I tried to choke out the words to tell him that I would be all right, but he warned me against them. He said that it was okay to not be okay. He explained that it was fine to be broken for a while, to not feel anything but hurt. We stayed on lap six the longest, him whispering against my hair that someday, somehow, the hurt would be overshadowed by the joy.
Later, I told him about the bucket list Gabby had crafted for me, and he asked to read it. Reaching into my purse, I pulled out the folded piece of paper and handed it to him. He held it with such care, unfolding it slowly. I watched his eyes travel from left to right as he moved his way down the list.
“Hula-hoop in a department store?” he questioned, arching an eyebrow my way.
I chuckled, nodding.
“Sing a Michael Jackson song at a karaoke bar, including dance moves?”
“I know, right? That one was more Gabby than it was me,” I replied.
He smiled at the list before folding it back up and handing it to me. He asked me how many I have checked off so far, making me sigh.
“None yet. I was supposed to dance on the bar tonight…but as you witnessed, I had a minor mental breakdown.”
“So you haven’t read a letter from your sister yet?”
“Not yet. I kind of want to just rip them all open but…”
He laughed as he started to walk around the block again. “But you don’t want to be that girl.”
“That girl?” I questioned, standing in place, staring in his direction.
“You know. The girl who deliberately disobeys her dead twin sister.”
I smiled. I knew it was twisted, and some would call it wrong what he said, but I smiled because heck…it was funny. I really missed funny moments in my life. “You’re right. I wouldn’t dare be that girl.”
“Besides…” He turned around toward me and bit into his bottom lip. He walked closer to me and playfully nudged me in the shoulder. “You’re about to complete one of the tasks.” When he said this, my nose wiggled and my eyebrows arched.
He laughed at my somewhat dumbfounded stance. When his face grew closer to mine, I let the air release from my mouth, brushing against his lips. It felt like forever that our mouths were millimeters apart, yet it was only truly a few seconds.
His lips didn’t only look soft and kissable—they looked talented as well. Like they could kiss someone even if they were on the other side of the world and make that person melt. It wasn’t long before I realized just how talented those lips were.
Our lips connected in a way I’d never been kissed. There needed to be a new word for this type of kissing. Therapeutic. Poignant. Apologetic. Blissful. All of those beautifully diverse feelings—all at once. The overwhelming amount of emotions running through my body electrified the energy that traveled from me to him.
I knew I would never want to kiss another man from the way I kissed him. I never knew that kissing could be so simple yet so complex. He did all of the work with just his lips discovering mine.
He pulled me to the side of the bar and my back found the stone wall, but it wasn’t the wall that was holding me up as much as it was his touch. He leaned in closer to me and I felt his tongue part my lips, finding my tongue ready to become well aquatinted with his.
When his arms wrapped tighter around me, my leg reached up to find its final placement around his hips. A small gasp fell from me as his strong hands clasped around my bottom and lifted me up even higher, making my selfish want to wrap my legs around him become a desperate need in order to fight gravity.
Like a wandering star, my body fell into the depths of desire, and I began to beg the heavens that this wasn’t some depression-drenched fantasy—yet if it were, I hoped to never find reality again.
He moved his mouth away from mine, leaving me with my eyes closed and my heart open. I could feel his heart pounding against his t-shirt, and he placed his hand over my heart. Words were not needed because everything was felt from within, spilling out into each other’s fingertips.
One last time, his lips crossed mine, almost not touching, as a closing ceremony. When I opened my eyes, I found his stare, and he smiled toward me as he began to explain in more depth. “Number twenty-three.”
He slowly lowered me back to the ground. I looked down to the list still resting in my hands and quickly darted my eyes to number twenty-three.
#23. Kiss a stranger.
Well I’ll be damned. I kissed a stranger.
My eyes looked up from the list to find Daniel smiling at me. He took three large strides backwards and took a bow. “You’re welcome,” he joked.
I couldn’t contain my glee, and it was useless to try. Spinning around in a circle with my arms flung out, I let the night air wash across my body. I get to open a letter! I felt like crying, but I knew it would only be happy tears.
My feet started to break out into a run in Daniel’s direction, and he was probably thrown off guard when I tossed myself into his arms for a tight, tight hug. He didn’t falter at all—he lifted me into the air and swung me around a few times, hugging me back without question.
“You don’t know what this means to me,” I whispered, secretly wanting to kiss him again and again.
He pulled back a little and stared at me, smiling. “Let’s get you home so you can do a little reading.”
He placed me down, and the two of us walked to the front of the bar. Daniel rubbed his arms up and down my shoulders for a moment. His lips moved in closer to mine, and when they connected to the corner of my mouth, I felt a wave of heat skyrocket through my system.