NOVEL WEB Epilogue
“Why are we still here?” Emma asked, kicking her legs. She sat on the edge of the pier and looked up, trying to see if maybe someone had connected the stars in a little pattern that made sense. They hadn’t, and they didn’t.
“Because you wanted to go on the ferris wheel,” Axton said, leaning on the railing. Emma could tell, out of the corner of her eye, that he was looking at her, and that meant that she couldn’t look at him without him catching her, so all she could do was hope that the rising sun wasn’t bright enough yet, and that the shortening shadows would hide her blushing. “You’re pretty when you blush,” Axton said.
“The shadows have betrayed me,” Emma mumbled. “And we only went up there because you took us to that Karaoke bar and I needed some fresh air.”
“On a ferris wheel.”
“On a ferris wheel, yes.” She smiled and stuck out her tongue at him. “I thought it would be romantic.”
“It was,” Axton said with a wistful sigh, and he turned to the sunrise, allowing Emma to momentarily appreciate his face in cinematically appropriate rim light. “Even the part where you screamed and grabbed me because you heard a noise.” He looked at her, and their eyes met, and it was painful and wonderful and Emma wanted to scream so she did nothing. “Especially that part,” he added.
A small, discount-eternity passed as they just looked at each other, in that way only people who have known each other for a very long time and are seeing each other for the first time can. “What I meant,” Emma finally said, “was, like… why are still here? Together?”
“I know,” he said. “I mean, the answer’s obvious, right?”
Emma leaned back and rested on the wood, the smell of the ocean softly carrying her mind to sea, she closed her eyes, and smiled. “Yeah, but I want to hear you say it.”
Axton chuckled softly as he laid down next to her, putting an arm behind his head. Emma was acutely aware of the fact that he’d only put the arm furthest away from her behind his head. The other one was between them. Just lying there. With a hand at the end, just sort of waiting to be held. “Well,” he said, “I think I’m still here because I feel… comfortable around you. In a way I never have before. I think you make me feel good about myself. You make me feel attractive, but also funny, and appreciated. You make me want to be a kinder person just because I kind of want to impress you. And I really, really kind of want to kiss you. How’s that?”
Emma was doing her very best to steady her breathing, if only so Axton wouldn’t get worried that she might be hyperventilating. Her head felt like it was going to either pop off or spontaneously combust, and she had to worry if he could see her heart trying to beat its way through her chest, or if he could only hear it. “That’s… that’s pretty good, yeah,” she squeaked.
“What about you?” Axton asked, and he turned to her. Emma did not look at him, she did not think about turning her head and she absolutely did not think about kissing him like he did but didn’t ask her to.
“We — well, I think I’m still here because… because you make me feel safe, Axton. I mean… I used to think it was like… my job but even then… I was bad at it and I just…” she stammered. Words seemed to come a lot more easily to him, whereas her own just seemed to stumble and fall flat. “I’m sorry. And thank you. You make me feel safe. That’s it. Like, yeah, there’s other stuff, but other people have made me feel cute or pretty or smart, but you make me feel safe and I’m just… fuck.”
“I mean…
“Don’t say it.”
“... if you want to.”
Emma giggled and rolled over and suddenly her head was on his chest and he’d automatically wrapped an arm around her and her breath caught in her throat and… “You’re a bastard,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re… you’re not. You seem like a great person, Axton, and it’s making me feel a lot of things that I kind of don’t want to stop feeling.” She sighed. He sighed, and it made her rise and fall with it. It would be mesmerizing if she wasn’t already overwhelmed by her own thoughts, her own feelings. “This has been… wonderful.”
“It has.”
“I haven’t forgotten, you know,” Emma said. She suddenly felt his chest start to rise and fall faster, and she quickly put a hand on it. “Relax. About what you said before. Nothing… nothing from back then. I should have been more specific.” He relaxed, and she hoped her own rapidly hammering heartbeat wasn’t going to betray her.
“About… about what?”
“About wanting to kiss,” Emma mumbled into his shirt.
“You’re going to have to speak up,” Axton said, with a grin so thick on his voice she was close to shoving him off the pier.
“You heard me,” she said, and looked up at him. His face was so close by. She could feel his breath on her lips, making her whole body tingle. How he managed to keep her eyes locked on his, she didn’t know, because even her brain was trying to look at his mouth.
“I did, but I want to hear you say it better.”
“Oh, fuck off,” she said, put a hand behind his head, and pulled him in, his warm lips against hers, his chest against her own. Two heartbeats playing an off-tempo staccato, two bodies against each other. If he was going to be cocky and sweet and clever and warm and safe, the least Emma could do was be the first to kiss him. That would show him. Somehow. She was going to have to figure that part out later.
