I still don’t want to move, but after another minute, I manage to drag myself up off of him and grab my clothes to get changed. I’m just at the door when I glance back over my shoulder. His eyes dart up to mine, his cheeks turning red, and I can’t help smirking at him.
“Youwerechecking out my ass the other day.”
The red in his cheeks turns even darker, and he shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair as he stammers, “N-no. No, I, um, I was just—”
“—checking out my ass,” I finish for him, grinning. He’s got his mouth parted as he stares at me, his hand now rubbing the back of his neck. I huff a laugh, feeling that odd joyfulness again that I’d felt from him earlier. “Maybe I’ll let youreallycheck it out later,” I tease, turning back to the door with another smirk. I hear him suck in a breath.
“God, Nico,” he hisses, and the next thing I know, he’s wrapping his arms around me, pulling me back into him. His lips find my neck, and he murmurs, “I can’t wait,” his breath hot against my skin.
I laugh again and turn around in his arms, and then he presses me up against the door and kisses me.
I’m totally going to be late to work, I just know it. But when his tongue pushes into my mouth for the first time, I really, really can’t bring myself to care all that much.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alex
Nicokissedme.
He came out to me, he told me he likes me, and then he kissed me.
With something that sounds embarrassingly like a lovesick sigh, I flop down on my back in bed, my whole body buzzing with some odd energy that I’ve never felt before. I reach up and touch my lips, laughing at the stupid smile I can’t seem to wipe off my face.
I can still feel the warmth of his mouth on mine, the way he was so tentative and yet not as he pulled me to him and pressed our lips together, how he fit so perfectly in my arms. I can still feel it all, and it makes my smile even bigger, giddy with anticipation and joy.
I laugh again and let my hand drop down to my stomach as I close my eyes. His cocky grin taunts me, and I see him as he was just before he left to get changed. How he glanced over his shoulder and teased me for checking out his ass, his green eyes sparkling.
I wantmoreof that. For him, and for me.
Rolling over onto my stomach, I grab my cell phone from the nightstand. He just left to go to work a few minutes ago, and he’s probably still driving into town, but I open up my messaging app anyway and start typing a quick message.
Alex (8:14 a.m.):how long is ur lunch break? at 12, yeah?
I click send, and since I’m fairly sure he won’t respond right away, I set the phone back down and lie there for a few more minutes, smiling into my pillow like an idiot. I’m still grinning ten or fifteen minutes later when I finally drag myself back out of bed, throw on some clothes—just a plain gray T-shirt and an old, comfy pair of jeans—and then settle at my desk to check my email.
It probably takes me a good half hour to get caught up with the few school-related things that I put off over the weekend—filling out some housing forms and returning some emails. When I’m finished, I sit back in my chair and eye my email inbox again. A few lines down is the message chain I have going with Dr. Ellis, and now also with Dr. Millan, the visiting professor Dr. Ellis added to the conversation. It’s grown to over twenty-five emails back and forth, and Dr. Ellis’s latest email asked to set up a meeting for the three of us when I get to Palo Alto in September.
He wants to meet me. And he says he’ll have an undergraduate research position available in the fall. It’s unreal and exciting, and I can’t wait.
But then, for the first time that morning, my stomach sinks.
Nico won’t be there. As things are right now, I’ll be heading to California without him.
That reminder hits me hard, and I frown and spin around in my chair, my eyes immediately landing on my phone. It’s still sitting on the nightstand, face up, and there’s a text message notification visible on the screen.
I push up to my feet and step over to the nightstand to grab my phone, expecting to see some brief response from him. Butinstead, the wordsMessage not deliveredstare back up at me from the screen.
Message not delivered.
Confused, I tap on the notification and start to retype my message from earlier. But I stop after typing just the first word, and my stomach sinks even further.
God, I’d completely forgotten.
It won’t matter if I try again; the message won’t go through. His mom canceled his phone line. I think he said it would have been shut off on Saturday.
I let out a long breath and sit down on the edge of my bed, still staring at the last few messages we sent to each other. I scroll through the texts, the knot in my stomach tightening.
I don’t know how I forgot that he’s basically homeless right now. If my mom wasn’t letting him stay here, he’d have nowhere to go. And he’s got no money; he told me that the other day when he showed me those messages from his mom. He has to hand everything he does have over to her on Friday if he wants to keep his car, which he sort of needs to get to town for work.
