Chapter 8: The Stairwell

Dear Lark,

When is a first kiss too soon?

I met him three weeks ago and I think about him constantly.

Please don't tell me to wait.

Hopeful in Hoquiam

Dear Hopeful,

A kiss is too soon only if you would be sorry the next morning.

Ask yourself that, and then ask the other person to answer first.

Lark

The kiss was not careful.

I had braced for careful, because Marguerite was careful about everything, and instead she tipped my chin up and kissed me.

My back met the plaster wall of the stairwell, and my glasses knocked against her cheekbone.

She laughed against my mouth, a short breathless sound I had never heard from her, and slid them off my face and folded them into her sweater pocket.

"I need those," I said.

"You can see me from here."

She was right, she was inches away, and I could see every detail.

Her lashes, the gray at her temples, a tiny crumb of cornbread on her collar.

I fisted my hands in her sweater and pulled her closer, and she made a low sound in her throat that went straight through me.

Her mouth was warm and tasted of tomato and pepper.

Her hands slid to my waist and then under the hem of my cardigan, flat against my ribs, and I gasped.

She stopped there, with her palms on my bare skin and her forehead against mine.

"Tell me to stop," she said, her voice rough.

"No."

"Hallie."

"I said no."

I kissed her again, harder, and she answered it, and one hand moved up my back and the other held my hip.

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