“I know the feeling,” I chuckle.
“My first thought was about those texts from yesterday.”
I nod, knowing exactly all the lines he must be thinking about, because they’re the ones I woke up with blazing through my mind.
My favorite friend.
The one person I don’t wreck things with.
The woman I’m in love with.
I can see it written all over his face too. But he continues. “I was so embarrassed that you knew all my inner thoughts. It was like having your crush find your diary. Every insecurity, every fear ... all the pieces I don’t show anyone. I’d somehow already shown them to you. Only to you.”
He blows out a steadying breath, like the realization is happening all over again. “But as I sat there, ignoring poor Donna—who, by the way, let me leave pretty quickly, because it was fairly obvious my mind was somewhere else, and thankfully she assumed I was distracted over my mother—I started to think about all the implications of you knowing everything you knew. I started to think about how over the last few months, I found myself opening up totwopeople. And one of them I’d suspected I was falling in love with, even if she probably still mostly despised me.”
The words zip through me and steal the air from my lungs, because even though he’d written them yesterday, there really is something entirely different about hearing them said aloud. The words were speaking louder once again and making my heart pound.
He doesn’t seem to notice the effect he’s having on me, though, because he keeps going. “And all the while I’d been also wondering how this person I was writing to had unexpectedly become my best friend—this therapist, who Ialsospent a lot of time wondering about. The first person other than Nan I’d felt comfortable sharing pretty much everything with. And suddenly, what seemed like a total impossibility almost felt like an inevitability. I wasn’t opening up to you in person because writing had made me more open; it was because you wereyou. You were always the person I wanted to talk to. So once I’d sort of mentally processed it, the first feeling was relief. But then the fear came back, because I remembered everything I’d said before, and ...” His forehead wrinkles as he’s lost in thought. “I guess I’m mostly wondering what you were going to say before I ruined everything by bolting on Monday?” he says finally.
And I laugh, because of all the things he could be wondering, that’s absolutely the easiest.
“I was going to tell you about how a few months ago I told my therapist that I might be going insane because I was in love with someone I hadn’t even met.”
His eyes widen, and I adore watching that statement roll over him, like a tidal wave of information, the implications crashing and settling in.
And then he pulls me close.
Unlike our first kiss—frantic and reckless—this one is sure. It’s full throttle, needy, but undoubting. It’s hands in my hair, gripping like they’re never letting go. It’s deep sighs and hungry gasps and—a whistle from a bystander that makes us break apart with a sheepish grin.
“I think the botany lesson is over, yeah?” He smirks.
I grab his hand. And hastily pull us both back outside.
Chapter 32
I’m glad we’re back in my room, because I was a little worried we were going to get thrown off the train. I’m not sure I’ve ever appreciated New York having express trains, but taking the Tube and having to stop at every single station while extremely turned on is just about the most torturous experience imaginable.
Especially when Eli wouldn’t keep his hands off me, and I can’t pretend I was doing a particularly good job keeping mine off him.
We stumble inside my little hotel room, and the hour of unintentional train foreplay means everything happens fast. The only thing he takes his time with is the button of my skirt, implicitly understanding that I might not want more clothes damaged. But otherwise it’s shoes kicked off, shirts thrown to the side.
He traces my jaw and whispers, “I love every version of you,” as though he can hear my thoughts from yesterday.
Desire takes over. Desire for each other; desire for closeness; desire to touch and feel and let go. He’s on top of me and weighting me down, and I’m desperate to be nearer. It feels like nothing will ever be enough, even as we move together, touching, kissing, grasping on to each other like life depends on only this moment. I don’t know how sex can feel feral and tender all at once; unbearably fast and exquisitely slow; undeniable yet still brand new.
But when it’s over, we’re both left gasping for breath, still hanging on, as though we both need to come down from the high of the earthquake we both unleashed.
I’m so sated I almost fall asleep, lost in the haze of delirium.
But after a few minutes he rolls onto his back, pulling me with him, and I squeal in delight. My head is on his chest, and I can hear his contented sigh echo through me.
“I have one question, just to make sure I’ve got this whole thing straight ...,” he says eventually, and I roll over so I can look into his eyes. His hand lazily twirls a piece of my hair around his finger, and the whole scene feels like a perfection I couldn’t have imagined even a day ago. “I told you to never surrender to your neighbor ... who was me.”
I burst out a laugh, and his eyes watch the movement, his mouth curving to one side in amusement at my reaction.
“Oh mygod,” I finally say when I can breathe again. “Yeah, actually. You did.”
“Karma really always gets you in the end, apparently,” he chuckles. “Couldn’t just be a smug bastard, I also had to be committing the worst own goal of all time.”
