Twice Shy

by Sarah Hogle

“Thank goodness,” I sigh. “You’re too much man for me.” “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he replies, releasing his hold after another beat. I can’t tell if he’s wistful or joking.

This is the trouble with crushes. You begin to doubt whether they’re reciprocated, even if on paper the signs are all there. If I ever get married, I think I’ll be wondering all the way down the aisle if the wedding’s an elaborate prank and the groom will say Gotcha! at the end. I can’t trust my own judgment here.

“I’m not that strong at all,” he replies modestly, head ducking, “but for you, I can be strong enough.”

It’s growing increasingly clear that I need a week of no contact to salvage my wits. I can’t be trusted anymore. Wesley doesn’t get the memo. He does horribly destructive things like passing me his canteen to make sure I get the last drink and pointing out which animals the angry clouds resemble. He touches my wrist gingerly between two fingers; I grind to a halt at once, and my soul twirls up out of my body when he kneels to retie one of my shoelaces.

I touch a thumb to a raindrop sliding over the arc of his cheek, following it with my finger all the way down to his lower lip. He watches me from beneath lashes at half-mast, beautiful wide eyes going liquid black.

this isn’t an I like you, maybe or an I’m into you, a little kiss. It’s a force that cuts me off at the knees, stealing the breath from my throat like pulling rope, both of us tangled and tethered to each other as we pitch over the cliff’s edge.

“I’m sorry,” he pants when we break. “I had to . . . I had to—” I don’t let him finish, not done falling yet.

At long last, I get to do what I’ve so badly wanted for weeks, plunging my fingers into his hair.

Anxiety. Nerves. Self-punishing, but so painfully sweet with me.

I want everything, I want all of him, I want to familiarize myself down to every freckle and fine line.

He feels better than I ever dreamed, and I’ve done quite a lot of dreaming.

I am under Wesley Koehler’s skin. I don’t know how deep, but I’m there, and I am not imagining it.

We’ve got to vaporize our attraction. It’s the only way to save this relationship.

“It was the kiss, wasn’t it,” he says defeatedly. “What?” I know exactly what, but I’m stalling for time. “The kiss. You didn’t like it. Or you don’t like it anymore. You’ve given it some thought and wish you hadn’t.” “Are you kidding? I’ve thought about nothing else and wish we were kissing still.” It’s out of my mouth before I can swallow it and boil the truth in acid.

“Because I’m attracted to you.” It comes out in a whoosh. “That’s—ah—well.” He revolves in a circle, examining the ceiling. “That’s good? Yes. That’s very good.” Oh heavens, he is blushing fiercely. “Because I am also.” He clears his throat. “I am also . . . I am attracted to you.” He takes his hands out of his pockets, blinks at his palms, and slides them back into his pockets again. He still cannot look at me.

I am seized by the mad desire to get down on my knee and propose.

“I don’t know how to be smooth.” “Wesley, you don’t need to be smooth. It’s a good thing you aren’t, actually. I wouldn’t survive it. You’re already too wonderful for your own good.”

“During an argument that we had,” he tells me, pitch low, “you called me beautiful. And an insufferable ass. But beautiful. I haven’t gotten over it.” His stare is unwavering in the golden light, cutthroat and holy, compassionate yet demanding.

“I should have told you. I wanted to.” His eyes are molten, transparent with feeling. “I think you are beautiful, too, Maybell. I think that you walked into my life and absolutely ruined it with how beautiful you are. I haven’t gotten a single decent night’s rest since we met.”

I collapse. Into the couch, a complete goner. My bones have simply stopped working. “You’re killing me,” I rasp.

And I refuse to do any more kissing, even though kissing you was the most magical, time-stopping phenomenon I’ve ever experienced and I will perish before I let another man’s lips near me.”

“Just kidding. Pink is perfect on you, of course. Every color is—but pink? Pink is a Maybell color.”

“What do you really think about when you lie down to sleep?” The glow of the living room television flickers at the mouth of the elevator, painting the left half of his face an eerie, otherworldly blue. The rest of Wesley falls to darkness. “I think about you,” he says, each word deliberate. Forced to admit. “I think about you, and it doesn’t help my insomnia at all.”

Anyone can hurt me, but at this point choosing to miss out on what could be is going to hurt me, too.

Hoping for the best isn’t necessarily reckless, and nothing—not the good nor the bad—is guaranteed in life.

Wesley just might be the most anxious, most relationship-shy person I’ve ever met, but here he is putting himself out there anyway. Maybe it’s my turn to be brave.

“But I quit my old job, and my life got better. I moved here, and my life got better. Such big changes. I met you.”

So what I’m saying is I would very much like to kiss you again, if you wouldn’t mind.

I think I have been waiting all my life for a man who says I understand and genuinely does. Who is just as unsteady on his feet as I am when it comes to trying something new and scary.

“Maybell.” He sweeps me up in a reassuring hug. “Your big heart is one of the things I like best about you. I can’t be mad when you use it.”

“We’re weeds growing out of the cracks in concrete: even when we should have been defeated long ago, you can’t keep us down.”

“I love your smile,” I prattle. I can’t see his smile right now, but I can hear it. “You smile so much more now than you did when I met you.”

“It’s impossible not to notice you. I would know a Wesley in a room full of imitations. I’d know a Wesley anywhere. Go out into the woods right now and I’ll find you in thirty seconds flat.” “I don’t mind you noticing me,” he admits, door creaking as he begins to close it behind him. “At least, not anymore. But you’re the only one allowed to, okay?”

I have never been this nervous. There’s no reason to be nervous. This is Wesley. Gawky, shy, uncomfortable, unintentionally charming Wesley.

“Oh . . .” His gaze rakes me. His eyes go wider still, and he rubs his chin. “Wow.” I resist a million electrical impulses: to look away, bite my lip, cross my ankles, fiddle with my purse, fidget with my hair. To say apologetically, The dress doesn’t look like the one I ordered, or minimize myself with a grimace and a My hair’s misbehaving. When he looks at me that way, I feel like a goddess.

When I pull away, his eyes follow me in such an intimate way that I get tingles all down my spine.

Wesley inhales a bracing breath. Puts on a practiced smile that quivers just the slightest bit, trying very hard to cover up his nerves. His hands are clenched at his sides.

he’s a dream, just marvelous, mesmerizing, painfully luminous in the glow of a sky he made all for me.

I am bubbles and butterflies. I am fizz floating into the night sky.

I glance sideways at the glass wall to see his reflection. We stand in a room that is half shadow, half heaven, with softly glowing clouds, their number doubled in the glass wall. He is the most radiant thing in here, smile dazzling.

“I can’t believe you did this. How long have you been working on it? How did you— I can’t even— You are . . .” I can’t drum up any coherent speech, babbling. “You are . . .” “Yes,” he replies from several feet away, a touch smug. “I am, aren’t I?” My cheeks hurt from smiling. “You truly are.”

I am so giddy that I’m making myself ill.

We are both flustered, both unable to take a compliment, both wanting to give compliments rather than receive them and both being bad at verbalizing our feelings. I’d laugh out loud at how disastrously awkward we are if I weren’t channeling every drop of energy into staying put on this stool when all I really want to do is maul him.

“Maybell, I can draw you from memory. With my eyes closed.”

At what point did my happy place stop being a dream and start being the person in front of me?

With every thumping beat of my heart I am being ruined. I never want anyone to hold me again if they don’t hold me like this.

“Not to be down on myself or anything, but this is your first time. And, uh, I don’t know what you’ve been imagining, but . . .” I scramble for phrasing that won’t kill the mood. “I’m not a Victoria’s Secret model. You might have idealized what the woman in this experience would be like. I’ve done this, but not a lot. Also, I just ate, so I’m going to be a little bloated—” “You’re beautiful. I’m going to love whatever’s under here,” he says, sliding a hand up my torso. A bolt of heat zings through me. “Okay, but—” “Maybell.” He stops me with two fingers pressed to my lips. “Don’t be giving me disclaimers, you don’t deserve that. I’m going. To love it.”

I’m giving him tremendous power over me by wanting him the way that I do, so much that it sticks in my throat, making it difficult to breathe. He’s giving tremendous power to me by trusting me enough to be intimate like this.

I would have thought I’d feel terribly vulnerable on display like this, but his gaze traverses my body with such longing, with such naked, blazing lust, and I feel like the most gorgeous creature that ever walked the earth. Wesley drags his fingers over his face, eyes large. “Fuck,” he utters weakly. It is a heady, gratifying thing, to watch this man unravel.

Wesley reaches up to stroke my hair, smiling only with his eyes. I feel more than accepted when he touches me, when he holds me and smiles at me. I feel wanted.