“Well.” His smile is fond. Tender. “My job here is done.”
I close my eyes, letting my forehead slide against the window—hot skin and cold glass. “I know how messed up I am.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I just . . . I don’t know how to stop.”
“Then maybe my job is not done. And you should stick around.” I turn to check whether his expression matches his tone—a mix of teasing, sweet, amused, hopeful, other things I can never understand.
Then I notice where we are. “This is your apartment.”
“Yup.” He parks. No, he reverse parks. Without sweating or crying or a litany of fuck shit fuck. I hate him.
“Did you forget something?”
“Nope.”
“Then why—?”
“I figured we’d take it easy tonight. Relax.”
“What about your friends?”
“They can entertain themselves.”
“But they’re waiting for us.”
“Nah. I texted them.”
“When?”
“While you were comparing your brothers’ relationship to a nonpolar covalent bond.”
“I . . . Why?”
“Because you’re obviously upset. And probably had a long week at work. And you had more-or-less nonconsensual lunches with two people whom I know to be giant pains in the ass. I think it’s better if we stay in.” He kills the engine. “Just us.”
“But . . .” I look up at his building. Unlike mine, it doesn’t look like it’s twenty minutes from being condemned and thirty-five minutes from burning down due to exposed circuitry. “What are we even going to do?”
I hear the smile in his words. “I have a couple of ideas.”
* * *
? ? ?
“So, Breaking Dawn’s the first one.”
“What? No. Twilight is the first one. Otherwise it’d be the Breaking Dawn Saga.”
“Right. Need a blanket?”
The lights are low, but Jack tracks my movements as I shake my head and fold my legs underneath me. The hot chocolate he made sits on the coffee table, right next to his Heineken, and I think I saw him raise the thermostat when we first came in, after he noticed me shivering in the chilly hallway. I’m overdressed, over-made-up, overcurled for a night on the couch. I don’t care, though.
“Okay.” He grabs the remote and sits next to me, near but nonthreatening. Not close enough to touch, but the cushion shifts, and the air around me is warmer. Denser.
“I cannot believe you own a Twilight box set.”
“I needed to see what the fuss is about.”
“You bought the Blu-rays. Who buys Blu-rays?”
“People who can’t find the VHS.”
I study him. His odd, beautiful eyes. “How old are you, precisely?”
“Seventy-three.”
I laugh. “No, for real.”
“Seventeen.”
“You’re thirty-three, aren’t you? Thirty-two. Thirty-four?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Give me a hint. What do you remember most from your childhood? Slime? The DSL dial tone? Butterfly hair clips? People dying of the bubonic plague?”
“You can shit on my Twilight Forever box set all you want—I’ve seen the way you’re eyeing it.”
“With polite but detached interest?”
“With shameless, covetous lust for the ‘Edward Goes to Italy’ featurette.”
I laugh again. It’s nice, being here where it’s warm. “So what do you know about the movies?”
He drums his fingers on his knee. “They have a bloodcurdling CGI kid named Elizabelle—”
“Renesmee.”
“—and something about sparkly dermatology? Spider monkeys?”
“There’s also vampire baseball.”
“Encouraging.”
“Okay, real talk.” I turn a little toward him. “Are you going to hate this?”
“Probably. But no more than 2001: A Space Odyssey.”
“What do you like?”
“Physics-defying car chases, mostly. People climbing buildings. Space monsters.” He shrugs. “George calls them my ‘white male rage’ movies.”
“Okay, well, we can watch one of those. Avengers’ Infinity Endgame or something with The Rock. I mean, what about what you want?”
“What about that?”
“We never focus on that.”
“That’s because I have no issues asking for what I want.”
“That felt like a backdoor brag,” I mumble resentfully.
“It was fully front door.”
I play with the hem of my dress. “I understand that this is about helping me reclaim my individuality, but if we’re going to be friends, we should do stuff you like, too. Otherwise—”
“Elsie.” Hands on my chin, he lifts it till my eyes are on his. “You’re doing it. We’re doing it.” I keep looking until I cannot bear it anymore, then free myself.
“Okay, well.” I swallow. Twice. “You still didn’t need to buy the box set.”
“I told you, I—”
“No, I mean . . .” My cheeks are warm. “It’s streaming on Netflix. And on Prime.”
I pluck the remote from his hand before he can ask me how I know. And then I ignore the amused way his eyes linger on me, and laugh over my hot chocolate at his soft comments: “Very green,” or “They go to high school?” or “What’s up with the ketchup bottle?”
About halfway through, I pry myself from the hormonal ride of paranormal teenage angst to look at Jack. He’s studying the movie intently, watchfully, like it’s a documentary on unparticle physics. “I promise I’m not going to quiz you afterwards,” I tell him. “You can scroll on your phone. Fall asleep. Roll your eyes.”
“Is that what people do when you watch Twilight with them?”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t . . . ?”
“Watch it with anyone.” I never spend time with people doing something I unabashedly enjoy. “I usually stream a cam version on my laptop and give off a dense, guilty aura. Once Cece came in in the middle of Eclipse. I turned off the monitor and swore I was masturbating to stepbrother hentai.”
His mouth curves. “Not Bill Nye?”
“Didn’t think of it.” He looks back at the screen, but something’s blossoming in my stomach, something heavy and uncomfortable, and when I say, “Hey,” he turns to me again. “Thank you.”
“For suggesting Bill Nye porn?”
“No. For . . .” I cannot put it in words. Until I can. “For wanting to know me enough to watch my favorite movie with me.”
I lean forward, fully planning to kiss him on the cheek. But something happens once I’m inside his space, and . . .
Plans change. I linger.
Jack is warm. He smells nice and feels familiar, real like very little in my life does. So I stay. Just because it’s that good. And I stay even when he turns toward me, and his mouth is so close to mine, I’m almost sure this is going to turn into something else. Into a kiss.
He exhales.
I inhale.
His hand rises. Grips the back of my head to hold me still. My eyes flutter closed. A tight flush spreads all over my stomach, skin on fire, heart pumping.
Finally, a kiss that I want. And oh, do I want this kiss. I want to—
“No,” he says. His lips nearly move against mine. “No.”
He lets go abruptly. I open my eyes and he’s on the edge of the couch, feet away from me, facing away. “Jack?” His back is rigid.
He rubs his eyes, mumbling something that sounds a lot like “Too soon,” and I’m suddenly cold and full of dread.
“I didn’t mean to . . .” I reach out and lay my hand on his shoulder blade. He instantly moves away, and I realize it’s the wrong way to ask for forgiveness for invading his personal space.
“Elsie, I need you to not touch me for a minute.” He goes to stand by the window, rubbing his fingers over his mouth. On the TV, Bella is crying. I feel like crying, too. Mortified to the core. My embarrassment could power a midsized European country.
“I’m sorry,” I say to his taut shoulders. “Maybe I . . .” Honesty. When is honesty too much? “I think I may be attracted to you.”
“Fuck,” he breathes out. He turns around, running a hand through his hair. I’ve never seen him openly show distress before. “Fuck,” he repeats softly, and I’m lost. What did I do? I didn’t mean to—
He takes a deep breath. Suddenly he’s even more imposing. “I’m not going to fuck you,” he promises me quietly, almost talking to himself.
“I . . .” Have no idea what to say to that. “I am . . .” Confused? Rejected, maybe? But I didn’t ask him for that. He’s assuming a lot based on a couple of seconds of proximity, and I’m tempted to point it out, which is why I shock myself when what I say is vaguely resentful. “Right. You mentioned before that you’re not interested.”
He lets out a laugh. “I never said that.”
“At the restaurant, you said that you didn’t want to have sex with me.”
“I said that I wasn’t going to have sex with you.”
I frown. “That’s the same thing.”
“It’s not.”
My mind rushes to catch up. Then it does, and my entire body flushes with heat.
“Is that how you interpreted what I said?” He sounds incredulous. “Lack of interest?”
I shrug, like it doesn’t matter. Like it didn’t cut deep.
“You think I don’t want to fuck you,” he says, blunt as always.
“Why else?”
“Why else.”
I clear my throat. “Why else won’t you?”