sweet.

So fucking sweet. I felt as if I were flying even though my feet remained on solid ground.

It was a kiss made in heaven, and I was thankful for it regardless of my past sins. I needed Kennedy Lost to come back to me. I needed her to find me after all this time. Part of me felt foolish for feeling so much after living a life where I felt nothing at all. Perhaps this was all a dream, nothing more than me losing my mind and falling into a mirage of hopeful fantasy. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care if it was fake or if it was real; I just knew she was the first thing in my life that made me feel alive. I kissed her as if time was running out. I kissed her for our yesterdays, and I kissed her for tomorrow. And then I kissed her again.

If she was a dream, I planned to sleep forever.

* * *

We went back to her house that night, and she invited me in to get cleaned up. We took off our shoes in the foyer, and she led me to the bathroom. She turned on the shower and took off her clothes, leaving her bra and panties on. For a second, I thought I was back in my fucked-up snowman dream as I watched her step inside the shower.

“I figured this is the best way to get the stickiness off of our skin,” she said as my dick twitched from the sight of her.

Yup. Any second now it was going to start snowing over our heads.

She waved me over, and I suspiciously took off my clothes, too, only leaving my boxers on. The water raced over us, and I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was so fucking beautiful in every single way. The way her wet bra and panties clung to her skin made me want to rip them off of her body, but I controlled my desires.

Truthfully, just standing near her felt like a gift I didn’t deserve.

“Hands,” she said.

I held mine out toward her. She squirted shampoo into my palms and then added some to her own, and we began shampooing each other’s hair. As the sugary ice cream melted off our skin, I wanted nothing more than to push her up against the wall and slide so deep inside of her that she’d have no other option but to cry out my name.

Instead, I stayed still, taking my cues from her.

When we finished rinsing the shampoo out of our hair, she tilted her head up to look at me. Her full lips were rosy and her cheeks were high as she smiled my way.

“Basorexia?” she whispered as our lips slightly parted.

“Basorexia,” I replied.

Our lips fell together, and they stayed that way all night.

23

Jax

“You’re happy,” Joy commented as we sat on her front porch for our morning coffee. It was going to be a busy day with plumbing jobs around town, so I was thankful to take a few moments with her to ease into the day.

I was also thankful for being able to wake with Kennedy beside me in her bed. We hadn’t had sex, but we had stayed up late into the night talking and kissing and kissing some more. When she fell asleep in my arms, I knew I wouldn’t ever be able to let her go again.

I smiled over at Joy and nodded. “I am.” Her eyes watered, and I laughed. “Don’t cry, Joy.”