Her Name In The Sky Part 38

"No!" Baker laughs, kicking at Hannah with her arms still poised over the mixing bowl.

"I think you are."

"I'm going to fling this batter at you."

"No you're not," Hannah says, hugging her from behind. She squeezes Baker's middle and drops her head onto her shoulder. "But anyway, I'll be back for lots of visits. I figure we can come home for at least one night."

Baker releases the mixer, letting it fall back against the gla.s.s of the mixing bowl. She spins in Hannah's arms so they're facing each other.

"You got it," she says, and she kisses Hannah.

It's hard, that second week of August. It's bittersweet. Hannah's stomach is anxious when she wakes in the morning. She thinks of how far she and Baker have come, and she wishes they could go on forever, growing and learning together, without the impending separation that college will bring.

She stands in the middle of her childhood bedroom, with sticky old stuffed animals lumped together in the corner, with pictures of her friends adorning the walls, with Baker's sweats.h.i.+rt strewn over the bed, with piles of clothes that she has already set aside for Emory.

And all she can see, as she stands in the middle of this room, is Baker asking her to dance.

"What are we doing?" Hannah laughs, her heart rate accelerating as Baker steps away from Hannah's music speakers.

"Dancing," Baker says, pulling Hannah into her. "Like we should have done at prom."

The song is soft, rhythmic, mesmerizing. Baker sways Hannah from side to side, her head resting against Hannah's, their hair mixing together, brown into blonde. Hannah turns her head into Baker's neck, and Baker's left hand holds Hannah steady at the base of her back while her right hand grips Hannah's shoulder like she never plans to let her go, and the music drifts over them, a song that exists only for them.

"You looked so beautiful at prom," Baker says.

Hannah wraps her arm tighter around Baker's waist. "So did you."

Baker kisses the side of Hannah's face, right where her skin meets her hairline. "I didn't feel like I did," she says. "But I do now."

Every time Hannah gets into her car, she sees Baker in the pa.s.senger seat next to her, wearing her brother's faded old LSU baseball cap, laughing around the straw of her Sonic milkshake.

"Let's go out to dinner," Hannah says, reaching across the console to trace a finger over Baker's palm.

"Dinner?"

"Yeah, like on a date. We can dress all fancy, and I'll pick you up with a bouquet of roses or something, and I'll take you to dinner." She pauses. "If you don't like it, we don't have to do it again."

Baker's eyes tick over to hers. "How could I not like that?"

So they go on a date. Hannah wears her prettiest dress and her favorite perfume. Baker steps out of her garage with her navy sundress on, her hair pulled half up, the bobby pins glinting in the evening sunlight.

"I don't know why you brought that," Hannah says, eyeing Baker's clutch as they drive down Perkins. "You know I'm gonna pay."

Baker raises her eyebrows. "Not if I fight you for it."

They go to Parrain's. The hostess seats them on the porch outside, and it's crowded and busy in a good way. They order sweet tea and boudin b.a.l.l.s, and Baker asks, "So-since this is an official date, does that mean we have to talk about different things than when we were just best friends?"

"No," Hannah laughs, "I'm just gonna make fun of the way you fidget with your napkin, like I always do."

"Don't," Baker laughs, her smile shy. "I'm fidgeting because I'm nervous."

"Why are you nervous?"

"Because this is the first date I've been on where I actually like the person," Baker says, and Hannah blushes all over.

They drive to City Park afterwards and sit in Hannah's car, and Hannah thinks of all the times she came here late at night and wished for something better for them. "Did you know," Hannah says, surprising herself, "that being around you is my favorite thing in the world?"

Baker answers by kissing her. It's sudden, but soft. They let the kiss linger, and Baker raises a hand to Hannah's neck, and they kiss again.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Hannah says afterwards. "I don't know how I ever thought kissing anybody else was good."

Baker smiles, her eyes lit with magic, and says, "Yeah? I'm that good?"

"Stop," Hannah laughs, tugging on her wrists. "Don't act like you don't like it too."

Baker kisses her again and says, "No, you're right," in a breathless voice.

They hold hands and listen to the radio while they drive back to Baker's house. Hannah pulls into the driveway and turns the car off, and they turn to look at each other.

"Did you want this?" Baker asks, holding up her empty to-go cup of sweet tea, her voice silly. "Maybe as a souvenir of our first date?"

"Nah, wasn't that memorable," Hannah says.

Baker lunges across the console to tickle Hannah's side. Hannah squirms away from her, her laughter high-pitched and joyful.

"That was hurtful, Hannah," Baker says. "You shouldn't say things like that to your girlfriend."

Hannah heats all over when she hears the word. She stills with her back against the window, her hands still held up to ward off Baker's tickling. "Girlfriend?" she asks. "Really?"

Baker's eyes become hesitant, but then she says, in her brave voice, "Yeah-isn't that what we are now?"

Hannah feels brand new. "Yes," she says. "Yes, we absolutely are."

Baker leans across the console and kisses her. "I'll see you in the morning, right?"

"Right."

"Night, Han."

Hannah guides her in for one more kiss. They hold their lips together and Hannah breathes in Baker's scent, and then Baker squeezes her hand and climbs out of the car.

When Hannah lies in bed at night, all she knows is the feeling of Baker waking her up on the 22nd of July, her hands warm on Hannah's shoulders, her mouth dropping kisses to Hannah's face like pennies into a fountain. "Wake up, Birthday Girl," Baker says, her voice in that halfway place between whispering and speaking.

Hannah smiles without planning to, the way she used to smile as a kid when her mom would wake her on Christmas morning.

Baker takes her to Zeeland Street for breakfast, and they sit in their favorite booth, and Baker pulls one leg up on the bench like she always does. They feast on eggs and bacon and grits and hash browns, and Hannah looks across the table at Baker, sitting there in her tank top and shorts with her hair pulled back from her face, and she cannot remember ever being happier.

They eat spice cake with Hannah's family that night. Joanie cuts the slices for everyone, her voice proud as she brags about how this is the best cake she's ever made. Hannah's mom and dad sit at the far side of the table, both of them wearing content smiles, Hannah's dad laying his hand on the table for her mom to take.

"Can't believe we have an 18-year-old," Hannah's mom says.

"That makes y'all pretty old, doesn't it?" Joanie says.

"Feels like you were just born, Hannah," her mom continues.

"It was one of the two best days of my life," her dad says, smiling at Hannah and Joanie.

Baker sits next to her on the back porch steps later that night. "Can I give you your birthday present?" she says, her voice breathless.

They walk in silence up the stairs to Hannah's bedroom, their hands clasped between them, a growing excitement, a restless energy, palpable on the air between their bodies. Baker guides Hannah to sit on the bed and closes the door behind them, her chest heaving with breaths. Then she crosses to the far side of the room and opens the windows.

The room swells with humidity and the scent of flowers and the song of crickets. Baker comes back to the bed and places her palm over Hannah's heart-Hannah can feel it drumming within her-and eases her down onto her back.

"I couldn't figure out what to get you," Baker says, pus.h.i.+ng Hannah's hair back from her face. "What do you get for the person who gave you everything?"

Hannah's arms begin to shake, but this time she is not afraid.

"And I realized," Baker says, taking a breath, "that there's one thing I haven't truly given you yet, and that's me. My self. My whole self. Without the fear or the shame. Just with love, and abandon." Her voice shakes, but her eyes are clear. "Is that okay?"

Her words sling through the room with the force of David's stone, defiant and brave. Hannah searches her eyes and finds a new light in them. Not the desperate one, full of shame, but the light of love, the light that rolls aside the stone, that pierces the tomb to find the miracle of salvation.

"That's all I've ever wanted," Hannah says.

Baker kisses her with tenderness. Hannah feels the weight of Baker's body on her torso, pressing against her ribs and stomach, warming her. They kiss, and then they move their hands over each other's clothes, and then they are naked on the bed, their bodies cupped together and open to the outside world.

And Hannah finds herself praying again, and she feels G.o.d coursing through her body and blood, but this time she knows it's with jubilation.

"You're crying," Baker says.

Hannah raises a hand to her own cheek. She touches the tears and laughs in disbelief. "Yeah," she says, her voice wet, "but I think it's in a good way."

Baker's smile starts small, just her lips parted in wonder, but then it grows until it lights up her whole face.

"I love you," she says.

"I love you," Hannah says.

And they show each other.

And then it's the second Friday of August, and Baker has to start freshman orientation on Monday. Hannah sits on Baker's bed while Baker darts distractedly around her bedroom, categorizing her belongings into piles of toiletries and clothes and school supplies and cleaning products.

"I pity your roommate," Hannah says. "You're gonna color coordinate her closet while she's out of the room, and then she's gonna come back and not know how to find her own clothes."

"I pity your roommate," Baker says while she fits her shampoo into a shower caddy. "You're going to scare her off with all your bad puns. She'll be terrified to have a conversation with you."

Hannah narrows her eyes. Baker looks up from where she's seated on the floor, and she shakes her head and says, "Oh, no. Don't even."

"What?"

"I know what you're doing. You're trying to make a pun about something. I can tell by your expression."

"I am not," Hannah laughs.

"You so are."

"Fine."

The corners of Baker's mouth lift. "Did you come up with anything?"

"No," Hannah admits. She pauses. "I've had a hard time concentrating lately."

Baker's smile falters. She drops her hand from the shower caddy. "We're gonna be fine, Han," she says. "We're going to miss each other, but we'll be fine."

"I know," Hannah says. "I'm just not looking forward to the missing each other part."

"Me neither."

Hannah chews the inside of her lip. "I'm going to miss our friends, too. I already do."

Baker holds her eyes. They stare at each other through the s.p.a.ce of Baker's bedroom, surrounded by proof that their lives are changing again.

"Me too," Baker says.

They spend all of Sat.u.r.day together. They eat breakfast and lunch together and share snacks in-between. They take Charlie to the dog park. They watch the first Harry Potter movie on Hannah's couch, lying under the same blanket with Hannah's back against Baker's stomach. They drive Baker's car to the St. Mary's parking lot and gaze through the winds.h.i.+eld at the familiar blond brick buildings, the buildings that always felt like home, while they hold hands across the console. They eat dinner with Hannah's parents, talking excitedly about college while they pa.s.s the green beans around the table, both of them masking the nostalgia they already feel for their old life.

And after dinner, while Hannah washes the dishes and Baker dries them with an old dishtowel, Baker's cell phone chimes in her pocket. Hannah pays no attention while Baker reads the text message.

"Hey," Baker says, stepping up behind Hannah and kissing the underside of her ear. "Let's take a break now, okay? There's something I want to show you."

"What?"

"C'mere," Baker says, tugging on her hand.

"What are we doing?"

Baker smiles. "We're going to play outside."

They leave the kitchen and walk out the back door. They step beyond the carport and into the muggy evening air, and there, standing in the road, Hannah sees them.

Luke, Joanie, Wally, and Clay, their figures larger than life on the sunset backdrop. They grin at her as she approaches. Each one of them stands in front of a bicycle, and Wally and Clay each have a hand on two additional bicycles balanced at their sides.

"What-?" Hannah says, breathless.

"Don't look so surprised, dummy," Joanie says.

"It's the last night we can all be together," Clay says.

"Together?" Hannah says. "You mean...we're all okay?"