“Good answer.”
And thus begins our watching of old Dog Days episodes. The great thing about Dog Days is that it requires so little energy. You don’t have to think, you just have to watch characters making terrible decisions in the height of summer. It surprises me a little that Wallace likes it, considering how much he appreciates deeper meanings in his stories, but I guess we all need something that lets us go a little numb.
I focus on forcing myself to relax, stretching my legs out, trying not to look like I think I might be strangled at any moment. My hair is finally beginning to dry—I pray it doesn’t frizz—and so far neither my sweatpants nor my Wookiee socks have been brought up in conversation. All in all I think we’re doing pretty good.
At one point Wallace stands up to straighten out his pant legs, and when he sits again, he’s close enough I can feel his body heat. We sit shoulder to shoulder. I can see his eyelashes touch his cheek when he blinks. His hair always looks black from a distance, but up close it’s really dark brown. He’s been letting it grow out. I get the strangest urge to trace the curve of his ear with my finger.
After the fourth episode, he says, “Do you have a piece of paper I could write on?”
I jump up too fast. “Sure. Just one? Do you—of course you need something to write with. Sorry. Here.” I grab him a paper from my desk drawer and one of my myriad pencils, and he uses the first Children of Hypnos book as a flat surface to write on. When I’m sure he’s writing something for me to read right now, I say, “I thought you only needed to do that when other people were around?”
He etches one careful line after the next. He frowns, shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s . . . tough to say things. Certain things.” His voice is hardly a whisper. I sit down beside him again, but his big hand blocks my view of the words. He stops writing, leaves the paper there, and stares.
Then he hands it to me and looks the other direction.
Can I kiss you?
“Um,” is a delightfully complex word. “Um” means “I want to say something but don’t know what it is,” and also “You have caught me off guard,” and also “Am I dreaming right now? Someone please slap me.”
I say “um,” then. Wallace’s entire head-neck region is already flushed with color, but the “um” darkens it a few shades, and goddammit, he was nervous about asking me and I made it worse. What good is “um” when I should say “YES PLEASE NOW”? Except there’s no way I’m going to say “YES PLEASE NOW” because I feel like my body is one big wired time bomb of organs and if Wallace so much as brushes my hand, I’m going to jump out of my own skin and run screaming from the house.
I’ll like it too much. Out of control. No good.
I say, “Can I borrow that pencil?”
He hands me the pencil, again without looking.
Yes, but not right now.
I know it sounds weird. Sorry. I don’t think it’ll go well if I know it’s coming. I will definitely freak out and punch you in the face or scream bloody murder or something like that.
Surprising me with it would probably work better. I am giving you permission to surprise me with a kiss. This is a formal invitation for surprise kisses.
I don’t like writing the word “kiss.” It makes my skin crawl.
Sorry. It’s weird. I’m weird. Sorry.
I hope that doesn’t make you regret asking.
I hand the paper and pencil back. He reads it over, then writes:
No regret. I can do surprises.
That’s it. That’s it?
Shit.
Now he’s going to try to surprise me with a kiss. At some point. Later today? Tomorrow? A week from now? What if he never does it and I spend the rest of the time we hang out wondering if he will? What have I done? This was a terrible idea.
I’m going to vomit.
“Be right back,” I say, and run to the bathroom to curl up on the floor. Just for like five minutes. Then I go back to my room and sit down beside Wallace. As I’m moving myself into position, his hand falls over mine, and I don’t actually jump out of my skin. My control shakes for a moment, but I turn in to it, and everything smooths out. I flip my hand over. He flexes his fingers so I can fit mine in the spaces between. And we sit there, shoulder to shoulder, with our hands resting on the bed between us.
It’s not so bad.
CHAPTER 20
By a quarter till four I am holding Wallace’s hand unapologetically in my lap and thinking I definitely should have let him kiss me. It’s always that first hurdle that proves the problem—talking, hand-holding, whatever—and as soon as I get used to it, as soon as I know it’s okay, I need more. Logic says I will have to let go of Wallace’s hand at some point after leaving my bedroom, if not to drive my car, then at the very least to hide it from my mom. But logic is not around right now, and I do not care.
I sandwich Wallace’s hand against my stomach and put my other hand on his wrist, holding him in place. We lean fully against each other now. I nudge his foot with my Wookiee sock. He nudges back. This is a thing. We are doing a thing. I don’t have to wonder if it’s okay because it’s totally okay. He’s going along with it. I take a breath and rest my head on his shoulder. He nuzzles his cheek in my hair. I giggle. He nuzzles harder.
I’ve never been so aware of my body. The way it moves. The space I fill. It isn’t good or bad, just different, forced to venture outside my head and explore the strange and mysterious world of physicality. His fingers twitch against mine, against my stomach, and set off another round of involuntary giggles. Thank God I have his hand secured in mine; I can’t trust or predict what my body might do if he touches anywhere else.
“Oh, dang it,” I say when I finally look at the clock. “It’s almost four. They have to be there by four thirty.”
I push myself off the bed to stand, expecting him to move with me or at least let go of my hand. He does neither. His grip jerks me back. He slouches against the wall, smiling that little smile, refusing to let go.
“Come on.” I laugh, trying to pull him up. “We have to go.”
He lets me use all my body weight to tug on him. I end up almost sitting on the floor, and he hasn’t budged. He flexes his arm and yanks me up, back to the bed. Laughing.
“Seriously, though!”
“Okay, okay.” He lets go.
“I need to change too.”
“I’ll wait outside.”
He does. I change into my best-fitting pair of jeans and an actual non-logoed shirt. Sweatshirt over the top, of course. Sully and Church are already waiting by the front door with their practice bags in tow. Wallace has ambled to the bottom of the stairs, and they’ve struck up some kind of conversation. When I head down, Sully raises his arms and glares at me. “Come on, Eggs Benedict! We don’t have all day!”
“Shut up.”
Sully and Church stuff their gangly selves in the backseat of my car so Wallace can sit in the passenger seat.