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He nodded. “I’ll always catch you.” His dark irises swam with a mixture of hope and fear just as potent as the kind coursing through me. This man knew me so well. He knew my question was about so much more than a quick trip across the yard.
Liam held out a hand.
I only hesitated for a breath before placing mine in it. His palm was warm and callused, sending comforting heat and a zap of excitement down my arm.
With a foot planted on either side of the bike, he grasped my waist with his other hand and guided me onto the handlebars so I faced him. I giggled the whole way up there, feeling seventeen all over again.
The smile on his face was so bright it made my chest ache. He laughed with me, steadying the bike as it wobbled. “All right. Remember to hold on to my shoulders and—”
“Don’t drop my feet. I know, I know.” I said, gasping for air.
“You ready, Goldie?”
It was his turn to ask the loaded question, and truth be told, I didn’t know if I would ever be ready. But I wanted to try.
Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I took him in. His hair was perfectly mussed, and his shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. With his hands on the handlebars, the collar dipped, revealing a small sliver of his toned chest, and suddenly I’d agree to anything he asked.
Ready to fly to Mars? Just say take-off.
“Mmm. Yup.”
He put one foot on a pedal and pushed off with the other, and then we were off, heading through the yard toward the rows of trees and the path that led to the creek.
The spring air was heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and imbued with a gentle warmth. The soft glow of the evening sun warmed my exposed skin.
A wave of nostalgia hit me, bringing with it a serenity I hadn’t felt in so, so long. Around us, the leaves on the trees rustled, and the wildflowers bent with the wind, an immaculate representation of the tranquility weaving through me. As if nature itself had taken a moment to reflect on the past.
In front of me, Liam chuckled as he craned his neck so he could see around me and steered us to the path.
Our laughter drowned out the sounds around us so that nothing existed but him and me and the path that would lead us to the memories that had created the people we were today.
Once we broke the tree line, he gave my thigh a playful tap, then came to a stop so he could help me hop off. From there, we set off on foot. Liam leisurely followed a few feet behind me, though he may as well have been pressed against my back with the heat that was racing through me.
“So…” I broke the silence. “I haven’t been back here since we were…what? Nineteen?”
I’d posed the question even though I remembered every detail of the last time we were here. Because that visit had ended with Liam down on one knee in the mud and me a snotty, ugly crying mess.
He let out a small laugh, like he was about to call my bluff. “Yup, nineteen. Do you remember that night?”
“Sometimes it’s all I think about.” I was glad he was still behind me, otherwise he’d see my flaming cheeks. It was true, though. Our past, our memories, practically did cartwheels in my mind when I lay in bed alone at night. Good, bad, and ugly, we had been through it all together. This was a good memory, though. One of the very best.
I stopped a few feet away from the bank of the creek, watching as it wound its way through the landscape, glistening and reflecting the colors of the trees and the sky above. Soft pink and light blue dipping into orange. Shades of green and brown. The surface rippled gently, carrying the whispers of lost memories downstream.
It hadn’t changed a bit, like time had stood still in this place, our place.
Tucking my skirt under me, I lowered myself to the ground, sticking my legs out toward the water and leaning back on my hands. Liam rested the bike on the ground and sat next to me.
“Hey,” he rumbled, bumping my shoe with his and pulling my focus from the creek. With his head tilted adorably, he smirked. “Remember the first time we came down here?”
I scoffed, my chest feeling tight with nostalgia. “Yeah, you pushed me in, and it was freezing cold.”
Dropping his head back, he guffawed. “It was July. I thought it would be warm enough by then. You got me back when you yanked me in with you.”
The memory, just as sweet as the others that we’d made here, surfaced, followed by a dozen more. The two of us jumping from rock to rock in the water, talking about our day, our future days. Making promises of white houses with yellow front doors and the babies we’d have. The dog we’d adopt and our perfect careers. We were so young and so clueless about what life had in store for us.
“It was always so fun here.” I sighed, contemplating the water as it burbled by.
“It could still be like that.”
