I tossed the empty latte cup into a trash can and dropped my backpack on the sidewalk. Jamie let go of the suitcase and then he was pressing me into the alcove, between a brick wall and the vending machine. The machine made a droning noise, and I heard cars on the major avenues nearby. There were all these reminders that we were on a street, in public, but it felt like we were secluded.
I was pulling him toward me, bodies lining up, hip points connecting. And we were kissing each other like we had to, like it was the last time. And of course it was. Maybe that’s why I didn’t question my hands when they glided under the back of his shirt. Or my leg when it wrapped around both of his and tugged him closer and closer still. He broke away for a second, and I took that opportunity to yank my sweatshirt over my head and toss it on the ground.
Oh. Dear. God. I was out of control! I was doing exactly what you’re not supposed to do. You’re not supposed to throw yourself at someone. This, I had learned from movies and TV shows: If you throw yourself at someone, they will think you are sad and desperate. But I guess I didn’t care about these movie-made social conventions, because I was literally throwing myself at him.
No—not at him. Into him. Into his arms and chest and shoulders. When he shifted, my tank top lifted up and my stomach touched his T-shirt and it was perfect, this was perfect.
“Sophia,” he said, pulling away a little, his voice lower than usual. Hoarse. I rubbed my cheek against his, focusing on the heat of his skin.
And this was it, wasn’t it? Whatever happened now was all that would ever happen, and even though I cannot stress enough how much I don’t care about poetry, I started thinking about this other poem we’d read for English class called “To His Coy Mistress.” It’s about how we’re all going to get old and die so we might as well have sex, or something approximating it, while we still can. Which is terrible logic, and what if this wasn’t the last time?
But what if it was?
And why was I thinking about poetry?!
My elbow banged into the side of the machine. “Ow! Shit!”
“Shit.” Jamie pulled away from me. There was a beautiful red blush down his neck. “Shit. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my elbow. “I’m fine.”
He took a step back. He was staring at me, every emotion from the last week etched in his expression.
“Maybe we should stop?” I said, like it was a question.
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t know. Yes?”
“I think I’m making a fool of myself.”
“What?” He shook out his hair with his hand. “Are you crazy? I can’t think of anything that’s more of a not-fool than you are.”
I laughed a little because I couldn’t help it. “Those were nonsense words.”
“Seriously,” he said, sounding less flustered. “There’s nothing you’ve said or done today I won’t be thinking about for a long, long time. Not foolish. All perfect.”
He lifted my hand, and I trailed my lips over the backs of his knuckles. Hidden together like that, the morning became something calm. Something secure. And I was glad just to be standing there, pretending we had more time.
“Can we walk?” I asked.
His eyes locked with mine and his smile was so self-assured and sexy, I could have died. “You read my mind.”
He helped me put my backpack on, and I saw what was across the street. “Jamie,” I said. “Oh God. Jamie, do you even realize where we are?”
We were facing the entrance of a love hotel, standing right across from its unlit doorway and the blinking red heart hanging on the side of the building. There was a placard out front listing the price per hour for each room and a yellow sign over the door with an arrow on it and one ominous word—IN.
I covered my mouth with my hand and laughed. Jamie started laughing, too. “Shit. Oh, holy shit.”
We were both laughing now. No, giggling. Hysterically giggling. Jamie took my suitcase and we broke into a run, still laughing, still holding on to each other’s hands.
CHAPTER 35
SUNDAY
WE WERE WALKING. AND KISSING. Less desperately, but still desperately. Every once in a while, he stopped to kiss my cheeks and nose and lips. I put my sweatshirt back on and tugged the hood over my head. He slipped his hand inside my hood and ran his fingers through my ponytail.
“Can we go somewhere to talk?” he asked. His cheeks were red and I was kissing them, one after the other. We were standing by a bakery and a clothing store with the shutters pulled down.
“This is somewhere,” I said.
“Right,” he said, smiling.
It had stopped raining, and his wet hair was pushed back again. I pulled a few strands of it down by his ears, momentarily straightening the curls. Then I smoothed my hands down his chest. I had this crazy thought that if I stopped touching him, he’d disappear completely.
“Are you never going to wear a hat again?” I asked. “Because of me?”
“I wore a hat to Roppongi,” he said.
“Yeah. Because you were pissed at me. You did it for hat revenge.”
He puffed out his chest, insulted. “It wasn’t hat revenge.”
I pinched one of his cheeks. “You’re such a liar.”
His chest deflated. “Okay, fine, it was hat revenge. But hey, speaking of that night…”
“AGH! NO!” I covered my ears. “Do we have to? Can’t we make a blood oath to never speak of that night again? Upon pain of death?”
He bit his bottom lip. “Why were you so mad at me?”
He sounded careful, like he was afraid of what I might say. Like, at any moment, we might fall back into that place we couldn’t come back from.
“I wasn’t mad at you,” I said. “I was just—”
“Really mad at me?”
“No.” I tugged one of his curls. “I was mad—about Paris. Alison said my dad doesn’t want me to move there. She said he’d never wanted me there, actually. So I called him and, big surprise, he really doesn’t.”