Free Through to You by Lauren Barnholdt Page A

air feels heavy all of a sudden. Yes, it’s because it rained, and because it’s humid, but it’s also because things have shifted. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Before when I was with Penn, there was a lot of activity around us—we were at the dance studio, or the batting cages, or something, and now . . . now we’re just here, sitting on his car with nothing to do but . . . talk.
    â€œSo,” he replies.
    I take a cracker and dip it into the goat cheese spread. It’s delicious.
    â€œIs this where you used to play baseball?” I ask, gazing out onto the field.
    I’m not sure if it’s my imagination or not, but I feel like he stiffens beside me. “No,” he says. He takes a swig of water. “Well, not recently. I played here when I was a kid.”
    â€œOh. And you . . . I mean, are you going to play in college?” I know he hurt his shoulder. I know he doesn’t play anymore. I want to know if he’s going to get better, but I’m not sure exactly how to ask him that.
    He shrugs, then just gazes out onto the baseball field. Then, suddenly, he jumps off the hood of the car until he’s standing in front of me. He leans in close to me and gives me a devilish smile.
    â€œHi,” he says, and that’s when I know he’s going to kiss me.
    I hardly even know him, and he’s going to kiss me. Which is crazy. But what’s even crazier is that I want him to kiss me. I want to kiss him so bad, I can hardly take it.
    He reaches up and pushes a piece of hair back from my forehead, and his eyes are gazing right into mine, and it’s so perfect and romantic and passionate that I swear it feels like I’m in a movie.
    â€œHi,” I breathe.
    He moves his face closer to mine, and then he kisses me. His lips are cool, but his mouth is warm and his kiss is soft. It takes us less than a second to find a rhythm. He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me against him.
    A breeze ruffles the trees and sends a shiver up my spine, and I’m not sure if it’s because the air has gotten colder or because of the kiss. He pulls back for a minute, and then hislips are back on mine, teasing me. He’s kissing me the exact way I thought he would—strong and firm and perfect. His face is smooth, but there’s a little bit of stubble rubbing against my chin, and I lose all track of time as his lips move against mine. My heart is beating fast, and my skin is flushed. My lips are getting swollen from the kissing, and my hair is getting tangled in his fingers.
    When he finally pulls away, he trails his fingers up my arms, sending tingles flying through my body.
    â€œWell,” he says. “I guess that happened.”
    â€œYeah,” I whisper. “I guess it did.”

Penn
    I shouldn’t have kissed her. I knew that as soon as I did it. It’s just that she’d been sitting there looking so adorable, trying to open that damn package of crackers. How could opening a package of crackers look cute? It made no sense.
    But it was more than that. Not only is she cute, but let’s face it, she is also hot. And I was stupid for not noticing it earlier. Although I guess I must have noticed it a little bit—I did put that note on her desk, after all. But that note was a throw-away, something I did on the spur of the moment. It’s not like I wanted anything to come of it. If I want a girl, I don’t waste time with cute little notes. That’s what guys who have no game do. That’s what guys who want romance do.
    And I’m not that guy.
    But now I’ve gone and kissed Harper, and to make it even worse, I did it on the hood of my car after a rainstorm, at a park while we were having a picnic. What the hell was I thinking?
    After we kiss, I expect things to be awkward, like it usually is after you kiss a girl for the first time. But it’s not.
    We sit. We eat.
    Harper asks