Then I carried him back to the empty patch of blackboard so he could draw something.
“Done!” he said a few minutes later.
My shoulders were aching. “Take a photo?”
Jae shifted slightly, putting his weight onto my left shoulder while he retrieved his phone from his pocket. “Okay, you can put me down now.”
I crouched so he could step off my shoulders, then stood and looked at his handiwork. He’d drawn my name in bubble writing with flowers and stars around it. It was a lot better than his drawings of Dillon and me.
He brushed his hands together, creating a cloud of chalk dust. “Bubble writing is so much easier than people. Who’d have thought?”
“I think you’ve just had more practice with bubble writing.”
“Probably. I used to do headings in bubble writing in my exercise books at school. It drove my teachers mad.” He put one hand on his hip and wagged his forefinger. “You must write in cursive, Jae, not bubble writing!”
“Your teacher voice is terrifying.”
He fluttered his lashes. “Did it give you flashbacks to school?”
“Yup. You reminded me of Mrs Schofield.”
Jae shuddered. “She was a dragon! I dreaded geography lessons the year I had her. I swear she’s why I picked history over geography for my GCSEs.”
I laughed. “Same.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I didn’t even like history.”
Jae twirled his finger into my T-shirt. “See? We have more in common than we thought.” He kissed me slowly. “What do you think about going home and cuddling up with more foreign-language smut?”
I tilted my head.
“What?”
“You called my place home.”
Jae’s eyes widened. “I did? I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“It’s not. My home, I mean. It’s your home, and I’m just crashing there and—”
I pressed my lips to his. “It could be your home if you want it to be.”
“We’re…it’s…” He shook his head and took a deep breath. “We haven’t been together long enough to start talking like that. Heck, we don’t even know if we’re serious enough about each other to tell Dillon yet.”
My stomach dipped. “True.” I stroked his cheek. “It’s just that I feel like I’ve known you forever.”
“That’s because you have!” He rolled his eyes. “For seventeen years, which might as well be forever. I barely remember anything before I was four.”
I narrowed my eyes as I tried to recall anything before starting primary school. All I could remember were hazy flashes. Blowing out three candles on aThomas the Tank Enginecake. Chasing bubbles in the park. Stroking Dillon’s hair when he was a tiny baby.
“Nor can I.”
Jae pressed his finger to my chest. “Then that’s another thing we have in common.”
I decided not to mention that we probably had that in common with everyone on the planet.
“Back to yours?” Jae pressed his plump lips together.
I cupped the back of his head and kissed him fiercely. “Back to mine,” I breathed against his lips, even though what I wanted to say was ‘back to ours.’
