Free Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone Page B

as I wait for the touch of his lips.
    But the kiss never comes. Instead, I feel him pause. His breath travels past my cheek, and the words I’m sorry fill my ear in a whisper.
    “About what?” I murmur.
    “This.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I can’t—”
    “What about daring adventures?” I hope he can hear the smile in my voice.
    I feel him laugh into my neck and he sighs again. “I’m afraid I’m already on one. A different one.” I pull back to see his eyes, and wonder why he looks sad. He rubs my cheek with his thumb and pulls away from me.
    He looks at his watch. “I should really get back to Maggie. Can I walk you home?”
    I sink back into the chair, confused. Dejected. “That’s okay. It’s just a few blocks.”
    “I’d feel terrible if something happened to you.”
    “If I went missing?” I ask sarcastically. “Yeah, it sounds like you have that effect on people.” I’m still close enough to see how his face falls, and then hardens.
    “Thanks.” He scoots backward, and the part of me that’s upset he didn’t kiss me feels satisfied. “I’ll be right back.” He walks toward the bathroom, leaving me alone on the couch to berate myself.
    “Bennett, I’m so sorry,” I say as soon as he returns. “I was trying to be funny.”
    He bends forward and picks my backpack up off the floor. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” We maneuver into our bulky jackets and walk in silence past the couches and tables and out into the street. We walk side by side, but there’s a visible gap between us. We hardly say a word for the next three blocks, and I can’t help noticing that the Bennett I just spent the last hour talking to isn’t anything like the one who’s now walking me home.
    “This is mine,” I say when we arrive at my house. I watch as Bennett looks up at our nineteenth-century Craftsman, with its flaking yellow paint and wraparound porch that serves as its only exterior asset. The kitchen light is on, but there’s no activity inside, and my parents won’t be home for hours. “Do you want to—”
    “No.” He cuts me off, his voice sharp. He sets my backpack on the ground by my feet. “Look, you were right…about what you said back there.” His voice is softer now, but it’s almost like he’s forcing it to sound that way.
    “Oh, come on. I was kidding.” I try to get him to lighten up, but he stuffs his hands into his pockets and refuses to look at me. I didn’t think my comment was that insulting, but it was enough to send him into the bathroom as one person and emerge as a completely different one. The first one was just about to kiss me. This one can’t wait to get away.
    “You don’t know anything about me.”
    I step closer and give him a flirty smile, hoping I can bring back the Bennett from the coffeehouse. “I know two of your secrets.” Something about that near-kiss in the coffeehouse makes me feel brave enough to reach forward and grab on to the lapels of his wool coat. “That’s got to be good for something. Isn’t it?”
    He moves in close to me, just like he did on the couch, but this time his face is tight and he stops far short of my lips. He reaches up and grabs hold of my wrists to remove them from his lapels, and I reflexively loosen my grip. His expression turns even colder.
    I can’t believe my comment has offended him so much. “What’s wrong with you?”
    He takes a big step backward. “Listen. This is not going to happen again. Do you understand, Anna? This,” he says, motioning back and forth between us, “is not going to happen this time.”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about! What do you mean ‘this time’?”
    “Nothing.” He crosses his arms tight across his body and stares right into my eyes. “Look. I’ll be here for another two weeks, and only because I don’t have a choice. Then I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again. So please, go back to your life.” He turns on his heel and I watch him march off