Delayed by Nathan Kingsly (best manga ereader txt) 📕

its owner, so the next time I need to search for her, I’ll find her.” My eyes meet hers.

“But ...”

I close my eyes on a sigh.

“Emma …” My eyes shoot open, expression is unsure. “Christine … ”Her brows crease. “Baker …” She searches my face, her face still showing unease. It could be abou giving me her name or of me, but now that I have it, I can worry about it later because I can’t wait another second.

She sighs and melts into me the moment my lips connect with hers.

Kisses before this, were a product of what we needed at the time, an escape from the storm, our realities, and of convenience. In this moment, all that is between us, is each other—coming together because we no longer could stand being apart.

In this kiss, there are no ulterior motives. I also know there will be no other like it. In the twist of our tongues and her tears touching my cheeks as we shift to get closer, I know the words that had evaded me, the words I’d been too scared to admit glares inside my mind like a beacon. It’s blinding and obvious that I’ve been an idiot. I love Emma Christine Baker.

I woke up this morning convinced that I could let her go, whatever this is between us, forget the girl that causes such turmoil and calm inside me. No, I’d been a fool to try and convince myself for a second that I can let this go. Something this consuming is what people write songs about, bleed on paper for, and I squeeze her tighter, never willing to let her go again.

Someone clears their throat, and by the obnoxious way they’ve done it, I know it’s not the first time they’ve tried to get our attention. I'm reluctant to let her go. I release Emma’s mouth, but not her body, as I look around and find a stout man in a uniform glaring at us. His name tag announcing him as Ted, Emma’s bag gripped firmly in his meaty grasp.

“What can we do for you, Ted?”

Emma giggles and covers her mouth before hiding her face in my shirt. I bring her closer to my side. Ted isn’t a threat, but I’ll use any excuse.

“We don’t condone such public displays of affections.” His face screws up as if he’s sucking on a lemon as he says affection. “If you could please take it somewhere else … outside of our airport perhaps?”

Holding out a hand, he transfers the bag into my custody, and as soon as I nod, he pulls away. Looking down at Emma, a smile already playing on her lips, it takes nothing to have us both laughing.

Emma touches her cheeks that are scarlet red. “That was embarrassing.”

“Oh, I don’t know. If we’d been in a movie, it would have been called romantic.”

She smiles and looks up at me, letting her cheeks go. “One for the books.”

“So, do you really need to go?” I offer her her suitcase, and she takes it from me.

“I do, but I don’t see why they can’t wait another day for me to get there.”

“Really?” I’m scared to hope, but I want nothing more than to spend as much time as I can with her before she goes again. However, this time I’m going to make sure there is no threat of that being a permanent condition.

She bites her lip and nods. I grab her waist and bring her towards me for a quick kiss. Well, it had meant to be a quick one. When she molds into me and bites my bottom lip, I find myself growling and finding it hard to remember the reason we stopped kissing a few minutes ago.

But then she’s pushing at my chest, “We should stop before we do get kicked out.” I let her go, and I gestured to the exit doors.

“How about we kick ourselves out and find somewhere else to gross people out with our PDA,” I smirk as she laughs.

“Good plan. My car is in the car park.”

“I’ve got one better. I’m parked in the visitor lane a few meters from here.”

“That is better. So where are you taking me?”

“Hungry?”

“For food?” She looks me up and down. If I wasn’t before, that look made me painfully hard.

“For now.”

She bites her bottom lip and takes one last look before nodding. “I actually know a great place not too far from here.”

“Wendy’s is not what I had in mind.” I laugh, but I pull into the drive-thru anyway.

She shrugs. “Their spicy nugs are great when you dip them into your milkshake.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Before this meal is finished, I will have converted you,” she promises.

I’d picked a nearby park that I knew of and parked us under the shade of some trees. After a minute of watching her dip those nuggets into her frosty, I'm convinced that frosties aren’t only for fries even before she had me try them. Though damn it, after she had, she's right.

The way she laughed with victory made me wish it's the only thing we were going to do today. However, as the car settles back into silence and all the food is gone, my heart speeds up, and my palms grow sweaty in anticipation of who would ask first.

Taking a deep breath in, I prepare what I want to say. “Em ..”

“I regret not giving myself an option to get a hold of you.” She peeks over at me, and when I say nothing, she looks back out the windshield and continues. “The way I left, I thought you might never want to talk to me again, and that's why you hadn't reached out.” She looks down, and her fingers start fidgeting with her shirt. “After my trip, I was going to try and find you, but I didn't know how.” She shrugs.

“How was I supposed to reach out? You'd think in a digital age you'd at least give me your number!”

She looks up and jerks