I touch her like I’m telling her everything I can’t say. I kiss her like she’s something precious. And when she shatters beneath me, eyes locked on mine, I follow her, losing myself completely.
Afterward, we lie tangled together, breathing hard, her head on my chest, my hand in her hair. Eventually, I shift. “I should probably head out.”
“Okay,” she says, but her hand is still on my stomach, like she doesn’t want to remove it.
I kiss her forehead before I pull away and grab my clothes. She watches me get dressed from the bed, the sheet pooled around her waist, my T-shirt somehow already on her body again.
God, she looks good in my clothes.
“Thanks for coming over,” she says as I pull on my shoes.
“Thanks for inviting me.”
I sit on the edge of the mattress to tie my shoes, and she reaches out, her palm resting between my shoulder blades—warm, grounding, and significant in a way I’m trying not to read too much into.
“Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re coming with me tomorrow.”
I turn toward her. “Me too.”
We stare at each other for a beat that stretches and stretches.
“Text me if you need anything before then,” I say.
“I will.”
“Drive safe,” she says.
“Always do.”
I go to give her a quick kiss but she lifts onto her toes, fingers framing my face, and deepens it. The kind of kiss you feel in your ribs. When she finally pulls back, we’re both breathing harder than we should be.
“Goodnight, Jake.”
“Goodnight, Nat.”
nineteen
. . .
Natalie
The November airhas the nerve to actually feel like November. Cool, overcast, the kind of day LA breaks out maybe twice a year just to remind us it can do weather if it wants to. I’m in leggings and an oversized sweater that’s rapidly becoming not-so-oversized. There’s a curve now that’s small, like a little quiet announcement.
When I spot Jake waiting by the entrance, I stop walking for half a second. Just long enough to feel that weird shift in my chest again. Something really did change last night. I didn’t mean for it to. Didn’t intend to let it. But there it is, humming under my skin like a secret I haven’t decided to keep or destroy.
I wonder if he felt it too.
He turns at just the right moment, like he senses me, and when that smile hits his face, the breath catches in my throat.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
His eyes do a quick sweep over me, reading me in that way he’s gotten good at. “You look beautiful.”
