After lunch, we hike through the heat, dry grass, and brush to a creek near the house. It’s little more than a watering hole, but reminds me of all the springs and ponds where Emily and I used to play. I kick off my sneakers and wade knee-deep into the water. The mud oozes between my toes, stirring the water into silt.
“What are you doing?”
“Cooling off.” I bend over, splash some water on my arms. “It feels good.” Without straightening, I watch him take a step closer until the water laps at the edge of his work boots.
I wait until he’s within range, and then I grab as much water as I can and splash him. He jerks as it pelts him. Even as he shakes it free from his eyes, I scoop frantically and splatter him over and over, laughing as he steps into the creek without even pausing to take off his boots.
Bending, he throws water at me, and all at once it’s war. We both launch as much water as we can at each other. We keep it up, splashing until we’re out of breath, completely soaked, and laughing so hard we can barely stand.
“Enough,” Jalen says, putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
Our eyes meet. I see the small beads of water caught in his long, black lashes and a softening of his lips. My heart beats faster, and as the moment lengthens I think he’s going to kiss me, but then he lifts his arm and wipes his face.
“You’re soaked,” he points out.
“So are you.”
“I know.”
The sun is hot on my skin. His face is unsmiling, set in strong, proud lines. Nothing is going to happen between us, and it’s time I accept this, stop being so obvious about what I want from him. I watch the rise and fall of his chest and will my face to a blankness that won’t say anything to him. I will myself not to feel anything at all.
“We should go,” he says.
We should, but I don’t move. Instead, I keep my gaze locked on his. “Why don’t you ever say my name? Why don’t you say, ‘Let’s go, Paige?’”
He blinks, and even in his still face something seems to freeze and I sense how uncomfortable I’ve made him. “What are you talking about?”
My hands go to my hips. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. You don’t speak to me unless we make eye contact. The only time you’ve ever said my name was the day Jeremy attacked me. Remember? You called my name. You said, ‘Paige, are you okay?’”
He shakes his head and then suddenly takes great care to wring the water from the hem of his T-shirt. “So what?”
“Say my name.”
He looks up, jaw tight. “We should go. It’s a long ride back.”
“Say, ‘It’s a long ride back, Paige.’”
His eyes turn dark, scornful. “I’m not a parrot.”
I know I should let it drop, but I can’t. “I want to hear you say my name. Friends use each other’s names, Jalen.”
He hesitates, muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching. I know I’m ruining the moment, the fun we were having just moments ago, but I need to know. And so I hold his gaze and hope he can see that his answer is important to me. Finally, he sighs.
“Words have power,” he says.
“Exactly. It feels impersonal when you don’t use my name. It feels like you either don’t know it or you’ve forgotten it or I’m not important enough to you to use it.”
He scowls. “It’s none of those things. You don’t understand.”
He’s right—I don’t.
“Okay,” he says, “I’ll give you an example. In the winter, we don’t say the word ‘bear.’ To say the word is to call the bear to you.”
I don’t blink. “I’m not a bear.”
“I know.”
But to say my name might call me to him, and he doesn’t want this. Sweat rolls down my face like tears, but I’m more angry than sad. “You’re never going to say my name, are you?” I can’t hide the bitterness in my voice. I don’t want to be the girl he simply calls “Hey, you.”
He shrugs, and his eyes slide away from mine.
A flash of hurt passes through me. “Fine.” I walk away from him, picking my way barefoot along the water’s edge, welcoming the pain of rocks and pebbles sharp as shells.
“Wait,” he calls.
“Oh, were you talking to me?” The good feelings I had for him in the hogan and in the water are gone, replaced by hurt and anger and a selfish desire to hurt him back.
“Wait,” he calls more loudly, but I keep going. I would walk all the way back to my father’s house if I could.
“Wait, Paige,” he says.
My feet stop of their own accord.
“Paige,” he says again, softer now, drawing the word out, gooseflesh rising all over me, as if he has breathed the word onto me.
I turn slowly. He’s standing about six feet away, an expression on his face I have never seen before. He wants me, he cares for me, yet this comes at a cost for him.
I move toward him so he doesn’t have to be the one to take this next step. When our faces are inches apart, I look into his eyes.
“Paige,” he says again.
He takes my face in his hands, carefully moves my hair, and then his lips close over mine. He kisses me deeply, as if everything he’s been holding back has finally broken through. I taste a trace of orange and something I can’t describe that belongs to him. I close my eyes, feel like I’m dissolving inside. The muscles in his back strain, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that this is real, that it isn’t just a crush—that he would not be kissing me like this if it were something he could help.
When we finally stop, we hold each other for a long time. I search his eyes for a trace of regret and see, instead, amusement.
“That’s why,” he says gently. “Why I couldn’t say your name.”
I feel his heart thumping under his shirt and am suddenly aware of how tightly I’m gripping his neck. How I never want to let go of him. “Jalen,” I whisper because if a name has power, I want to call him to me again and again and again.
“I’ve wanted to do this since I saw you,” he whispers, showering my throat with kisses that leave me breathless.
“You filled my water bottle for me that day, didn’t you?” I wind my fingers into the silk of his wet hair, feel the heat of his scalp.
“I saw you watching me. I wanted to do something for you.”
“You didn’t even look at me.”
“I saw you.” A shy expression forms in his eyes as he fits his gaze to mine. “I saw you, Paige.” His voice is low and very serious. “I see you even when I’m not with you.”
I kiss him again. I can’t help it. “And the time with your uncle—you didn’t introduce me…”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t sure what he’d say to you. And I kept thinking that if I kept my distance, you’d be safer.”
I see the sudden shadows creep into his eyes and kiss him again. “Nothing is going to happen to me. You don’t even know if I’m the girl in your uncle’s dream.”
He pulls back. “It’s not like I have feelings for a lot of girls.”
Something silvery goes through me. He cares about me. He wants to protect me. I am falling in love, and maybe he is, too. “And have there been a lot of girls?”
He smiles and his eyes are so black it must be a trick of the light. “Oh, dozens and dozens. So many I’ve lost count.”
He’s joking and I punch him lightly on the arm. “The truth.”
“Just you,” he says.
We kiss for a long time, and this time there’s the joy of knowing that there’s no one else in his mind or life but me. That all this time he’s been hiding these feelings for me. He hasn’t said he loves me, but I feel it.
Even after the kiss ends, we don’t let go of each other. For the rest of the afternoon, as we hike the area near his grandparents’ hogan, some part of us is always touching.
We stay until late afternoon and he says it’s time to take me home. Holding hands, we walk slowly back to the truck. With its rusted paint and dented sides, it blends in perfectly with the abandoned house and garden of scraggily yellow weeds. It looks as if it belongs there, and in a crazy kind of way, it feels like now Jalen and I belong to this place, too.
On the way home, I scoot over on the bench seat and lean my head against his shoulder. He puts his arm around me, and although we don’t talk much, I’m okay with that. I know he’s crossed a line he never meant to cross and wouldn’t have if he didn’t have feelings for me. If he didn’t love me. If this were not the start of something.