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We’re lying in comfortable silence when Dante shoots up and looks at me with a calm determination. I wait for whatever life-changing discovery he wants to announce. This guy just can’t stomach a good quiet period, can he?
Dante leans down, his fingers playing with my hair. He likes touching it, says it’s soft, feels good. And when’s close enough, I focus on his lips. They’re parted and I want to kiss them, slip my tongue through them. My stomach suddenly gets a bit hot and I try to calm it down while tuning into Dante.
“Do you know about the Aurora Borealis, Ari? It’s a light show, except it’s nature’s light show, born solely from the sun’s wind and our Earth’s atmosphere. And it looks like seeing river streams in the sky!”
Dante’s eyes shine in the dark, with the universe’s stars encased within and I think that I don’t need to keep searching anymore.
“They say you can sometimes hear stuff, like whistling or a low hum, or whispers,” says Dante. “Whispers of the universe’s secrets.”
I prop myself on my elbows. We’re daringly close to each other. I can feel Dante’s heat.
“It only happens in the North and South Poles. We should go. I mean, the view here is great, but it’s a whole new world up there.”
Something tells me he’s not playing around. Who am I kidding? Dante Quintana never jokes about these things.
“After school.”
He nods. “After school.”
I kiss him after. Doesn’t look like he’s going to anytime soon and lately, I find myself being very impatient. Dante once asked me if I’ve ever kissed a boy before and what I thought of it. Well, now I have and I can never get enough of it.
Dante has his eyes closed when we part and I want to dive in again. But I wait and cup his neck instead. He likes it when I thumb the fleshy junction below his ears. I like it when he shudders in response. His breath tickles my nose until I realize he’s doing it on purpose. The tease.
“Ari.”
“Hmm?”
“I want to do it again.”
“Okay, go right ahead.”
He doesn’t and my smile lessons. I find uncertainty crinkled in his eyebrows. There’s something wrong—rather, there’s something that’s always been there but I guess I just brushed it off. Dante is holding back.
Dante should never hold back.
I drop my hands on his arms, stroking his wrists.
“Dante?”
“Ari.”
I wait patiently, though I’m just as apprehensive as him. I’ve seen that expression before, if only for a split second. It’s the same as when he asked me, what I’ve considered back then, a simple question, but what he probably regarded as consequential.
“Are there going to be any rules for us?”
Dante is rarely scared of anything.
Dante should never be scared around me.
And I’m going to try my best to make sure of that. I raise my hands so that one is cupping his cheek and the other is supporting his back. We’re now in an awkward position where I’m sitting up and he has to twist his waist to face me. But Dante doesn’t move.
I place a kiss on his cheek, the other; on his forehead, nose, chin, lips. Then lips again, and again and again until he’s giggling.
“No rules, Dante.”
“None?”
“You’d make me break every one of them anyway.”
Dante hums and he’s glowing. He kisses me back. Finally. Did I mention how I love kisses? Kisses with a capital K. Kisses with Dante.
“Wait, just one.”
A sigh. “What?”
“More kisses between us.”
A smile. A real, big, genuine and bright smile that makes my chest tight around my heart.
“I can work with that.”