A little more than twenty-four hours later, Bella's curling her hair at our bathroom sink. She's on tiptoes in those little high-waisted shorts, and I'm leaning in the doorway with a glass of fresh sangria while her best friend smokes a joint in our tub.

There's no water in it. Doe's dressed. I'm half listening to their conversation, but really, I just can't take my eyes off little tiptoes.

I grin into a drink while love rocks on bare little soles, carefully unrolling another curl. Her head's tilted shyly, but her smile's high, and her legs look so good. I want to touch the backs of her knees so fucking badly.

She glances up in the mirror, and her look is flirtier than Cupid's arrow. She's so excited she's glowing. It's why I can't stop looking, and probably why Doe's here, too.

It's been like this since good morning.

Stopping last night left me sore, but it didn't deter my smile or how high I was on hers. While Bella helped her friend, I brought her book in from the roundabout, and asked when we were alone again if I could pick up where she'd left off.

She loved me reading her to sleep.

Out of her bikini and into the tee-shirt she'd taken off me earlier, she turned on her nightlight and curled into my side under our blankets. The weight of need in me ached, but the feel of love finding her place right over my heart and drifting down it, was all-encompassingly good.

I woke in rainbow lit dark to her nuzzling nose and parted lips melting kisses along my collarbones, down my sternum and across my chest. She lingered lovingly over a pulse that's truly hers, and when parted lips started following soft fingertips down my stomach, I turned onto my back to let her touch and feel and find her way so lovingly all the way down to where I still ached.

We move at Tulip's pace, and even though she lets me feel little belly butterflies sometimes, even though I've seen tiny pink tips plead for contact through my tee-shirts, and I've felt how so-ready she is when I move between her legs, I've never actually laid my hands or eyes on her most precious parts.

Love's more than familiar with my whole body, though.

I was hesitant the first time she woke me that way. I was hard just from holding her, just from sharing blankets and a bed, and closeness I'd wanted for so long, but I didn't want to be anything like anyone in her life before. I didn't want her mouth on me out of guilt or some fucked up sense of obligation, but it wasn't like that at all. There's only gladness and gratitude in the way her tongue moves and her lips hold, and when she curls between my knees like that -

I love that Bella counts on me for every ounce of care and control I'm made of. I love her trust in my strength, but I'm more than content to let her take her time showing me love. I touch her hair and cheeks while she kisses me. I tell her she's my girl, and that she's so fucking pretty, and so fucking good. I remind her to breathe when her affection gets so passionate she almost can't, and I'm usually just moans by then, but I let her lead. I grip sheets through the urge to lift my hips, and groan her name through coming, and coming.

Unable to control my grin, I take a deeper drink of sangria.

Tulip likes to hear how I feel, more so than I ever knew, but her cheeks might never un-blush if I told her how much I know she loves not just putting her mouth on me, but keeping her mouth on me when I can't hold back. She does, though. She loves when I give her my come. She hums through every so-fucking-soft swallow, and I know the sound of my girl's smile by heart.

I was still lit in the afterglow of her affection when little summertime woke me this morning, sunlight shining all around us and her smile twice as bright.

"I want to go tonight," she told me between playfully pulled up sheets, tented up and floating down around us between kisses. "To Maggie's party. I want to go with you guys."

Maggie's here for the summer, too. It's her birthday, but Bella never comes out, and everybody's digging that she's coming out, no one more than myself. Watching the edges of her comfort zone stretch out is amazing. I'm not foolish enough to think her scars have just up and disappeared, but I can see wholesome love growing in her heart, slowly but surely healing what love once meant to it.

She looks like anything could happen.

And like she really, really wants it to.

The breeze rolling through our bedroom is cool with the promise of rain. I don't know if or when it will, but I pull a dark grey sweatshirt over my tee-shirt and drop the hood back. This way I at least have it to give to Bella, if it does rain.

Downstairs, she doesn't take the same shots we all do, but she does let me give her shotguns on the way to Maggie's.

With Senna, Mackenna and Mikey in the car ahead of us, we're in the backseat behind Doe and Paul, and when I nudge soft curls aside with my nose to blow smoke under her ear, she tilts her head instead and finds my eyes. Made up only with summerkissed blush and so many sun freckles, little tiptoe through the tulips smiles timidly. I blow smoke down toward our laps instead of her neck, I'm sort of confused, and a little distracted by all the so bright excitement and glowing hope in her eyes. It turns on my want to kiss and be kissed, but her whisper steadies me.

"Can I have some?" She asks, watching me watch her. "From you, I mean..."

I smile so wide.

"Just a little," she whispers as I pull another hit. "So we match."

I nod. I hear her, and I've got her, and I pull another hit. Everything else fades out as I cup her cheek with one hand and lay my other gently over her chest to feel her lungs expand. Her giggle lets smoke out, and she kisses me nose to nose, and I'm so fucking lifted on this girl I feel like I'm glowing, too.

When the joint circles back around, I give her another hit, and we make it to Maggie's when it's still relatively quiet.

While the girls do their thing, I hang back in the kitchen with Paul. He pours two glasses of Sailor Jerry and ginger lemonade, and as more people start showing up, we move. I catch up with friends I didn't see last night, and refill my glass each time I empty it, but I stay close to where I can keep my eyes on little glow.

I know everyone here. I wouldn't bring her anywhere any kind of even a little bit shady, but my gut and my heart both say stay close.

I do.

And it's so good to have her here, to see and hear her happy here.

When music starts, love on her tiptoes meets my eyes across the living room, and I know it's too loud. As she moves, I make my way to follow her out back.

There are people out here, too, but it's not nearly as loud, and Tulip looks instantly twice as at ease.

With the almost full moon so high and the sky full of stars, Bella reaches for my free hand when Stir It Up comes on.

I beam.

I swear I do.

Pressed close, we sway to the beat on the edge of the crowd. I bend my knees to kiss her smile, and between the breeze and her giggles, I don't want to ever let go, but Daft Punk follows Bob Marley, and little darling's best friend is at her side then, asking if she can cut in.

More people come outside, and I pull from a jar of moonshine with Mackenna and Mikey while Doe and Bella dance like they're up all night to get lucky, and in the deepest part of my heart, I think maybe, just maybe, she is.

There's no set date or time for anything, no rules, just feeling. I know love won't give in to any amount of longing on my part or her own until she's ready with her entire self, and if she is -

If tonight's that night -

My legs fucking tingle, and my heart lays down a bass beat so deep it's hard to breathe.

Even fleetingly, just imagining being inside her, actually moving infuckingside little sunshine is body, heart and soul overwhelming.

More and more people arrive and gather together as the moon climbs higher. It's not very late, half past midnight when Bella nods at me across the packed backyard. Dark eyes are still glowing brightly, but she's ready to go, and I nod back, motioning toward the house while my heart floods my veins.

The walk home isn't far, maybe a couple miles if that. I just want to let Paul know we're leaving.

Love nods back. With her best friend on her right, she lifts her left hand in Senna's to show me she's okay.

It takes me a minute to shoulder through everyone, but I'm not actually in the house ten seconds before I regret it.

There's a crash and cursing commotion outside, and I'm trying to turn around and head toward it, but so is the entire party. It takes me another ten seconds more than I'd like just to get back out the door.

My eyes dart and scan the crowd for my girl.

Twenty feet or so away, two bulky frat-motherfuckers are the center of everyone's attention. I don't recognize them, but one has beer spilled down the front of his polo, and his friend's holding him back while across from them, Mackenna and Doe are struggling to hold Senna back the same way.

"Fucking dykes," the shaved ape with the popped collar spits. "Shouldn't put it all out there if she don't want the fucking attention -"

I step reflexively closer, but little elbows push through the crowd, and love all but falls at my feet.

"Baby -" I drop to catch her stumble, but little knees are already scraped and small palms are grassy dirty. She clings to me, trembling so hard I can practically smell her fear.

And it makes me want to fucking draw and quarter these assholes.

"Are you okay?" I ask, bending my knees, cupping her face. "Come here, baby. Let me see," I whisper, wanting her eyes.

Nodding in my hands, she shows me tear-glossy, fear-swelled eyes before burying her face in my chest again.

"I'm okay," she tells me. "I'm okay. I just fell. I'm okay."

But I know just falling didn't shake her this hard. She's trying to be strong, but the presence of angry violence and the unpredictability of strangers is fucking with her.

I want to step up and finish the fight, but Paul catches Senna when she breaks free.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually the music's back up and the crowd's relaxing. I still feel like setting some primates straight, but just barely, bravely opened little love is shaken up enough as it is, and I just want to get out of here.

And this motherfucker just can't keep his mouth shut.

"What a fucking waste of pussy," he laughs, intentionally loud enough for everyone to hear. "You know you need some dick sometime, girl."

And that's it.

The fire in me to fight over any and everything has dimmed considerably since I found love. I don't know who this idiot's words were for, but it doesn't matter. They're kerosene all over that flame. Bella makes me want to be better, and I am, but enough is fucking enough. Tucking my girl safely between our best friends, I'm a rush of strides straight toward the dipshit that caused her fall.

I don't say anything as I grip his collar in my left hand and connect my right fist to his mouth. I hit him three times before his legs give out and I let him crumble.

It happens so fast. It's kind of disappointing. It's not enough, but he's down, and adrenaline is coursing through me with nowhere to go now.

I turn, but his friend wants nothing to do with it.

So I turn again, walking, shaking blood from where I hit some teeth off my knuckles. I wipe them on my jeans as I head for my girl.

She's shaken, but she doesn't cower as I gather her to myself. She clings ten times tighter now.

Unwilling to wait for the car or sit still in it, I walk.

I don't know how much Doe knows and how much she just infers, but to everyone else, Bella's a normal nineteen year old with a shy disposition who came out to a party and maybe has just had enough for one night. And she has, but my heart's beating too fast with the half of it no one else knows. I'm trying not to let my mind go into the dark I know she's trying even harder not to let have her, and all I can do is tighten my hold. I hold her tighter than maybe I ever have, because I want my arms to do what she believes they can.

Securing my left around her waist, I cradle the back of her head in my right hand, slowing my stride so she can better keep up.

"I'm okay," love assures me so quietly, her voice muffled by how closely she's pressing herself.

My nerves throb with my pulse and my muscles are tight with tension, but her strength is easily twice mine.

"Good," I whisper, keeping her head tucked over my heart and my nose and lips in her hair. "Stay with me, girl."

With the brush of steady comfort between her shoulders and over the small of her back, and the help of gently encouraged deeper breaths, Bella's hard shakes ease into soft shivers. Anxiousness is unwilling to let her completely go, but I'm not going to either. And fear has nothing on love.

Our closest friends are gathered downstairs when we get home, but Bella's grip doesn't loosen. She doesn't unhide her face from my chest at the sound of concerned voices, and I don't feel particularly social either. I lift my hand from her back in a small wave to say goodnight, and we head upstairs together.

My nerves relax a little inside our bedroom, and a little more in our bathroom as I set her on the counter. Adrenaline and intuition are still coursing through me, but walking definitely helped. I'm far less concerned with retribution and solely focused on love now.

She sniffs as I stand straight between dangling legs, but her eyes are tear-free when she looks up.

"I'm sorry," she mouths more than whispers, wiping her eyes and pushing loose curls from her face.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," I whisper back, shaking my head and kissing the top of hers.

Bella nods, reaching both hands for mine in the thin bit of space between us. She paces her breaths, and I curve my fingers between hers, and kiss her thumb knuckles.

"Can I clean your knees?" I ask, watching her eyes and measuring her balance.

She nods again, swallowing with effort as she uncurves our fingers to hold the edge of the counter.

Her hands don't stay there, though.

As I kneel, unbuckling little sandals, bringing a warm washcloth to dirty scrapes, Tulip holds loosely to my shoulders. It's the smallest, most innocent kind of contact, but it calms me from the inside. By the time I'm patting her legs dry and placing a little blue band-aid over her left kneecap, my pulse is almost placid.

Bella's calmed down, too. When I kiss the baby blue bandage, she even gives me a smile.

It's small, but my heart beats for it.

Standing again, I turn the faucet on and bring my favorite hands underneath it. I make bubbles in my own and spread them over precious palms, so thankful there are no cuts there. I lean my face into the crown of her hair, and she smells like pear shampoo and vanilla soap, like blueberry kush and wild sweet pea and the rainy breeze. She smells like today, and always, and it makes my heart brim with so much love it aches with need to be given.

Drying our hands before lifting her from the counter, we walk from the bathroom hand in hand. When I stop at our dresser to flip her nightlight on, she tugs my fingers, shaking her head like it's okay.

Like she doesn't need it.

Just me.

When we fold down into bed together, I kick my shoes off with my feet while Tulip nestles all the way into her place at my side. Our tension doesn't completely dissipate, but so much of it comes apart between cool pillows and sheets. I'm miles from sleep, but being wrapped around the sound and touch and feel of love to me, home to me, my miracle, in the safest place she can be, is all I need.