From the fountain, we took a circuitous path around the Public Gardens back to my apartment. I made up the couch with blankets and pillows while Andy slipped into the bathroom to change into pajamas. He came back out in black sweatpants and a T-shirt, and I couldn't decide if having him here, like this, was the strangest or the most normal thing in the universe.

"Need anything else?" I asked.

"Nope. Thank you." He flopped down onto the couch on his back and laced his hands behind his head. The muscles in his arms flexed, shifting the patterns in his tattoos. I tore my gaze away, reminding myself, automatically, not to stare at him. But a second later I looked at him again, and this time, he was looking at me, too, his eyes dark and deep, his olive skin burnished with rose.

I could have sworn he was going to kiss me outside that pub, just like he had at New Year's.

The New Year's kiss had been so out of character for him, I'd always figured he was just kidding around—what else could it have been? But thinking about it now, I realized that the New Year's kiss had happened soon after he'd finished his first sleeve and had done his first few 5K races. He'd come out of his shell that year; every time I'd come home from college, I'd only been more dazzled by him.

But I hadn't come home often, and by the time college was over and I'd moved back to the island, I'd already—stupidly—started dating Dalton, the jerk. And after that, Andy had never given me any reason to think he was still interested, if he ever had been. Until tonight.

What would happen if I joined him on the couch right now—took his face in my hands, kissed him? Would he kiss me back? Or had the moment passed?

I hesitated, almost stepping toward him—and just as quickly, I lost my nerve.

"I forgot to ask you how your family's doing," I blurted out, trying to cover my awkwardness.

"Oh," he said, sitting up and resting his forearms on his knees. "They're good. Business is starting to pick up again now that it's almost summertime."

Andy's parents, who were as kind and industrious as Andy himself, ran a house cleaning business for the rich folks on the northern part of the island. His adorable kid brother worked for them, too, when he could take time away from his blossoming music career. They were a nice family—much nicer to me than mine had ever been.

"And how's Felix?" I asked, hugging my arms to my chest.

"He's good, too. He's got a little girlfriend now."

"Cute! Who is she?"

"Rich girl he met while he was cleaning their house." His smile quirked. "She's slumming it with him, obviously, but she seems to like him."

"I'm so happy to hear he has someone." Felix was a catch, just like Andy. I took a breath, and asked, shakily: "I didn't ask if you...um...had anybody. You know."

"Oh," he said again, an inscrutable expression flickering across his face. "No. Definitely not." He hesitated. "Do you?"

"No."

He nodded, not quite looking at me. "How are your sisters?" he asked, after a moment.

"Fine. Jess is still working for the cruise line. Think she's somewhere in the Caribbean right now. And Tara's still in Alaska."

"You're the closest to home still."

I shrugged. I didn't intend to stay in Boston for more than a couple years. I had my sights set on New York or D.C. next. But the way my little sisters were, I'd still be the closest, at least in miles, to the parents we rarely spoke to.

"I suppose I should let you sleep," I said reluctantly. I was sure he was tired, after driving all day, even if he didn't look it.

"Suppose so," he said.

He laid back down on the couch, lacing his hands behind his head again, while I meandered around my apartment, turning off lights. He was still lying like that, seemingly lost in thought, when I headed to bed in my little alcove. I paused by my burgundy curtain, thinking that a very different sort of person from me would take the chance on something even more wonderful than what she already had, and would shrug off the heartache if she failed.

I wished I could be that person right now. But instead, I just said good night.

#

The next morning, we stopped by a juice bar and brought our smoothies with us to the Esplanade, a narrow strip of park that followed the Charles River all through the city. It was a brisk, sunny day, and plenty of people were out already, jogging with friends or dogs or baby strollers or some combination of those three.

"I came here to take photos the other day," I said without thinking, nodding at a line of old maples along the embankment.

"Can I see them?" Andy asked.

"Oh," I said, torn between flattery and vague embarrassment. "If you want to. Didn't I bore you enough last night?"

Andy arched an eyebrow at me. "It's not boring at all. It's your passion. And you're really good, just like Suze always said."

"Thank you," I said softly, after a moment. I fumbled for my camera and switched it on self-consciously.

We slipped past the line of maples. Along the edge of the water, spring flowers had just started to bloom—not lush and orderly like those in the Public Gardens, but scrappy, almost defiant.

I selected the set I'd taken of these same flowers—a few macros, a few more black and whites, and some others. We set our smoothies down on the grass, and I handed the camera to Andy, a little nervous, even though I hadn't been nervous last night.

He lingered over a black and white shot of the reflection cast on the river by a cluster of daffodils. "I love this one. How did you do it?"

I stammered through an explanation about framing, adjusting how much light a camera takes in, and a few other things that were probably not all that relevant.

He clicked through the rest of the set, studying each one and sometimes glancing back at the pastoral scene in front of him. "I missed this," he said, squinting sidelong at me in the sunlight filtering through the maples. "Seeing how you see things."

"I always assumed I was being a pain in the ass," I said. "When I used to make you look at my photos."

"Not a chance."

He handed the camera back to me. Our fingertips touched, and I thought, again, about him sliding his hand across the shoulder of my sweater last night. I'd woken up thinking about it, mixed with intense memories of our New Year's kiss.

I stuffed the camera back into its compartment and let my bag fall shut. "If I'd known, I would've asked you to come with me more often."

"I would've liked that."

He'd always seemed politely curious about my photos, but I'd never realized he was genuinely interested. He had never said so. I used to go all the time, by myself—it was one of the few things we had never really done together.

Funny how your beliefs about someone could get sort of...fixed. Like: Andy's not that into photography. Or: Andy only thinks of me as a friend. I hadn't formed either belief consciously, but once they were there, I'd held onto them as if they were immutable truths. People were not immutable, though. If I'd ever been right about this in the first place, I didn't think I was right anymore.

I glanced up at him standing in the dappled sunlight under the maples, looking out over the Charles. A crazy, daring desire coalesced deep in my soul. It was same reckless impulse that finally motivated me to move to Boston, when I'd thought to myself: what if I just went for it?

What if I was the kind of person who'd take a chance on something wonderful?

"I have to...tell you something," I said.

The maples hid us from the jogging path, but I could hear laughter and chatter and dogs barking just beyond them. It didn't matter. I steeled my nerves.

"Something wrong?" Andy asked, looking at me curiously.

I was so nervous, I had a feeling I'd lost all control over my facial expressions, and I felt distinctly sweaty. But he'd seen me sweaty plenty of times.

His brows knitted together, and he crossed an arm over his chest to grip his bicep, the way he did sometimes when he was nervous. Without letting myself second-guess what I was doing, I put a hand on his forearm, over his long-sleeved T-shirt. He glanced at my hand, and so did I. It looked so foreign there, but touching him felt right. Even...obvious. As if I'd been wasting my time doing anything else.

I slid my fingers to the muscular curve of his elbow. He released his grip on his bicep, dropping both arms to his side, and I took the chance to run my hand up his arm to his shoulder. I was so damned tall that Andy, tall as he was, only had a couple inches on me, but for once I didn't mind my height. I let my hand rest against the curve of his neck, his skin warm against mine, his scent dizzying.

"Kaye..." he said softly, his expression pained. "What..."

"This is really overdue," I said, in a rush. "I just—" I licked my lips again, prayed for courage, and kissed him.

"Oh," he whispered, against my mouth, and I started to draw away, already afraid that I'd done something he would not like—but then his arms wrapped around me, pulling me close, and he kissed me back. Even that staggering kiss at New Year's was nothing compared to this: the heat of his mouth, his strong forearms around my back, his body pressed against mine. I ran my hands across his shoulders and chest, impossibly, deliriously greedy.

"Whoops!" someone exclaimed from behind me before dissolving into giggles.

Andy released me slowly, glancing past me toward the people who had interrupted us. Two women, accompanied by a dog. One of the women bent down to pick up a tennis ball covered in grass and slobber. "Sorry!" she exclaimed, and they ran back towards the path, still giggling, with the dog at their heels.

Damn the total lack of privacy in the city—if we'd done this on a Fall Island hiking trail, nobody would have interrupted us for days.

"Bad timing," Andy said, his breathing a little rough. "Them, not you. Just to be clear."

I grinned, my heart skipping a beat.

Andy drew a fingertip along the line of my jaw. "I probably shouldn't be doing this, but..." Very gently, he kissed me again. My eyes fell closed; my mouth yielded to his as he deepened the kiss, his hands gripping the fabric of my sweater. He broke away to press scalding kisses to my throat, and I tilted my head back with a helpless, desperate gasp.

"God, Kaye." His voice was a hoarse whisper. "What are you doing to me?"

At the break in his voice, I forced my eyes open, as if I'd been deep asleep, dreaming a wonderful dream. I swept a hand over my pixie cut. Our eyes met. His forehead creased with worry. He had liked it, though, hadn't he? Had I been wrong?

"S-sorry," I stammered.

"No—Jesus, don't apologize. I just meant—I want you. I can't think for wanting you." He clutched my shoulders, his eyes searching my face. "But we're in a park, and..."

"And our friendship." That old fear of losing him had never felt bigger or more oppressive than it did right now, magnified by millions, every dire possibility in awful detail.

"Right," he said. "And you're—"

A dog barked somewhere on the jogging path, and we both flinched.

"We should leave for brunch," I said, the remnants of my lust disintegrating, leaving me hollow. I pulled away, very slightly, and he let me go at once.

"Brunch it is," he said.

*********

So, they finally kissed!! What do you think? Were you surprised at all? :-)

As always, thank you for reading! <3

~London