Where We Left Off by Megan Squires Read Free Book Online Page A

been utterly phenomenal.
    “I’m doing this all wrong.”
    “I can assure you, there is no wrong way to do this.”
    “This feels wrong,” I said.
    “Ask any guy, Mallory. There is no wrong way to kiss. It’s sorta one of our favorite things to do in life.”
    “But it could be better.”
    “It could be different.”
    I’m sure he didn’t mean it in the same way I felt it, but Heath only knew it could be different because he’d kissed different girls. I didn’t have differents . He was my only.
    His shoulder nudged me and he took my chin between his finger and thumb, tilting my face to his. “Hey, you.”
    I smiled, but couldn’t look directly at him.
    “ Hey .” He forced my gaze up. “By different I mean you can trust me more, and you can trust yourself and your instincts, too. Just go with it, Mallory. I promise you’ll do great.”
    He was right. I tried again.
    I found my confidence, and with that, my rhythm, but not before Nana found us both.
    It was less humiliating than if a parent had discovered a boy breaking into their under-aged daughter’s room, I supposed. Nana was one-step removed from the responsibility of raising me. She wasn’t the type to scold or admonish, but there was an unspoken duty she had to fulfill, the one that didn’t allow certain things to happen under her roof, on her watch.
    So that first kiss never really happened.
    We’d stuttered and stopped and stuttered and stopped once more.
    All I could think as my head lowered to the pillow after Heath left that night—through the front door rather than the window—was that I hoped this wasn’t some foreshadowing of things to come, of the way our story would unfold.
    I doubted life was that tragically poetic.
    At least I prayed it couldn’t be.

Heath
    Stuff like school, work, and other daily activities were no longer important to me. It wasn’t like I hated doing those things, they just seemed to offer little in the way of any rewards. They were the things I begrudgingly did because I knew they got me one step closer to the reward. And that reward was Mallory.
    The knowing smiles we’d exchange when passing in the school hallway were the reward. We didn’t have any classes together. She said I was on the smart kid’s track, and while I enjoyed school and it came naturally to me, it didn’t mean Mallory was any less intelligent. She just didn’t focus her efforts on her studies the way I always did. Well, at least the way I had up until I met her.
    Her kisses were also the reward. Since our first kiss that wasn’t quite a kiss, the one Mallory claimed ended up so horrendously, she’d learned and a thing or two about the act of kissing. I swear it was like she had studied those silly teen magazines in her spare time. She would close her eyes a little and tilt her head as though rehearsing before she’d lean in. It was absolutely adorable. I could watch her all day, even though I would rather be making out instead.
    Everything about Mallory was my reward.
    And I woke up one December morning and realized that I had fallen completely in love.
    It was weird how a change that I didn’t necessarily want to happen led me to a place in life I wouldn’t change for the world. When my parents said we’d be making the move from California to Kentucky, admittedly, I wasn’t thrilled. I was generally a happy, simple guy. Go with the flow. So I went with it. But my less than enthusiastic packing of boxes and loading of the trailer must’ve clued my parents in to my feelings. I wasn’t upset with them for plucking Hattie and me from our home and moving us to a new one, but I wasn’t stoked, either.
    It was merely because I didn’t know how happy this move would end up making me.
    You couldn’t project happiness. Life gave you the good and the bad, often in equal measure, and you never knew which one you’d get at any given time. Moving across the country was the bad, but Mallory was the good.
    And I loved how good and happy