something else. His arms were around her, and his face was in her hair, and there was no place for the rest of her to go but against him.
He was warm … Like really warm and fuzzy-soft. Like a sleeping baby, she thought. (Sort of. Not exactly.) She tried to feel embarrassed again.
Park kicked the door closed and fell back on it, pulling her even tighter. His hair was clean and straight and flopping into his eyes, and his eyes were nearly closed. Fuzzy. Soft.
‘Were you sleeping?’ she whispered. Like he still might be.
He didn’t answer, but his mouth fell on hers, open, and her head fell back into his hand. He was holding her so close, there was nowhere to hide. She couldn’t sit up or suck in or keep any secrets.
Park made a noise, and it hummed in her throat. She could feel all ten of his fingers. On her neck, on her back … Her own hands hung stupidly at her side.
Like they weren’t even in the same scene as his. Like she wasn’t even in the same scene.
Park
must
have
noticed,
because he pulled his mouth back.
He tried to wipe it on the shoulder of his T-shirt, and he looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time since she got there.
‘Hey …’ he said, taking a breath, focusing. ‘What’s going on? Are you okay?’
Eleanor looked at Park’s face, so full of something she couldn’t quite place. His chin hung forward, like his mouth didn’t want to pull away from her, and his eyes were so green they could turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.
He was touching her all the places she was afraid to be touched …
Eleanor tried one last time to be embarrassed.
Park
For a second, he thought he’d gone too far.
He hadn’t even meant to, he was practically sleepwalking. And he’d been thinking about Eleanor, dreaming about her, for so many hours; wanting her made him stupid.
She was so still in his arms. He thought for a second that he’d gone too far, that he’d tripped a wire.
And then Eleanor touched him. She touched his neck.
It’s hard to say why this was different from all the other times she’d
touched
him. She was different. She was still and then she wasn’t.
She touched his neck, then drew a line down his chest. Park wished that he was taller and broader; he hoped she wouldn’t stop.
She was so gentle compared to him. Maybe she didn’t want him like he wanted her. But even if she wanted him half as much …
Eleanor This is how she touched him in her head.
From jaw to neck to shoulder.
He was so much warmer than she expected, and harder. Like all of his muscles and bones were right on the surface, like his heart was beating just under his T-shirt.
She touched Park softly, gingerly, just in case she touched him wrong.
Park
He relaxed against the door.
He felt Eleanor’s hand on his throat, on his chest, then took her other hand and pressed it to his face. He made a noise like he was hurt and decided to feel self-conscious about it later.
If he was shy now, he wouldn’t get anything that he wanted.
Eleanor Park was alive, and she was awake, and this was allowed.
He was hers.
To have and hold. Not forever, maybe – not forever, for sure – and not figuratively. But literally. And now. Now, he was hers. And he wanted her to touch him. He was like a cat who pushes its head under your hands.
Eleanor brought her hands down Park’s chest with her fingertips apart, then brought them up again under his shirt.
She did it because she wanted to. And because once she started touching him the way she did in her head, it was hard to stop. And because … what if she never had the chance to touch him like this again?
Park
When he felt her fingers on his stomach, he made the noise again.
He held her to him and pushed forward,
pushing
Eleanor
backward – stumbling around the coffee table to the couch.
In
movies,
this
happens
smoothly or comically. In Park’s living room, it was just awkward.
They wouldn’t let go of each other, so Eleanor fell back, and Park fell against her in the corner of the couch.
He wanted to look in her eyes, but it was hard when they were this close. ‘Eleanor …’ he whispered.
She nodded.
‘I love you,’ he said.
She looked up at him, her eyes shiny and black, then looked away. ‘I know,’ she said.
He pulled one of his arms out from under her and traced her outline against the couch. He could spend all day like this, running his hand down her ribs, into her waist, out to her hips and back again … If he had all day, he would. If she weren’t made of so many other miracles.
‘You know?’ he repeated. She smiled, so he kissed her. ‘You’re not the Han Solo in this relationship, you know.’
‘I’m totally the Han Solo,’ she whispered. It was good to hear her. It was good to remember it was Eleanor under all this new flesh.
‘Well, I’m not the Princess Leia,’ he said.