Wait. The cotton of his shirt? “You must be freezing out there,” I said, realizing he’d been outside for the last ten minutes or more with no coat, hat or gloves. I shivered in my warm cozy bed just thinking about it.
“Actually,” he said, grinning, “I am totally freezing my nuts off out here.”
“Why didn’t you go back inside? After midnight?”
He shrugged and I noticed the redness of his cheeks and nose. “I was going to right after the countdown, but it seemed like, I don’t know, the darkness and stillness out here gave us a deeper level of…intimacy.”
“Wow, spoken like a writer. Yeah, you better finish that book this year, so you’re not spouting lines like that in everyday conversation.”
He laughed, then turned his head. “You’re right. I hear my parents coming in. I should probably go see how their night was.”
“They braved the madness?”
“Not really. Our neighbors a couple of floors down had a small party. They didn’t even have to leave the building.”
He started to rise and I felt a moment of panic, the same feeling I got every time one of our conversations was winding up.
“Umm…okay, well, I’ll be in the office tomorrow if—”
He was shaking his head as he rose from the table and picked up his laptop. “We leave tomorrow for Gstaad to ski for a week. My parents, sister, her boyfriend and me.”
I didn’t bother starting in onmyNew York not remotely being a launching pad for a European vacation. But I thought it.
“Have fun,” I said, keeping all traces of jealousy out of my voice, though I wasn’t really sure who, or what, I was jealous of. I didn’t even ski. (Just the thought of someone from my neighborhood on skis made me inwardly cringe.)
“Thanks, I will. But I probably won’t be calling you while I’m gone. Time zone, and I didn’t get the roam thing for my phone. There’s always internet in the resort, for email, but…”
I didn’t want him to think he had to be accountable to me. Waving a hand, I said, “Don’t worry about it. I have plenty to keep me busy for the next week and a half. Any questions can wait until you get back.”
He nodded while closing the terrace door behind him and stepped back into his bedroom, which was about the size of my family’s entire apartment. “Yeah, I know you can handle it,” he said.
“Okay. Well, then…”
“Hey, Syd?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it’s going to be weird, be awkward, when we see each other for the first time?”
“You mean like a blind date or something?”
He chuckled, setting his laptop down on the desk, but continuing to stand. He tilted it so I could see his face, but being eye level with his body was very nice indeed.
“I guess. I mean, we’ve grown…really close over the past two weeks, and yet…”
“And yet…”
We watched each other, neither one wanting to define the other’s feelings—or their own—by finishing the sentence. He rubbed his chin again. “I just don’t want it to be awkward, you know?”
“It won’t,” I said. I hoped.
We wished each other “Happy New Year” again, and then hung up.
I placed my laptop on the floor by my bed and wrapped myself tighter in my comforter. With my computer light off, the candlelight took over and I lay there and thought about the upcoming year, and how much I couldn’t wait for the next week and a half to fly by.
This was going to be the best year of my life, I just knew it.
Chapter12
