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A couple of guys and girls go with her, and we agree to meet by the lagoon for the fireworks. The rest of the group leaves to buy drinks and snacks, while Dane and I go in search of glow necklaces and wands.
The sun has set with just a streak of pink and coral stretching across the horizon. All of Dane’s hard lines are softened around the edges. It’s the time of the night where you can’t quite see full details, just an outline of a face, not knowing where his dark-brown hair ends, and his square jaw begins.
Dane holds his finger out. “There’s the stand.” He drops his hand, and his long fingers curl around mine. If I said we have held hands a thousand times, it wouldn’t be close to the truth—more like ten thousand. We’ve always dragged each other around.
So, why is there a smile tucked inside my lips? Why is my stomach twitching?
“Which colors should we get?” he asks.
“Blue for the Stallions.”
“How about we get necklaces the color of the Olympic rings? Because you’re making it to the Olympics.”
He believes I can do anything, just like I do him. I never want to mess that up.
“I hope so. Let’s do it.”
Dane buys red, green, blue, yellow, and since they don’t have black ones, he gets the multicolored ones. And for the wands, he buys blue. “Hold the sticks.”
He takes a red necklace from his hand, putting the rest of the necklaces between his thighs then slides his hands around my neck. His head tips over my shoulder to clasp the glowing circle.
“Red for my energetic, passionate Lettie Bug.”
Passionate?
He tips my chin and looks in my eyes. “You can do anything. Take what you want. Take what’s yours.”
Is he speaking of the Olympics or himself?
My chest rises like a soufflé his mom bakes for her fancy dinner parties, but Dane’s knuckles are steady. He’s always steady.
Shadows hide his face and expression, which I desperately need to see to figure out how he intends for his words to hit me. But then a whisper of a kiss touches my lips. So slight, I’m not sure it even happened.
“You can do better than Nick, you know. What color should I wear?” he asks like nothing happened. Maybe I imagined it.
“Umm… green because you’re calm and collected even when you should be nervous.”
I slip a green one out of his hand as he bends down and lets me secure it around his neck.
The fireworks shoot over our heads, and I imagine walking in with Team USA into the opening ceremonies. Can a little girl from a tattered and torn trailer, with drug-addicted parents, make it to the Olympics?
If I do, it’ll be because of Dane. I owe the life I have to him.
Chapter Eight
DANE
Me: Morning. MadShroom or Don Julio’s?
Lettie: Morning. It’s too early for pizza.
Me: Have a good day at class. See ya after practice.
Lettie: You, too.
Why did I kiss Lettie? She didn’t kiss me back, and she obviously only sees me as a friend. Now I have to figure out how to move on from the kiss. How her perfect lips tasted of salt from the pepperoni pizza. The fireworks provided me much-needed cover from my thoughts, except when they burst into a thousand pieces, my heart did too. We stayed in the friendzone too long, and we can’t climb out of it.
It's been a few days since Timber Thrills, and I haven’t seen her or talked to her on the phone. She said she wanted to give it a few days after breaking it off with Nick, but I wonder if she doesn’t want to address the elephant in the room—the kiss.
