I close my eyes and push past it. I need to see what happens next.
What happens is the best kind of chaos: an uncinematic kiss where our heads are moving too fast and we’re hyped up on pheromones or the potent molecules of Chili’s seasoning floating in the air. I’m not sure why we’re rushing. It’s like a dream where you’re about to get to the good part with someone but you feel like you’re on the edge of waking up, so you need to hurry it along while you can still hold the illusion together.
Justme?
I think this is the first time I’ve literally groaned while making out with someone.
His hands move across my shoulders, down my spine, up to the back of my head—which sometimes I don’t like, but I like it now. Kind of a lot.
At some point, our shirts come off and I’m not sure who grabbed at which piece of fabric to make that happen. His chest presses into me and all of him is warm and solid against my cold, goose-bumpy skin.
I’m not thinking about anything: none of thebuts, onlyands andyeses. My lizard brain is at the wheel and it’s not heeding traffic signals or checking mirrors.
My lower back presses painfully into the stainless steel corner of the cold station. The little screws and fasteners he’d been carefully reattaching to the dishwasher clatter to the ground with a series of tiny metallicplinks.
He saysfuckunder his breath, but I don’t think it’s because of the screws.
Or maybe it is, because he pulls away suddenly and says, “Hang on a minute.”
I don’t know what else to do, so I pull my T-shirt back over my head and prepare myself for a serious discussion about what a wild mistake that was and how he should’ve stopped it ten minutes ago. But can we please still be friends and/or neighbors?
I’ve heard this refrain before. I have it memorized.
“I should really—”
“Come home with me?”
There’s silence as we stand facing each other, confused.
“Do you want to come to my place?” he says.
I’m trying to extricate myself from the catastrophizing thought spiral I leapt into ten seconds ago. When things come to a screeching halt, I like a quick escape.
“Don’t you need to finish, the, uh…” I glance down at the screws and washers strewn all over the kitchen floor.
“I really don’t think I can focus on a dishwasher right now.” He rubs his temple and lets out a chuckle.
“Is something…funny?” I pick his hoodie up off the floor.
“No,” he says. “I mean, yes, I’m laughing at myself. I’m the one who’s nervous here. I just…I just couldn’t let things go further on the floor of a Chili’s.” He grabs my hand again. “Definitely not next to a promotional sign for the Ultimate Cajun Pasta.” That gets a tiny laugh out of me. “Let me lock up and I’ll drive you back home.”
20
“I was about to ask ifyou had your seatbelt on,” Nick says once we’re in the car. “Force of habit.”
“You’re so…” I search for the right word. “Responsible?”
“I was hoping you were going to say handsome. Charming. Irresistible, att—”
“Okay, okay. I did not have the perfect word available in this moment at”—I check my phone—“two fifteen? Fuck.”
“Yeah, it’s late.” The rain has slowed to a drizzle. “And I know your alarms go off pretty early. Six fourteen. Six forty-nine…” I look at him. “Doesn’t seem like you actually get out of bed, though.”
“You don’t need to worry about what time I get out of bed,” I reply.
“I mean, I do if your alarm is going off at nine-minuteincrements for three hours every morning and it wakes me up, too.”
“I’m very active in the morning. How do you know I’m not doing productivity sprints and that’s why you hear alarms every nine minutes?”
