“She narrowed her eyes at him. She wanted to tell him that it was his fault, that she would never have tripped if he’d just stayed the same old Jay he’d always been, gangly and childlike. But she knew that she was being irrational. He was bound to grow up eventually; she’d just never imagined that he’d grow up so well. Instead she accused him: “Well, maybe if you hadn’t pushed me I wouldn’t have fallen.” She made the outlandish accusation with a completely straight face.He shook his head. “You’ll never be able to prove it. There were no witnesses—it’s just your word against mine.”She giggled and hopped down. “Yeah, well, who’s gonna believe you over me? Weren’t you the one who shoplifted a candy bar from the Safeway?” She limped over to the sink while she taunted him with her words, and she washed the dirt from the minor scrapes on her palms.“Whatever! I was seven. And I believe you were the one who handed it to me and told me to hide it in my sleeve. Technically that makes you the mastermind of that little operation, doesn’t it?” He came up behind her, and reaching around her, he poured some of the antibacterial wash onto her hands.She was taken completely off guard by the intimate gesture. She froze as she felt his chest pressing against her back until that was all she could think about for the moment and the temporarily forgot how to speak. She watched as the red scrapes fizzed with white bubbles from the disinfectant. He leaned over her shoulder, setting the bottle down and pulling her hands up toward him. He blew on them too. Violet didn’t even notice the sting this time.And then it was over. He released her hands, and as she stood there, dazed, he handed her a clean towel to dry them on.When she turned around to face him, she realized that she had been the only one affected by the moment, that his touch had been completely innocent.He was looking at her like he was waiting for her to say something, and she was suddenly aware that her mouth was still open. She finally gathered her wits enough to speak again. “Yeah, well, maybe if you hadn’t done it right in front of the cashier, we might have gotten away with it. Instead, you got both of us grounded for stealing.”He didn’t miss a beat, and he seemed unaware of her temporary lapse. “And some might say that our grounding saved us from a life of crime.”She hung the towel over the oven’s door handle. “Maybe it saved me, but the jury’s still out on you. I always thought you were kind of a bad seed.”He gave her a questioning look. “Seriously, a ‘bad seed’, Vi? When did you turn ninety and start saying things like ‘bad seed’?”She pushed him as she walked by, even though he really wasn’t in her way. He gave her a playful shove from behind and teased her, “Don’t make me trip you again.”Now more than ever, Violet hoped that this crush of hers passed soon, so she could get back to the business of being just friends. Otherwise, this was going to be a long—and painful—year.”

“Jay insisted on carrying her up the back steps and into the kitchen, and this time Violet didn’t complain when he lifted her. He set her down gently on the kitchen counter, and then he rummaged through the cupboard while Violet told him where the Band-Aids were. He came with bandages, gauze, cotton balls, antibacterial wash, and two tubes of ointment. It seemed like overkill to Violet, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to see what he planned to do.“Okay, this is probably gonna sting,” he warned as he leaned over and began cleaning her wounds.It did sting, more than Violet let on, and she had to bite her lip as the tears came back all over again. But she let him keep working without even flinching, which was no small feat as he stripped away the layers of dirt from her skin.The wounds were big, and round, and raw. She thought she looked like a little kid with the giant scrapes on her knees, and she imagined that they were going to scab over and possibly even scar. She felt like such an idiot for falling over her own two clumsy feet.But Jay was gentle, and he took his time, being careful not to hurt her. She admired his patience and took perverse pleasure in his touch. He didn’t look up to see how she was doing; he just kept working until he was satisfied that her scrapes were cleaned out. And then he picked up the antibacterial wash and some cotton balls.Violet sucked in her breath when he brushed the soaked cotton ball against the angry red abrasions. Jay looked up at her but didn’t stop dabbing at them. Instead he blew on her knees as he labored over them, just like her mother used to do when Violet was a little girl. She thought it was sweet, and she swore that she was even more attracted to him than ever in that tender moment.When he finished with the wash, he gingerly patted an antibiotic ointment on her knees before covering them with bandages.“There,” he said, admiring his own handiwork. “Good as new.”Violent glanced at the ridiculously huge Band-Aids on her knees and looking at him doubtfully. “You really think so? ‘Good as new’?” He smiled. “I think I did pretty good. It’s not my fault you can’t walk.”

“In the meantime, she and Jay sat shoulder to shoulder throughout the movie, and the warmth of his pressed up against her made it difficult for Violet to concentrate. She tried to remember when exactly he’d started to smell so good to her, or when his touch had become like a mood-altering narcotic.She glanced sideways to see if she could tell what he was thinking, if their casual contact was affecting him the way it was her, but his face was blank, completely unreadable, as he watched the action on the oversized screen.She leaned toward him and whispered, “I have to go to the bathroom.”She stood up to go. And so did he.She gave him a questioning look. “I’ll be right back,” she said quietly.He followed right behind her.“What are you doing?” She was starting to get irritated.“I’m going with you.”“Yeah, I got that,” she said, her voice getting louder now. “Why?”He pushed her along from behind until they were out of the darkened theater and standing in the dimly lit hallway.“I can go to the bathroom by myself,” she insisted, putting her hands on her hips and cocking her head to the side.“No, Violet. You can’t. I told your parents I wouldn’t let you out of my sight, and I meant it. Besides, until you decide to stop hunting for this guy, I’m not letting you do anything by yourself.” That stubborn set to his jaw was back. “Now, hurry up,” he said as he leaned casually against the wall outside the ladies’ room.Violet didn’t want to water her time arguing, so she just shook her head as she opened the door. “You’re crazy! You know that, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer as she disappeared into the empty bathroom, but she swore she heard the sound of his laughter following her inside.”

“Vi, are you all right?” Jay asked, right beside her now, pulling her off the ground.Tears burned her eyes, and it wasn’t just from the painful sting radiating up through her hands and knees. Humiliation threatened to overcome the hurt.Jay hauled her up. She could smell his musky scent in his sweatshirt, and she tried to hold her breath against it. This was bad . . . this was a bad, bad place for her to be.“Are you hurt?” He pulled her away just enough so he could look down at her.She bit her lip, trying to will the tears away. She blinked and looked back at him. “I’m okay,” she responded, but her voice broke, making her words sound puny, pathetic even.He cringed as he bent down and looked at the angry red scrapes on both her knees. He reached out to lightly brush away some of the dirt from them, but she knew that he was afraid of hurting her, so he barely touched them. “We’d better get you back so we can clean those up.” He straightened, and then surprised her by picking her up as he started to carry her along the trail.She struggled against him. “I can walk!” she protested, feeling even more like a baby as he held her in his arms.He looked down at her in disbelief. “Are you sure? ‘Cause I think I just saw you trying, and it didn’t work out so well for you.” He didn’t seem inclined to let her down just yet; he just kept walking.She laughed but insisted again through her teary giggles, “Seriously, put me down! I feel stupid enough already—I don’t need you treating me like an invalid.”He slowed down unsurely before setting Violet on her own two feet. Internally she cursed herself for being so stubborn, and she wished that he’d put up more of a fight. Why couldn’t he have insisted on carrying her all the way home?Instead, he reached out and grabbed her hand. “If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll keep ahold of you anyway. I don’t want to be responsible for letting you fall again.”

“Jay showed up after school with a bouquet of flowers and an armful of DVDs, although Violet couldn’t have cared less about either . . . he was all she wanted. She couldn’t help the electric thrill of excitement she felt when he came strolling in, grinning at her foolishly as if he hadn’t seen her in weeks rather than hours. He scooped her up from the couch and dropped her onto his lap as he sat down where she had been just a moment before. He was careful to arrange her ankle on a neatly stacked pile of pillows beside him.He stubbornly refused to hide his affection for her, and if Violet hadn’t known better she would have sword that he was going out of his way to make her self-conscious in her own home. Fortunately her parents were giving them some space for the time being, and they were left by themselves most of the time.“Did you miss me?” he asked arrogantly as he gently brushed his lips over hers, not bothering to wait for an answer.She smiled while she kissed him back, loving the topsy-turvy feeling that her stomach always got when he was so close to her. She wound her arms around his neck, forgetting that she was in the middle of the family room and not hidden away in the privacy of her bedroom.He pulled away from her, suddenly serious. “You know, we didn’t get much time alone yesterday. And I didn’t get a chance to tell you . . .”Violet was mesmerized by the thick timbre of his deep voice. She barely heard his words but rather concentrated on the fluid masculinity of his tone.“I feel like I’ve waited too long to finally have you, and then yesterday . . . when . . .” He stopped, seemingly at a loss, and he tried another approach. His hand stroked her cheek, igniting a response from deep within her. “I can’t imagine living without you,” he said, tenderly kissing her forehead, his warm breath fanning her brow. He paused thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. “I love you, Violet. More than I ever could have imagined. And I don’t want to lose you . . . I can’t lose you.”It was her turn to look arrogant as she glanced up at him. “I know,” she stated smugly, shrugging her shoulder.He shoved her playfully but held on to her tightly so that she never really went anywhere. “What do you mean, ‘I know’? What kind of response is that?” His righteous indignation bordered on comical. He pulled her down into his arms so that his face was directly above hers. “Say it!” he commanded.She shook her head, pretending not to understand him. “What? What do you want me to say?” But then she giggled and ruined her baffled façade.He teased her with his mouth, leaning down to kiss her and then pulling away before his lips ever reached hers. He nuzzled her neck tantalizingly, only to stop once she responded. She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer, frustrated by his mocking ambush of her senses.“Sat it,” he whispered, his breath warm against her neck.She groaned, wanting him to put her out of her misery. “I love you too,” she rasped as she clung to him. “I love you so much . . .”His mouth moved to cover hers in an exhausting kiss that left them both breathless and craving more than they could have. Violet collapsed into his arms, gathering her wits and hoping that no one walking in on them anytime soon.”

“Yet losing him seemed unbearable. He was the one she loved, the one she would always love, and as he leaned in to kiss her, she gave herself over to him. While he held her close, she ran her hands over his shoulders and back, feeling the strength in his arms. She knew he’d wanted more in their relationship than she’d been willing to offer, but here and now, she suddenly knew she had no other choice. There was only this moment, and it was theirs.”