“What are you doing here? I mean, I’m happy you’re here. Really happy. It’s just... I thought everything was okay with Cherry.”
“It is. Did I not just lug a bucket of apricots on a ferry across Elliott Bay?”
I huffed out a soft laugh and then said, “We haven’t talked much the last couple of days.... I worried maybe you’d had second thoughts.”
“About us?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve had thoughts. Not second ones, though.” He swiped at my cheek again. “I just realized some things.”
“What things?”
He blew out a long breath. “All of this has happened so fast, and it’s not like any other relationship I’ve been in before. And I didn’t expect any of this at all. When we started, I just liked you, in the diner that first night. And then I just wanted to spend time with you. And then something changed.”
That didn’t sound good. I tried to pull away, but he gathered me more firmly against him. “Listen. I need you to listen to me, okay? Before I lose my nerve. Sometimes I feel a little sick to my stomach when I can’t see you, and then when I do, I get so nervous, I worry I might vomit.”
“You... never act nervous.”
“I guess I’m good at hiding it.”
“You are?”
“It’s a skill.” He rested his forehead against mine. “What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t expect this to happen. I didn’t sit around wishing for it. I didn’t even realize what was happening until it had. It’s like you walk into a convenience store to get bread and you hear a song playing over the speakers, and you’ve never heard it before, but it’s so good, it blows your mind. And all you wanted was bread, but now it feels like you’ve just seen the face of God, and how did this even happen?”
“You haven’t been eating more of those gummies, have you?”
He lifted his forehead from mine and shook his head. “Not a one, Birdie.”
“Sure?”
“So sure,” he said, sighing. “No one tells you about the yearning. I’ve never yearned in my entire life—not once, Birdie. But here I am, yearning. It’s awful.”
Longing-pining-aching.
“Because of a metaphoric song you heard in a metaphoric convenience store?”
“Yep. It was one of those big moments in life that completely changes your head. And I know the exact minute it happened, too,” he said, studying my face as if he were looking at me for the first time. “That’s the weirdest part. It happened about thirty seconds after I hung up with my mom. She called on Monday to tell me you’d come to the dance studio, and I was happy—happy that she was happy and that we weren’t fighting anymore. And happy that you cared enough to do that, and then... Then my entire brain just lit up.”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me,” I whispered.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“What to happen?”
“You’re the song in that convenience store, Birdie. Do you understand? I’ve accidentally fallen in love with you.”
Everything fell out of my head at once. My fingers started trembling. Then my arms. My internal organs were melting together, and a blazing wildfire spread through my chest. My frightened-rabbit heart tried to tear a hole through my flesh and escape.
“You don’t have to say it back,” he assured me. “But I had to tell you. That’s why I came out here.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “See, the funny thing is, though, I think you feel the same way.”
I opened my mouth, but weird noises came out instead of real words. His confessional thrilled me... and terrified me. I didn’t know how to answer, and I wasn’t sure why. All I could do was cling to him like the floor was disappearing beneath my feet and I’d fall into a bottomless pit if either of us let go. All I could say was, “Kiss me.”
And he did.
We kissed like we were desperate, separated for years and had only minutes to spare until the world ended, rushing, breathless, all roaming hands-teeth-tongue, and I was clinging to his neck, trying to pull him underwater with me. When I stopped for breath, he said my name against my open mouth, hips swaying against mine. And a dark, drugging heat spread through my limbs like a slow fire.
I didn’t even care that he pressed too hard against me and made me jump—“Sorry, sorry, sorry”—or that I accidentally bit his lip and tasted blood—“Are you okay?”None of that mattered. Not until I felt my knees giving out. I pushed him away, worried I was going boneless again, waiting for the telltale feeling, that between-heartbeats moment when I knew I was going down.
