He takes the news of the congregation pretty well.

“Sounds like church camp,” he says.

“More like a family reunion,” I say.

He leans over and kisses me, a soft, featherlight kiss that only catches the side of my mouth, but still leaves me breathless.

“I missed you,” he says.

“I missed you, too.”

I curl my arms around his neck and kiss him, and everything goes away but this moment, his lips on mine, seeking, his hands in my hair, drawing me in, our bodies together on the bed, realigning to get closer, his fingers on the buttons of my shirt.

I can’t let him die.

“You’re so warm,” he murmurs.

I feel warm. I feel like I could burst into flame, simultaneously light and heavy, and time is slowing down, like I am seeing everything frame by frame. Tucker’s face hovering above my own, a tiny mole just below his ear that I never noticed before, the shadows we’re making on the ceiling, the dimple appearing in his cheek as he smiles, the way his heartbeat is speeding up, his breath. And I can feel what he’s feeling too, on the edges of my mind: love, the way he thrills to the feel of my skin under his hands, my smell filling his head—

“Clara,” he says, breathing hard as he pulls away.

“It’s okay,” I say then, drawing his head down to mine again, pressing my cheek to his, our lips not quite touching, our breath on each other’s faces. “I know you have your ideas about this, and I think that’s sweet, but . . . what if this is all the happiness we get? What if this is our chance, before everything changes? What if this is it? Shouldn’t we just . . . live?” This time when we kiss, it’s different. There’s an urgency that wasn’t there before. He pauses to pull his shirt over his head, revealing all that golden brown skin, his rodeo/farm/work hard-physical-labor-all-his-life muscles. He’s beautiful, I think, so crazy beautiful it almost hurts to look at him, and I close my eyes and lift my arms over my head and let him take my shirt off too. The cool air hits my skin, and I shiver, I quake, and Tucker runs his calloused fingertips gently along the top of my shoulder, strumming over my bra strap, across the line of my collarbone and up my neck, ending below my chin where he tips my head up to kiss me again.

This is really going to happen, I think. Me and Tucker. Right now.

My heart is beating so fast, skimming more than beating, like a hummingbird’s wings in my chest, my breath coming in shudders like I’m cold, like I’m scared, but I’m neither. I love him. I love him, I love him—the words have a pulse of their own.

Suddenly he freezes.

“What?” I whisper.

“You’re glowing.” He sits up abruptly.

I am. It’s very faint, not full glory by any stretch of the imagination, but as I spread my fingers and examine the back of my hand I see that my skin is very definitely glowing.

“No, your hair,” he says.

My hair. I immediately grab at it with both hands. It’s shining, all right, beaming. A sparkly shiny sunbeam in the dark of Tucker’s room. I’m a human lamp.

Tucker isn’t looking at me.

“It’s nothing. Angela calls it comae caelestis. Sign of a heavenly being. It’s why Mom made me dye my hair last year.” I’m babbling now.

“Can you . . . turn it off?” he says. “I’m sorry, but when I look at it, I feel . . . dizzy, like I’m going to fall over or pass out or something.” He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

“Also a little nauseated.”

Great to know I have that kind of effect on a guy.

“I can try,” I say, and it turns out not to be too hard to shut it off. Just seeing the strained expression on Tucker’s face does the trick.

I swear I hear Tucker breathe a sigh of relief.

“Sorry about that,” I say again.

He looks at me, swallows hard, tries to regain his composure. “Don’t be sorry. It’s part of who you are. You shouldn’t have to apologize for who you are. It’s pretty, really. Awe inspiring.

Fall down on your knees and worship, all that.”

“But it makes you want to puke.”

“Just a little.”

I lean over to kiss his still adorably bare shoulder. “So. My light’s out. Where were we?” He shakes his head, scratches at the back of his neck the way he does when he’s uncomfortable. Coughs.

I sit there awkwardly for a moment. “Okay,” I say. “I guess I should . . .”

“Don’t leave.” He catches my hand before I can stand up. “Stay.” I let him draw me back down into the bed. He lies behind me, spoons me, rests his hand on my hip and breathes steadily onto the back of my neck. I try to relax. I listen to the ticking of the clock on his nightstand. What if I can never find a way to control the glow? What if every time I feel happy in that particular way, I light up? I’ll light up, he’ll get queasy, and then— freakus interruptus.

There’s a bleak thought. It’s like my own special form of birth control. The full body glow.

And then I think, He’s going to die without ever having made love to a woman.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tucker whispers. He moves his hand up and takes mine, squeezes it.

Oh. My. God. Did I just say that aloud?

“What doesn’t matter?” I ask.

“Whether or not we can . . . you know,” he says. It’s crazy that he can’t read minds but still he knows almost exactly what I’m thinking. “I still love you.”

“I still love you, too,” I answer, then turn and snuggle my face into the side of his neck, wrap my arms around him, and that’s where I stay until he falls asleep.

I wake up when somebody opens the curtains, and here’s what I see: Mr. Avery, in overalls, with his back to me, looking out the window where the sun is just cresting the barn.

“Rise and shine, son,” he says. “Cows won’t milk themselves.” Then he turns. Sees me. His mouth falls open. My mouth is already open, my breath lodged in the back of my throat, like if I don’t breathe he somehow won’t know I’m here. So we stare at each other like a couple of beached fish.

Outside a rooster crows.

Tucker mumbles something. Turns over, pulling the blanket off me.

I yank the blanket back up to cover my bra. Thank God I’m still wearing my jeans, otherwise it would look really bad.

It still looks really bad.

Really bad.

“Um,” I say, but my brain is like a block of ice. I can’t chip words out of it. I reach over and shake Tucker. Hard. Harder when he doesn’t respond right away.