Sunkissed, Kasie West [best authors to read TXT] 📗

“I thought you had a magic smile.”

“A magic smile?” He offered it to me now.

“Yes, that one. I also thought you were very confident and way too pretty for me.”

“It’s the hair, isn’t it?”

“Trust me, it’s the face.”

“Well I like your face too.”

I smiled and we fell into silence again. His thumb began making small circles over the back of my hand.

I reached out with my free hand and let it travel from his shoulder to his neck.

He closed his eyes. His lashes were dark and long; his mouth was relaxed, making his lips look soft. I inched forward until our noses touched.

“Brooks,” I whispered.

“Yes?”

“You’re pretty cool.”

He chuckled a little and I closed the space between us and kissed him.

He responded, pulling me close. His body felt warm as the air around us became colder. His hands moved from my shoulders, then down my arms and back again.

“When can I see you again?” he asked, pushing his forehead against mine.

“It’s probably best we keep our distance until I’m done being grounded.”

He let out a small groan but nodded.

Then we both heard a distinct whistle back by the cabin.

“I have to go,” I said.

“Wait.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded in fourths. “I started on the second song. Think you can look it over and add another verse?”

“Of course.” I pushed myself up on my tiptoes and kissed him one last time before I ran back to the window where my sister was waiting. I climbed inside, gripping the paper to my chest, and fell on my bed with a happy sigh.

“So dramatic,” Lauren said, replacing the screen and closing the window.

I laughed, then sat up and unfolded the page. The lyrics were written in his messy way—words crossed out, or underlined, or squeezed in as an afterthought—but that only made my smile bigger as I read through them.

Sometimes the stars align.

Sometimes the path seems moved for you.

Sometimes it’s just in time.

Exactly when hope was almost through.

And sometimes is all I need

And more than I deserved

So I read into every sign

Because sometimes, yes this time, sometimes brought me you.

I took a sip of air. My boy who normally wrote soul-sucking lyrics wrote a love song? I read over the words again. Did he write our love song? Already a second verse about my side of the story was starting to take shape in my head.

Sometimes the moon goes dark

And the path ahead unclear.

“I need a pen,” I said, scrambling to the nightstand and searching the top drawer before the words slipped away. “Give me a pen.”

“Chill,” Lauren said. “Here.” She reached into her laptop case and threw one onto my bed. And I began adding my neatly written lyrics beneath Brooks’s messy ones.

The rest of the week went by painstakingly slow. Every day we did a different activity with my parents—minigolf and tennis and crafts. We even left camp and went to some hot springs one day. And every night, I worked on the second verse of lyrics or the arguments I’d make to my parents at the end of our grounding about why I should sing in the festival.

By the time the week was up, I felt anxious. I hadn’t seen Brooks in days, not even in passing, and began to make up stories in my head that he was somehow discovered and fired.

“Hey,” I said to my sister. I was lying in bed and had just read over my festival arguments again.

She looked over the top of her laptop. “What?”

“Do you have some footage of Brooks?”

“What?”

“From practices. I just wondered if you ever got an actual interview with him.”

“Are you going through withdrawals? You need a Brooks fix?”

“Yes.” I didn’t even try to deny it.

She patted the bed next to her and I rolled off my bed and onto hers.

She exited the window she had up and opened another.

“What were you working on?” I asked, pointing at the screen where the other window had been.

“Oh, nothing, just a project. Let’s see, Brooks, the unhelpful guitarist.” She proceeded to show me several clips of him not answering her questions. His teasing eyes made me happy.

I tapped a video thumbnail. “What’s this one?”

She opened the clip. Brooks was sitting on the edge of the stage staring down, as if he didn’t love the camera but was willing to talk to his hands.

“Music has gotten me through everything,” he said. “It’s been my best friend when I felt like I had no one.”

My heart ached for him and how alone he’d felt over the years.

Kai’s head popped over Brooks’s left shoulder and he gave a funny growl, his tongue sticking out.

“Kai,” Lauren said off-camera. “You got your turn. Go practice or something.”

Kai walked away, but the moment was gone. Brooks moved to a squat and then stood. “I should go practice too.”

“Are you going to cut out the part where Kai interrupts for the documentary or keep it in?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Lauren said, closing that video and scanning the screen, probably to see if there were any others of Brooks. “I’m not doing this documentary anymore.”

“Oh, right.” How could I have forgotten that?

She held up crossed fingers. “But maybe Mom and Dad will say yes to you singing and then I can do a new one, on you…right?”

The arguments I’d been practicing all week with my sister about why my parents should let me sing suddenly sounded nonsensical and unconvincing. And a documentary starring me sounded even more ridiculous. “Do you think that would be interesting?”

A knock on our door was followed by Mom opening it. “You girls wanted to chat?” she said.

The pasta we’d had for dinner seemed to turn over in my stomach.

Lauren and I both stood, somberly. I grabbed the letter I’d written so I could remember everything I needed to say and we joined our parents in the living room.