There was no word in the dictionary adequate to describe the sensation other than sensational.
“More, please?” I asked him when we separated for air, our foreheads leaned in against one another.
“Can I be honest with you, Lily?”
Uh-oh. Here it was. All my hopes and fears about to be dashed by rejection. I was a bad kisser. Before I’d even gotten a good start.
Dash said, “I’m seriously so tired I feel like I’m going to pass out. Could we please sleep on this, and resume tomorrow?”
“With great frequency?”
“Yes, please.”
I’d settle for one bang of a kiss followed by one sensational minute of kissing. For now.
I rested my head on his shoulder, and he rested his head on mine.
We fell asleep.
As threatened, my cousin Mark arrived after seven on New Year’s morning to rescue us. My head was still nestled on Dash’s shoulder when I heard Mark’s footsteps coming downstairs and saw a light burst on underneath the doorway.
I needed to wake Dash. And believe that this hadn’t all been a dream.
I looked down at the red notebook, sitting on Dash’s lap. He must have woken up in the night while I was asleep and written in it. The pen was still in his hand and the notebook was open to a new page filled with his scrawl.
He’d written out the word and meaning for anticipate, next to which, in big block letters, he’d written: DERIVATIVE: ANTICIPATOR.
Below that, he’d drawn two figures who looked like action heroes in a cartoon. The sketch pictured two caped crusader teens, a fedora-wearing boy and a girl with black glasses and wearing majorette boots, passing a red notebook between them. The Anticipators, he’d labeled the drawing.
I smiled, and kept the smile on my face as I prepared to wake him. I wanted the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes to be the welcoming face of someone who liked him so much, someone who on this new morning, in this new year, was going to do her best to cherish this new person, whose name she finally knew.
I nudged his arm.
I said:
“Wake up, Dash.”