If You Told Me To

Harry blinked and looked over at the sweating glass, like he’d just been torn out of a deep trance. “Yeah, right,” he mumbled, reaching for the drink and taking a small sip while Sarah did the same.

She was kicking herself for ruining the moment, but she didn’t know what else she was supposed to do. What if he didn’t mean it the way she was taking it, and he got freaked out if she tried to kiss him? That would have been pretty forward of her, even if all signals were pointing toward him having feelings for her.

“Did I freak you out?” Harry asked after a few minutes of tense silence. “I didn’t mean to, if that’s what I did.”

“You didn’t freak me out,” Sarah rushed. “I mean, not really. I just don’t know what’s happening here, exactly.”

Harry let out a nervous chuckle and ran his hand through his curls, letting them all bounce back into place perfectly. “I don’t, either. I don’t know what I want.”

Sarah felt her heart sink, but she worked to keep the emotion off her face. “What do you mean?”

There was a short hesitation before Harry looked up at her, his green eyes glistening and bright when the sun hit them just right. “I mean that I look at you, and I know that I want to kiss you. I know that I want to spend all my time with you. I know that I really care about you. But in the next beat, I know that I’m going back to New York, and you’re going to be staying here, in the middle of the deserted country. Long-distance relationships don’t work with adults, so I know it’s not going to work for a couple of young teenagers. It’s like I’m at a standstill. I want to have a romantic relationship with you, but knowing there’s an expiration date just ruins the fantasy.”

Sarah sat for a moment and stared at her hands folded in her lap. Nobody had ever been so straight with her, so truthful without worrying about hurting her feelings. So she voiced her own thoughts: “I know what you mean. That worries me, too. But what worries me more than what happens after is what happens during. I’ve never been in a relationship before, and I don’t know what’s going to happen here. I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re not new to this, and I’m just paranoid that I’d make a fool of myself.”

Sarah watched Harry carefully, searching for any signs of disgust in his features, but to her surprise, he laughed instead. “I may have done this before, but I’m not exactly the Deflowering King of New York or anything.”

Her face burned bright red as she rubbed the back of her neck. “And I certainly don’t want to be deflowered yet.” There was a short moment of silence, since Harry didn’t seem to have any idea how to answer that. “You know, this might have an expiration date, but that shouldn’t spoil the time in between. We still have almost two months where we can be together, and we should make the most of that while we have it instead of pretending nothing’s there and we’re just friends. There’d just be tons of tension all the time, and we would be dumb not to acknowledge it.”

Harry turned toward the blonde girl and smirked, biting on his lip ever-so-slightly to keep it from growing into a full-blown, cheesy grin. “You’re right,” he agreed. “But why don’t we set some guidelines?”

Sarah raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask any questions aloud as Harry pulled his laptop back onto his thighs and brought up a blank word document. Across the top, in a big, bold font, he typed, RULES.

“Very original title,” the blonde girl remarked, and her only response from Harry was an amused, soft-hearted glare. “So what kinds of rules did you have in mind?”

Harry pondered for a second, biting a little on his lower lip, before typing, “1. The end of the relationship is on August 21, when I return to New York.”

Sarah’s stomach panged when she thought about the deadline. He was scheduled to be there for two months, and they’d wasted the first couple of weeks by being friends and awkward around one another. But despite her sentiments, she nodded when Harry looked at her for approval. She didn’t want him to back out of the deal; having him for less than two months was better than not having him at all.

“Two,” Sarah piped up, sitting up straighter as she moved closer to Harry, “no super-secret details are allowed to go on the blog. I don’t want my innermost secrets posted on the internet.”

“Only fair.” His voice was a murmur as he typed up Sarah’s rule word-for-word.

She wanted badly to sigh in relief when he put the period at the end of the guideline, but she held it in so he didn’t know just how nervous she was about that small aspect.

“Three, no adults can know about this. Which means that we have to keep acting like we have been for the past couple of weeks. If there’s no change our behaviors, then they’re never going to know that anything’s going on.”

Sarah almost protested, but then she thought about the look of horror that would take over her father’s face if he found out she was dating the boy she’d brought into the house all that time ago when he’d been at work. He would have freaked and banned her from seeing him, there was no doubt in Sarah’s mind. So she nodded solemnly and curled her knees up to her chest as she tried to think of another rule.

“Four…” she mused, trying to put the right words together to express her thoughts. “Four is no rushing. Just because we have a deadline doesn’t mean that we should go out of our comfort zones to do anything we’re not ready for.”

Harry gave a small snort of laughter, and though Sarah could tell it was good-natured, she slapped him anyway. “Shut up,” she told him playfully. “Just because you’re the Deflowering King of New York-”

“I’m not!” Harry chuckled. “I’m a virgin.”

For whatever reason, that made Sarah feel much more secure about the relationship prospect. At least he wouldn’t be waiting and waiting for something he’d never get. And even if something did happen that was along those lines, he’d be just as clueless as she was. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips, which Harry promptly misinterpreted.

“Hey, it’s not funny. I didn’t know you’d laugh at me, especially since you’ve never even kissed a boy.”

Sarah identified his defensive behavior and refused to let herself get upset. “I’m not laughing at you, Harry. I’m just kind of glad, that’s all. It takes a bit of the pressure off.”

He shook his head, trying to hide his smirk. “You shouldn’t have to feel pressure from me.”

She smiled and racked her brain for a fifth rule, but Harry had beaten her easily. “Fifth and final rule,” he mused as he typed, the words springing up across the page, “no saying ‘I love you.’”

Sarah flushed bright red, but Harry was quick to explain. “I’m not saying that we’re going to feel this by the end of the summer or anything, but I have to put it down on paper to clarify. If we admit that our feelings are that deep, it’s going to be a hundred times harder to go our separate ways, so it’s just better that we don’t get that involved with one another.”

She saw the logic in that. It was good enough that they were allowing a relationship to blossom at all, and it would just make it easier on both of them if they clarified that their summer romance was just that, and making it anything more would just be detrimental.

“Those rules are good,” Sarah agreed, nodding her head. “What do we do with it?”

“I’d print it out and have us both sign it like a contract, but I’m petrified that Aunt Tony would find it.” After an inquiring glance from Sarah, Harry quickly explained. “Aunt Tony’s a snooper. She does all my laundry and cleans my room, and I know she’s looking for suspicious things when she does that.”

Sarah laughed a little and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. A moment of silence ensued after his confession, and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to keep the conversation going. But just as she came to the conclusion, a funny statement about how two nearly-full glasses of lemonade had gone to waste, she felt Harry’s lips press against hers.

Her face grew hot, and even more so when Harry reached up and placed his large palm against her cheek, running his thumb along her cheekbone. He tasted like salt, probably from the thin layer of shiny sweat covering his face, and had the slight sour edge from the lemonade, and Sarah couldn’t help but thinking that she couldn’t have imagined her first kiss tasting any other way.