Our Little Love Story *NOW PUBLISHED ON AMAZON KINDLE!!*

chapter fifteen

That evening my parents were inside watching television, and Jared and I were out on the front porch steps of my house talking. I told him all about the host parents I’d had, the retreat, the churches, and about lots of the new people I’d met. He had seen my bracelet on the ride home, and I told him where it came from. He seemed impressed.

“That was really nice of them to get you guys that,” he remarked, admiring it from his driver’s seat.

“So,” I started, playing with a piece of grass on my front steps, “what did you do while I was gone?” 

“Oh, nothing exciting, really. Just worked mostly. You know, the usual. Gotta make that paycheck,” he added with a smile and a wink. I laughed and we were silent for awhile, just enjoying the other’s company.

“Oh. Well, I also,” I paused, looking up at Jared two steps above me, “I thought about you a lot. I don’t want to sound like some crazy girlfriend, but it was really hard to get you off my mind for very long at all.”

Jared didn’t say anything for a moment, he just looked into my eyes. He looked so long and so close, I could’ve sworn he was looking straight into my heart and soul. “I thought about you a lot, too. Constantly. It was pretty much impossible to get you out of my head. I was always wondering what you were doing, who you were with, if you were having a good time, if you were safe. That sort of thing,” he finally said.

There had been something nagging at my mind since the day Jared took me to his secret area, and I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, but I wanted to. I needed to. 

“So, you know how, with our faith and all, we’re supposed to wait until marriage to, uh, um….” I trailed off, feeling my cheeks beginning to burn. The s-e-x word was always hard to bring up to anyone for me. I was so glad I had avoided ‘that talk’ with my parents altogether. 

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying,” Jared said, watching me even more closely now. 

“Well, I have been thinking, and even though I guess it’s kind of ‘wrong’” I motioned quotation marks with my fingers, stealing a glance at Jared, “I think if you find the absolute right person, should it really matter if you wait until a piece of paper says that it’s okay? I don’t know why a piece of paper should stipulate something like that, if you already know in your heart…” I trailed off again, glancing up at Jared to see what his reaction was.

He had been looking at his hands, fiddling with them in his lap. Once I stopped talking, he looked up and in front of him, across the street, not looking at anything in particular. After what seemed like a long moment to me, he finally looked down at me. A moment of silence hung between us, making me anxious and somewhat nervous to hear what his response was going to be.

Finally, he said, starting slowly, “Well, Tiffany, I feel the same way, really. I’m not sure why a piece of paper from the courthouse or wherever has to dictate your life, if it’s something that you’re already sure of in your heart. If you just, I don’t know what the exact word is. I guess if you just, know,” he paused, after putting emphasis on ‘know,’ and looked at me for a long time. “I guess I just figured that you would be the one to wait until marriage for that sort of thing. I’ve never really felt so strongly one way or the other about the subject. I mean, I don’t want to go around, uh, you know, doing it,” he added a little more quietly with a quick glance to the living room where my parents were, “with anyone and everyone I meet on the street,” he paused again, and then said, “But I never really vowed to myself or anyone to wait until I was married, either.”

My breath caught in my throat, and my heart seemed to have quit working all at once. Jared scooted down to the step that I was sitting on, stretching his long legs on either side of me, and then scooting himself closer towards me on the step. He leaned forward, and cupped my chin in the crease of his fingers. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his, even if I had wanted to.

“I think,” he said quietly and breathlessly, “that when you know in your heart, and something just feels right, like it’s the most right thing in the world that you could do, then sometimes you have to just go with your heart and forget the rest,” Jared said, and leaned in closer and kissed me so gently I felt like my insides had turned to jell-o. It was probably a good thing that we were already sitting, because I don’t think that I could’ve held myself upright after the intensity and passion from his kiss. I ran my hands over the sides of his neck, interlacing my fingers at the nape of his neck. I pulled him in closer, deeper, intensifying the kiss a hundred times over. 

We pulled back, our kiss still lingering on my lips. We gazed at each other in silence. I couldn’t think of anything to say. At least, not anything that wouldn’t ruin the moment. 

The sound of Jared’s cell phone ringing finally broke our silence.

“Hello,” he said, finally answering it on the last ring. He looked at me and rolled his eyes, and then smiled, winking. “Alright, ‘bye,” Jared said into the phone, and then closed it, ending the call.

“Who was that?” I asked, glancing down at his phone, and then back up at him.

“Oh, my mom. She says she needs me to get home, for whatever reason she’s come up with,” Jared said, rolling his eyes and smiling again.

“Aww, she just wants to see her baby boy,” I said winking at him, teasing. “Maybe she misses your handsome face,” I added, brushing his chin with the tips of my fingers.

“Ha. I doubt it. She probably just wants me to clean my room or something. It’s kind of a disaster,” Jared informed me, laughing.

“Oh, well, you better get going then,” I said, giggling. 

We stood up from the concrete porch steps and walked down the last few and around the front of the house to the driveway where his SUV was parked. It was well past dark now. 

“So, uh, you want to go do something tomorrow, after church?” Jared asked, pausing before climbing into his driver’s seat.

“Sure. What did you have in mind?” I asked, instantly curious. Anything he had planned would be more than okay by me. 

“Oh, I don’t know just yet. I’ll surprise ya,” Jared said with a wink, and then climbed into his vehicle and shut the door.

“Oh, okay,” I replied, leaning onto the SUV and sticking my head through window he had rolled all the way down earlier. Jared gave me a small kiss, and then turned the key over, the engine roaring to life. I glanced at the hood, then back at Jared behind the wheel. “Well, until tomorrow, then,” I whispered. 

“Until tomorrow,” he agreed, planting another kiss on my lips. I stood up and backed away from his SUV so he could back down our driveway. I watched as he went the back way to his house, turning onto the gravel road in front of the next door neighbor’s house. 

Turning and walking slowly up our drive, I gently touched the tips of my fingers to my lips, where I could still feel his kiss. I walked into my room, shutting the door behind me. I flopped down onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling. 

The realization of what I had just talked with Jared about came flooding back into my memory, flooding my emotions. Had I seriously just talked to him about us actually having sex?!