Those were the words trapped in the weave of his shirt. As soon as the sentence crosses my lips, which still tingle and taste of him, I realize how wrong it is. I try to breathe and erase the tangle of emotions from my face.
When he steps away and asks, “What?” my heart lurches with fear he’s heard and is offended. Then comes the panic of finding something else to say. I reject all adjectives. How can I describe something that makes me feel like I floated out of myself while simultaneously making me more aware of my body than I’ve ever been?
His skin feels different than mine. I hadn’t considered that skin can be masculine, but his is. I want to trace the lines of all his bones beneath the covering of stubble and calluses and textures.
No. I need to speak.
We need to talk and say what that was. The Band-Aids on my hand interfere with my attempt to make a fist.
Jonah’s leaning away, shutting his eyes and shutting me out. The moment is dying.
I blurt out the first words that hit my tongue. “It’s only fair to warn me: Are you noisy and smelly too?”
His laugh rebounds off the empty pavement and the walls of the school. It settles in my stomach and calms the knives of panic while curling into a different type of flame.
“Sometimes.”
He slides his hand across my palm; fingertips on skin, Band-Aids, skin. Fingertips on fingertips, feeling like they might glow from the intense sensation. My laughter dies in a choked gasp.
“I really said, that was nice.” I won’t lie to him. Not now.
My fingertips slide from his, and my other hand drifts from his shoulder to my side. I look up at him through my lashes. His eyes are dark, searching, full of something I don’t understand and don’t know how to react to.
“Nice?” he echoes.
I’m hollow. Cold. Like he’s already interpreted this as an insult and walked away—taking with him all of the emotion of the night and all the warmth from the air.
“No.” He shakes his head. “No.”
I feel every slightly damp spot on my dress. I’m hyper-aware of the sweat on my lower back and palms—it’s turned glacial. I’m shivering. On my way to shaking.
And then—heat!
Jonah’s hands on my arms. Burning. Urgent.
“Nice isn’t good enough.” He leans closer, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “I think we owe it to ourselves to do better than nice.”
I smile against his lips—more than willing to be convinced. When his mouth leaves mine to explore my neck, I whisper in his ear, “Really nice …”
His fingers lace through my hair.
“Super nice …”
His teeth drag lightly against the skin behind my ear.
“Really, super nice.”
He laughs against my collarbone, and I forget what cold even feels like. Can’t imagine ever being cold again. “I’m getting you a thesaurus.”
I open my mouth to add another adjective to the list, but he cuts off my teasing with his lips and the only word that lingers in my head is “more.”
“There it is: parking space F23. All mine.”
I’m not sure which I recognize first, the guy’s voice or the girlish giggle he gets in response. But the words slide over us an instant before headlights do, illuminating the moment when Jonah stiffens and I pull back in surprise.
“Brighton? Brighton! What are you doing here? Oh my God! Who are you kissing?”
Somewhere amid Silvia’s questions and exclamation points, Jonah’s fingers drop from mine. I miss them immediately and don’t understand why he’s putting so much space between us. Or why he’s turning away from me. I ignore Silvia and Adrian for a moment and look where Jonah’s looking: back up the hill.
The grass on the field is bled of its color in the dim light. The boundary between the concrete and slope distinguishable by a sense of lushness, not a difference in color—both look drab gray.
Jonah takes another step back and pulls his keys out of his pocket.
I feel deflated.
I want to grab his hand and run. Or yell at them to leave.
“Brighton? Adrian, that is Brighton, right? Maybe it’s her sister? Evy?” They’ve parked in Adrian’s space and she’s leaning over the side of his convertible and peering into the darkness. “Can you see who she’s with?”
“It’s me, Silvia,” I answer. “Hi.”
“Hey! I’m here with Adrian.” She manages to keep some of the excitement out of that statement, but enough leaks through to make me glad I stopped him in the hallway and sent him to find her.
“Hi, Adrian.”
“Hey, Brighton … and hey.” He gives a wave, which Jonah returns with a short jerk of two fingers.
“Brighton, is this some secret rendezvous? Scandalous! I want to know everything!”
I want to tell her to back off. To take her excitement level down from an eleven to a six and her nosiness to a three. These might be questions she wants me to ask her about how she and Adrian ended up here together, but I haven’t even managed introductions yet and Jonah’s posture is already coiled and defensive.