"Happy eighteenth, El."
"Thank you," she said, shaking her head. "You're too much, you know that?"
He shot her another smile, glancing at their surroundings to confirm that several other people were present in the small cafe.
"I think," he started slowly, earning a wary expression from her, "that you need to be sung happy birthday."
"Jonah," her tone threatening, "don't—"
He opened his mouth, turning over his shoulder, but she reached over the table and squeezed his forearm, effectively shutting him up.
"Don't you dare," she warned.
He grinned. She truly was beautiful.
***
The day passed in an array of conversation, playful banter, and laughter. Morning easily melted into afternoon, as if no time had passed at all. Only when the afternoon sun started to shine through the coffee shop's large front window did Eliska realize what time it was.
"Got to get home." She started packing her books into her bag.
Jonah shifted in his seat, not knowing if this was his time to depart and go to the hotel room he had booked himself in town and wait to see her again until the next day.
He watched her stand up.
"Well, come on," she said, "you're coming too."
***
Eliska proved to be very persuasive about Jonah going with her to have dinner with her family. He didn't want to overstay his welcome—"I haven't even met your parents yet!"—and didn't want to take away from the day that was solely for her, but she kept saying it was no problem at all and assured him her parents would respond in the same way.
Turns out, she was right. Her parents were as carefree and understanding as her, her mom hugging him once she realized he was the boy El had been talking to for weeks. Her dad shook his hand with apparent acceptance. Her younger brother gave him a high five, which he guessed was the best response he could receive from a six year old that he just met.
They all insisted that he stay for dinner, and after even more convincing, he consented.
***
Jonah and Eliska walked side by side towards what she had told him weeks before was her favorite place at home: the woods. They were behind her house, and she had loved them for as long as she could remember.
"I used to come out here when my dad was gone, before I was old enough to go with him," she said as they reached a slight incline in their walk. "I would go to the top of this hill and pretend that if I took a book and read long enough, when I walked back home, he would be there."
Jonah glanced at her as she shrugged.
"Of course, it didn't ever work like that, but I didn't really stop doing it until I was old enough to—"
Her foot caught on a root that was hidden by the shadows of approaching darkness and sprawled her out, face-first, on the forest floor. Jonah made a sporadic move to catch her, but she was already down, laughing. It could be described more as cackling, really, and it was so contagiously loud that he couldn't help but laugh with her.
She gasped out her next words.
"I hate this freaking—" she stumbled again while trying to get up, throwing her into another fit that racked her entire body.
Chapter Eleven
Start from the beginning
