“Tomorrow,” I repeated numbly.
He leaned over the bed and pressed a fleeting kiss to my numb lips, and then he was gone.
All that day, my limbs were heavy and cold. I’d thought Jacob and I were... I don’t know. Not boyfriends, I guess, but together. But he had a date. Some girl he knew in high school. He was taking her out to some restaurant. Some fancy, public restaurant, where anyone could see them together. I wondered what they would talk about. What she might look like. If he would kiss her after dinner. If they would go home together. The thought of it made me sick to my stomach.
I managed to get through FP1 and FP2 without embarrassing myself, but I was even more monosyllabic than usual during the interviews afterward. I made it back to my hotel room around eight, threw my things onto my bed, and then sat heavily on the sofa. My fingers kept twitching toward my phone, even though I knew there weren’t any texts there. I’d been checking all day, hoping to see some message from Jacob saying he’d changed his mind, that he wanted to see me tonight instead of her.
But even if he did... even if he did, where did that leave me? He obviously didn’t think about me the way I thought about him. I couldn’t have imagined going on a date with anyone else.
I sat on the sofa for an hour or more before I finally gave in and crawled into bed. When I saw Jacob tomorrow, I decided, I wouldhave to tell him things were done. I didn’t want to lose him—the very thought made me feel all hot and panicky—but I couldn’t keep sleeping with him if he was going to date other people. And I wasn’t stupid enough to believe I could give him any kind of ultimatum. Jacob always did what he wanted. If he didn’t want to date me, no amount of arguing would change his mind.
I fell asleep before sunset and woke up in total darkness, bleary and confused. I wasn’t sure what had woken me, until someone pounded again on the door.
My first thought was that I’d somehow slept in and was late for qualifying, but the hotel clock read one fifteen in the morning. I stumbled to the door and pulled it open, and there was Jacob, fist raised to knock again. He lurched forward a bit when I swung the door open. He was wearing a thin T-shirt and shivering, even though it wasn’t that cold outside.
“Jacob—” I started, then realized I had no idea what I was going to say. “Where’s your jacket?” I said finally.
He gave a strange little laugh. “Forgot it,” he said, and his words came out a little slurred. “Left it at the restaurant.”
“The restaurant,” I repeated. “Right.” I noticed his hair was messed up, and my stomach sunk. I took an unwilling step backward. “I have to get up early—”
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.
Something flickered in my chest. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I was—I’m so stupid—”
He let out a strange, frustrated noise and then stepped across the threshold and into my arms, burying his face in the crook of my neck. His skin was cool against mine. I stood unmoving against him, frightened his apology was for something I couldn’t forgive. If he’d slept with her, if he’d even kissed her—
“I suck,” he slurred. “I’m so fucking—so fucking bad at this.”
“Bad at what?”
He wrapped his arms around me, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Liking someone,” he mumbled into my skin.
All the air slipped out of my lungs. “Jacob...”
“Nothing happened,” he said. “Nothing happened, don’t be mad at me.”
I let out a breath. I couldn’t have been mad at him if I’d tried. I was so obsessed, so deeply lost in him that his drunken, half-slurred apology completely melted my resolve. My fingers found their way to the back of his neck, and he let out a small, sad noise that just about wrecked me.
“I’m not mad at you,” I said. “I can’t share you, though.”
He shook his head roughly. “No sharing. All yours.”
He leaned into me so heavily I had to work to hold him up. He was completely hammered, nearly blacking out.
“Come on,” I said, fighting the giddiness that had risen up at his words. “You’ve got to get to bed.”
“Bed,” he slurred.
I helped him to the bed and under the comforter, where he lay shivering while I yanked off his shoes. When I crawled in beside him, he just about plastered himself to my skin.
“So warm,” he mumbled. About five seconds later, his breathing deepened. Whether he’d blacked out or fallen asleep, I don’t know, but I’d never been more awake. I lay there next to him, my heart beating loudly in the darkness. All mine. He was all mine.
From now on, I thought, things were going to be different.
He woke up the next morning bleary-eyed and cranky, bemoaning a splitting headache. He made absolutely no mention of the night before, and for a few awful minutes, I thought I was wrong. But then, after he got out of the shower, he made a cup of coffee and curled up next to me on the sofa. He tucked his headinto the crook of my neck and exhaled, all of his muscles relaxing with the breath. It may seem like a small thing, but it was something he’d never really done before. We’d had sex, but we’d never really had intimacy.
