The music still pumps downstairs, my friends’ laughter a recognizable soundtrack. I keep the bedside lamp on as I crawl into the bed, place my journal on my lap. A swell of gratitude for my friends, who never give me a hard time for leaving early, fills my chest, pulls my pen across the page.
I write, drink a full glass of water and get out of bed to fill it up again. I light a bayberry candle, a little travel one I got off Etsy. Eventually, I turn off the lamp, but I leave the blinds up and the blackout curtains open. There’s a full-length mirror in the corner and the moonlight streams in at just the right angle to fill the whole room with silver. If I can’t be at home, alone, thenbeing here in the moonlight, the little candle burning next to me—at a safe distance, of course—is good enough.
I face the window, the candle, will my muscles to melt into the mattress. But it’s hard when every brush of the sheets against my skin feels illicit, when my pulse throbs in my neck and between my legs, my nipples tight peaks.
I roll to my other side, then back. Listen to a loud bang, laughter. Feet thump up the stairs, but they move past my door, then back down a few minutes later.
Every passing minute, ticking further from midnight, it gets worse. The need low in my belly, the heat between my thighs. I replay the moments between us tonight, beyond. Lingering looks across movie theaters, a tug on my hair across a restaurant table.
I’ve been thinking about this night. Longer than I’d care to admit, honestly. How it would feel to kiss him again, where he’d put his hands. I’ve thought about making him come. I’ve thought of that most. How he didn’t let me touch him last time, maybe, probably, took care of himself in the bright, sterile light of an empty public restroom.
I’ve imagined how the mattress would dip as he got into bed behind me. I’ve flushed hearing the phantom sounds of a squeaking bedframe. I’ve relished the marks the carpeted floor might leave on my knees.
The longer he isn’t here, the harder it gets not to touch myself. To just get this over with. To let my imagination take over. Because I shaved for this, and if he’s not going to be here then I might as well?—
There’s a knock on the door.
I sit up, ears straining to make sure I actually heard a knock and not a thump, a bump, the beginning of the end of our security deposit.
“Nora?” his voice is soft, secretive. He knocks again.
And for a moment, I consider not answering him. For this split second, in the clear moonlight, the mirror reflecting my face back at me, I wonder, what the fuck I am actually doing?
I can’t let Finn in here. I can’t take off his clothes and finish the kiss we started three years ago. Finn is my frenemy. Well, he was. Once. I don’t think I can technically call him that anymore. Not after his fingers were inside of me.
I don’t fuck my friends. Well, I guess I can’t make that claim anymore either. Not after last year. But it’s not a practice I’d like to make into a pattern.
Except.
Except for all the ways I do.
I throw back the covers and cross the room. I open the door, just enough to poke my head through. Finn’s hair is a bit wild. His shirt is unbuttoned halfway down his chest. There’s an open bottle of champagne in his fist and his lips glisten, but his eyes are clear, and this close I can only smell fresh mint toothpaste on his breath.
“I…um…” He runs his hand through his hair. That’s what’s made it so wild. “I was wondering,” he starts, but stops again.
If there were a moment to put a stop to this, it would be now. When I’m as clearheaded as I can hope to be at almost one in the morning on New Year’s Day. I could wish him a Happy New Year and good night and close the door. I could put on a T-shirt and different pair of underwear, afull coveragepair of underwear. I could get myself off in the privacy of this rented bedroom and make this the last time I think about Finn in any context other than what he is, what he’s always been.
If there was a moment, this would be it. But then I think of this time, next year. Of kissing no one or even kissing someone else. And I can’t fathom it.
I don’t want it.
For one night a year, I won’t lie to myself that Finn is my frenemy or even my friend. Finn is my New Year’s Eve kiss. He’s made a traditionalist out of me after all.
I open the door wider, and Finn’s eyes fall down my body, lingering at my hips, my thighs, the sliver of tummy between fabric. As if he hasn’t seen me in various styles of bathing suits since we were in middle school. As if he hasn’t already touched all these parts of me and more.
“Do you want to come in?” I ask.
Finn smiles, warm, relieved. Or maybe that’s just my own relief I see on his face as he steps into the silvery dark with me.
The moment the door closes behind us he chases me with his mouth but doesn’t get more than the corner of my lips, my shoulder, as I turn. He wraps his arms around me from behind, kissing my neck, the shell of my ear as we shuffle toward the bed.
He tries to be in charge, like he was last time. But last time, that’s what I needed from Finn. I was adrift in a polluted sea of man bun and sheer men’s tops and the perfectly round shape of Finn’s nipples. Tonight, I know what I want.
“Get on the bed,” I say as I push him onto the mattress. He sprawls, catching himself on one elbow, holding the bottle high as the champagne bubbles and foams over the rim onto his fist. He blinks there for a moment and a thrill of victory moves through me at the shock on his sweet face as he looks up at me. I’m not sure I’ve ever surprised Finn before.
The urge to laugh, giddy and silly, almost wins, but that would lose the effect. I want to keep this going. Maybe, just maybe, I could even shock him again.
Instead of laughing, I grab the bottle of champagne. His hand is sticky and wet and he almost doesn’t give it up, but after one gentle tug, pulling me toward him, he lets go.
