I say nothing.
“I know it’s against the rules,” she says.
“You set them.”
You can change them, I don’t add.I’ll come with you. I’ll keep you safe.
“I know I did.”
She takes a deep breath, and the bubble quivers inside me. I want her to say it:Forget the rules, forget Salem, forget the podcast. Forget everything but you and me, because we go beyond all that now.I know I can’t be the one to say it first. It’s too much pressure on her, for me to say it first.
“I’d want you to come in, if—if things were different.”
I suppress a wince at the feeling of that bubble popping.
“Sticking to the conditions—it’s the right thing. For Tegan to have some privacy for this. And also for . . . it’s right for you, too. Your job, your future. You need to go in there as Salem’s colleague, not my—”
I could finish that sentence for her in as many ways as I could kiss her.
Your boyfriend, your protector, your person . . .
Damn this bubble, swelling up again.
But she doesn’t fill in the blank.
“Adam,” she says instead. “Listen to me.”
I manage a nod.
“It matters that I want you there. My wanting you there is a lot. It’s . . .”
She smooths a palm over my shirt, rests it where my heart still beats in time to our kiss.
“It’s alot,” she repeats, and there’s something in it—a note of vehemence, of desperation. I think back to what she said, about not telling me all that was in her head about her mom before she goes in there to meet her. That she wants to stay calm, focused.
I think Jess is telling me about as much as she can manage this morning.
A half-truth to give me hope for the whole.
So I pull her to me again, wrap her in my arms, hide her away from the parking lot lights, the waiflike trees, the big brooding mountain on the horizon. I hold her close and lower my head, put my lips close to her ear.
I give her a half sentence, a half-truth of my own.
“The way I feel about you . . .” I murmur, and she nods, knowing that’s all for now.
And with her standing here against me, these half-truths said, I work to reassure myself. We’ll get through today and we’ll tell each other the rest. We’ll figure it all out: how we met, how we don’t live in the same place, how getting through today is only the first part of getting through the whole entire experience of Salem releasing her podcast into the world.
We’ll figure it out.
But when I’ve almost convinced myself—when I’m loosening my hold on Jess so we can go back inside and start getting this part out of the way—she bands her arms around me tighter.
“One more minute,” she says, that desperate note back in her voice.
So I hold tight again, too.
One more minute, I repeat to myself.
And I try to believe it’s not an omen.
