“Carl?” Clark said, incredulous. I shot him a look, and he threw up his hands. “Okay. Fine. But it’s Karl, with a K.”
“What difference does that even make?”
“It makes a huge difference,” Clark said, with enough authority that I decided to take his word for it. “Okay, and Karl . . .” There was a long pause, and I bit my lip to stop myself from jumping in, making myself listen to the slap of my flip-flops against my heels, the cicadas in the grass all around us, the occasional crunch of leaves beneath our feet. I was practically willing him to say something, to jump in with the story, to try. “And Karl . . .” He took a shaky breath, then went on, all in a rush, “Karl was a wanted man. He was on the run.”
I smiled but tried to tone it down as we rounded a bend in the road. “Because he’d stolen something,” I said, “something . . . valuable. With lots of value.”
Clark laughed, and it was like I could practically feel him relax next to me. “But he didn’t know that he’d been spotted stealing the valuable thing with lots of value. Unbeknownst to him, an assassin named—”
“Marjorie,” I supplied, and Clark stopped dead in his tracks.
“The assassin can’t be named Marjorie. It’s bad enough we’ve got a Karl.”
“What’s wrong with Marjorie?”
“Assassins aren’t named Marjorie.”
“Really good assassins probably are. Because nobody would think they were assassins.”
Clark inclined his head toward me. “Well played,” he said. “So. Okay. Karl and Marjorie—”
“Marjorie the super-assassin—”
“Are in the woods, on a moonlit night,” he said, the words coming more quickly now. “Karl thinks he’s gotten away with it.”
“But he hasn’t.”
“Not even close. Because he’s about to meet Marjorie. And she’s going to change his life.” I took a breath to continue the story when Clark’s hand brushed against mine, and all the words left my head.
I wasn’t sure if it was an accident, so I kept my hand stretched down by my side, within easy reach, and what felt like a lifetime later, Clark’s hand brushed mine again, sending a spark through me that I felt all the way in my toes. He kept his hand touching mine, and then, moving a millimeter at a time, curved his fingers around so that they were resting against my palm, just brushing it, so lightly. Then he moved up, over the curve of my thumb, and ran his index finger over the inside of my wrist in a slow circle. I could feel my pulse fluttering beneath his fingertips, and I had to remind myself that I knew how to breathe, that I’d been doing it my whole life. And then our palms were touching, perfectly lined up, though I could feel how much bigger his hand was than mine, feel his fingertips curving over the tops of mine, despite what Bri had always called my “weird large tree-frog hands.” We stayed that way for just a moment, and then, like we’d talked about it before, like we’d mutually picked the time, our fingers interlocked and we were holding hands.
We walked that way, not speaking, our joined hands swinging gently between us, every nerve in my body suddenly awake. I was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, because otherwise, all my thoughts would have been focused on the fact that Clark and I were holding hands, that somehow, on this walk, something between us had changed.
“So then what happens?” I asked, when I saw we were approaching the guardhouse again.
Clark looked over at me. “What happens with what?”
“With Marjorie. And Karl,” I said, as he slowed and turned to me, still not letting go of my hand.
“I don’t know,” he said, stopping and looking down at me. “I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.”
I nodded and looked up at him and knew this was the moment—if I let this happen, whatever this was, whatever it might be, would start. I could feel my heart pound as Clark dropped my hand and moved it toward my waist, brushing the hem of my tank top between his fingers.
Normally, I kissed first. I didn’t like the moment before, the wondering if a guy was going to get up the courage to kiss you while you were just standing there, waiting and hoping. I liked to take matters into my own hands, squash that moment and get right into the make-out session. But now . . .
Now, being in this moment, on the cusp of something happening, made me wonder why I’d been rushing through it all these years. Or maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I’d just been waiting for this moment, right now.
Clark looked down at me, brushing his hand over my forehead, smoothing back my hair like he’d done before, and I knew this was my last chance to change my mind. And as much as a part of me wanted this, there was another part that knew this would be different from my three-week boyfriends. That it already was.
But I didn’t turn away or walk in the other direction or stop the moment from happening. Moving so slowly, he tilted his head down toward me. I stretched up to him, and we stayed like that for just a second, not kissing, not yet, just hovering in the moment before, only a breath apart.
And then he leaned forward, or I did, and then his lips were on mine.
We lingered there, our lips brushing gently. And then he raised his hand and cupped it under my chin, drawing me closer toward him, and we started kissing for real.
And my arms were around his neck and then his were around my waist and he was pulling me closer, lifting me off my feet, and when he set me back down, my knees were wobbly, like the ground had gotten less solid in the interim.
It was a kiss that made me feel like I’d never been properly kissed before, and as we paused to take a breath—a minute later? an hour?—he leaned his forehead against mine. I looked up at him, and a thought passed through my brain before I could stop or analyze it. It’s you—of course it is. There you are.
And as I touched his cheek and his hand tightened on my waist, I leaned forward to kiss him again, knowing as I did that something was ending while something else had already begun.
Tamsin cursed under her breath as she watched the owl sitting on the branch regard her with what she was almost certain was disdain. This was supposed to be the one area where she was showing any kind of natural inclination, and she had been failing miserably all morning.
“You’re distracted,” the Elder said from the tree stump where he had sat, motionless, for almost an hour now.
“Maybe,” Tamsin acknowledged as she watched the owl ruffle its feathers in a distinctly haughty way.
“Does it have something to do with Sir Charley Ward?” the Elder asked, his voice innocent.
“How did you . . . ?” Tamsin started, then gave up, realizing what a foolish question it had been. She had been aware the Elder knew everything, but until that moment she had thought it was restricted to things like the names of all the plants in the kingdom. She hadn’t realized it also included knowledge of her first kiss.
“Be careful there,” the Elder cautioned.
“It’s fine,” Tamsin said, turning back to the bird. She would prefer not to discuss Charley with anyone, but especially not someone old enough to be her grandfather.
“It’s always a risk,” the Elder said, but more quietly now, like perhaps he was no longer speaking to her. “Wherever there is great emotion. Because there is power in that. And few people handle power well.”
“It was only a kiss,” Tamsin said, focusing back on the owl.
“Oh,” the Elder said, shaking this head, “that is where you are mistaken. Believing that such a thing—just a kiss—has ever, for even a second, existed in this world.”