“I was seeing this guy over the summer,” she admits, realizing she’s hardly thought about Garrett at all since she left. “But it’s over.Reallyover.”
“Really over, huh?” he says with a grin.
“Do you think I would’ve kissed you like that if I had a boyfriend?”
“No,” he says quickly. “Of course not.”
“I wouldn’t have,” she says, eager for this to be understood. “That was…”
“What?” he asks with a smile.
“Not like me.”
“Me either,” he says, and when she gives him a skeptical look, he holds up his hands. “Honestly. I’m not some kind of player who meets random girls on trains and then snogs them in hotel rooms. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Really.”
He’s so good-looking that she finds this hard to believe, and he must see it in her face, because he leans forward across the table.
“Okay,” he says, “you want to know the truth?”
Mae nods.
“The truth is that Margaret was the first and only girl I’ve ever kissed.”
“Seriously?” she asks, surprised by this.
“Seriously. We met when we were fourteen and basically were together ever since.”
“Wow.”
He looks down at his plate, scraping at the syrup with his fork. “Yeah.”
“Was it really different, then?” Mae asks. “With me?”
“What?” he says, letting out a laugh. “I can’t answer that.”
“I’m just curious. From a purely scientific perspective.”
He shakes his head. “You’re mad.”
Mae shrugs. “If it helps, it was really different for me.”
“It was?” he asks, looking pleased. But then he furrows his brow. “In a good way?”
She nods. “In a very good way.”
He grins, and then they both return to their food. But they can’t help casting glances at each other every now and then, both of them smiling. Under the table, his knees bump against hers, and she feels the ripple of it travel straight up into her chest, where it bobs around like something lovely and weightless and bright.
After a little while, he nods. “It was different for me too.”
After brunch, they walkdown Michigan Avenue. They’ve left their bags at the hotel, but Mae still has her trusty camera with her, and whenever they pass something noteworthy—the greenish river or the ornate building made of limestone or a little boy in a pirate’s hat—Hugo waits while she pauses to capture some footage.
“B-roll,” she says.
He gives her a mystified look. “What’s that?”
“Just extra footage to intersperse with the interviews.”
He can’t help smiling. “I like it when you talk film. You sound very impressive.”
