God, I can’t stop.
I kiss him.
For a moment, his lips are dumb and frozen against mine—almost long enough for me to regret it—but then his hand slides into my hair, and he’s kissing me back with the kind of fierceneedthat makes me certain he’s thought about this before. Probably a lot.
Fuck oh my god is this really happening oh my goddddd—
His lips are softer than I expect, and I wonder if he can taste the sbagliatos on mine, bitter and astringent. One of his fingers loops through my hair like he wants to knot us together. He’s totally abandoned the whole jacket-over-my-head idea, and the rain is freezing, my dress already starting to cling to my back, but like I give a fuck because Jamie Larson is kissing me and that is the only thing that matters in the entire world.
From what feels like universes away, I become aware of the people in front of us heading off to wherever people go past midnight in the pouring rain, and I manage—with great pain—to break the kiss.
“Shit,” Jamie murmurs. His gaze is even darker than before, and the Christmas lights around us are bright enough that I can see the color flushing his cheeks.
“Shit,” I echo back.
I can barely catch my breath. Probably the alcohol, but I feel like I’ve just finished some crazy workout and I’m exhausted and euphoric all at the same time, practically dizzy with it.
“Um,” I make myself say, clinging to reality with both hands. “We should probably…you know…” I gesture weakly toward the food cart.
“Right. Yeah. Okay.” He clearly has as much trouble dragging himself out of my personal space as I do his, the pair of us approaching the cart to order. I default to a falafel pita, because I definitely can’t focus enough to choose anything more exciting.
By the time we’re done ordering, retreating to the relative dryness under a Le Pain Quotidien awning, both of us are sodden. Jamie looks like he just got fished out of a lake, and I probably look about the same. We make eye contact and both laugh at the same time—the awkward tension bursting past the floodgates. The contrast makes me feel heavy and relaxed, like I just smoked a really excellent bowl, and Jamie reaches to swipe my hair away from where it’s plastered to my face.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” he says.
“I mean,” I say. “Yeah.”
“Are you…That is. I’ve been wanting that for a while. Probably longer than my ego wants to admit.”
My heart thumps wild in my chest at that.I’ve been wanting that for a while. A while. Wanting. Wantingme. “Same. Since we were first-years, actually. I probably shouldn’t admit that out loud; it’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he says softly, and the hand that’s in my hair drifts lower, along the side of my neck, my shoulder. It’s like he can’t stop touching me. A frisson of want cuts hot down my spine.
“So what now?” I say. “Please tell me you won’t go back to hating me because I’m a better pianist than you.”
That earns me another laugh, and god, I’ll never get over the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, when hereallysmiles, not the cold slice of a smirk or the brief bitter mask he puts on after someone compliments him on his playing, but true and bright and for me. All for me.
“Right now, I think we should eat our food. And then I think we should get the fuck out of here.”
“I like this plan. I like food.” I arch a brow. “And I like whatever it is you’re planning to do to me once we get home.”
I can’t believe I’m talking like this; maybe I’m drunker than I thought, or maybe it’s just the intoxication of this moment, Jamie’s kiss still tingling on my lips and his body so close to mine, him looking at me like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
I only eat about half my sandwich, suddenly not all that hungry anymore. It’s still raining by the time we’re both done.
Jamie gestures in the direction of the subway station. “Run for it? Or Uber?”
“Run for it.”
“All right. On three. One…two…”
We dart out from under the awning—Jamie awkwardly hunched under his jacket, and me far past the point of caring, laughing like some giddy teenager as Jamie reaches over and takes my hand in his, latching us together so we don’t get separated.
The subway is empty when we get there, all the evening partiers already emptied out at their destinations—that liminal space between leaving for the night and the flood that will follow in a few hours of people returning home, drunk and laughing and flushed with the intoxication of a wild night out. There’s no crowd pressing me and Jamie together, but he leans in anyway, bracketing me between his arms as we stand by the doors, oddly protective. Alone, with no one there to watch, Jamie kisses me again. Gently this time, skimming the backs of his fingers along the line of my jaw. My hands find his hips, then smooth up toward his narrow waist, memorizing the shape of him.
The tension draws tighter and tighter in my stomach the whole way home, the space between us hot and taut in the elevator up to my apartment, that security camera on the ceiling the only thing keeping me from tangling myself in his arms.
We strip off our sodden jackets and shoes in the entryway, my wet hair dripping all over the parquet floor.
