"I just told you I have a boyfriend," I say, hating that he’s about to leave.
He looks at me steadily. "Yet here you are telling me you imagined kissing me. I don't care if you have a boyfriend, Adela." His eyes drop to my mouth and come back up. "I don't see a ring. Until there is one, don't dismiss what you feel."
His tone makes anger stir in my chest. It’s not exactly towards him, but towards everything. I notice he doesn’t reach for the door handle again.
Another tear slides down my face. How I wish I didn’t have a boyfriend right now.
"Don't you have business to attend to?" I ask.
He watches me closely. "I can't leave you crying."
He reaches over and kisses the tear from my other cheek, his mouth barely touching my skin. I close my eyes.
"You shouldn't do that," I whisper.
He licks the next one.
I exhale. Long and slow. I open my eyes and look at him and make myself swallow it down — all of it, the tears and the heat and the want and the guilt sitting underneath all of them. "I'm done crying, Theo. You can go."
"Are you dismissing me?"
"This was a mistake."
He looks at me for a long moment. His expression doesn't change. Doesn't harden or soften or do any of the things expressions do when someone has been told something they don't want to hear.
"Fine," he says.
He leans in. His mouth finds my ear, and I go completely still. His voice is low enough that I feel it more than hear it. "This isn't a mistake." A breath. "You'll see."
Then he's out of the car.
The door closes.
And he doesn't look back.
I sit for a moment watching him walk away — the set of his shoulders, the pace of him, the way he moves through the world like it arranged itself around him rather than the other way around.
Then he turns the corner, and he's gone.
I touch my lips.
The Chapstick is there. The gloss over it. But underneath them, my lips are still faintly tender, still faintly his, and I press myfingers against them and feel the ghost of the pressure and close my eyes.
I move my hand to my cheek.
The places where his tongue touched. Still wet.
He’s not like I imagined at all.
He’s better.
I start the engine.
I pull out of the space and into the street.
This isn't a mistake. You'll see.
He said it like he knows something I don't.
