He kissed me back, hands easily slipping into my pockets. I wanted them to stay there forever. “Yeah, I know,” he replied. “It’s just that the fake vomit’s really gross.”
“But we might not be here without it,” I pointed out, lungs fluttering.
Ev was silent for a moment. “That’s true,” he eventually whispered. “We might not.”
We kissed again, and this time I felt a ripple run through me. It was only hours ago that I’d told myself Ev would always be the great unrequited love of my life—that hehadto be—and now, here we were together in my room. It was all so surreal. “Wow,” I murmured, even though that didn’t even begin to cover it. “Just…wow.”
“Yeah,” Ev murmured back. “Wow.”
Without saying a word, we knew we both needed more. Ev shucked off his light blue chambray and I only had his T-shirt halfway over his head before he slipped slightly shaking fingers under my shirt. “This is also coming off,” I told him, grabbing his Mets hat, which I’d rescued from the azaleas, and tossing it on my nightstand as he unbuttoned his pants. “There’s no way you’re wearingthis….”
He was looking at me, amber eyes wide and mouth open like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. Instead, he ran a slow hand through his hair.
Has he changed his mind?I worried, blood pulsing in my veins.Tell me he hasn’t changed his mind!
“Ev…” I stood there in my bra, resisting the urge to fold my arms over my chest. I still wanted this—desperately.I’d never been this nervous before, but then again, the other person hadn’t been Ev. “Are you okay? Has your brain short-circuited?”
He coughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”
I fought a smile. “What’s another way?”
“That you’re perfect, Grace.”
I shook my head. “No one’s perfect, Ev.”
“Perfectly imperfect, then,” he said, smiling. “You are perfectly imperfect, especially to me.”
You’re perfect, too,I thought, feeling an ache in the pit of my stomach as he stood there in only his striped boxers.Perfectly imperfect for me.
It wasn’t long before we were both undressed and tangled up in each other—still standing, but barely. Ev was kissing my neck, and I had my hands deep in his hair. “Do you have a condom?” he whispered against my collarbone.
“What? You don’t have one in your wallet?”
“No.” He kissed the hollow of my throat. “My dad told me never to keep them there. They end up breaking or expiring.” He shrugged. “That’s how my parents got Abigail.”
I tried not to giggle. “Yes, I’ve got one,” I whispered, and pulled back to flash him what I hoped was a sexy grin (it totally wasn’t). “One moment, please.”
The tips of Ev’s ears pinkened, but he wasted no time in falling back on my bed. I retrieved the small box of condoms from my desk drawer, remembering how Isa had hidden in CVS’s shampoo aisle while I waited in line to buy them. “Just don’t keep them in your dresser drawer,” she said afterward. “That’s the first place all TV parents look!”
“Start keeping one on hand,” I whispered after I’d climbed into bed with him. “If not your wallet, your backpack or something.” I handed him the sealed wrapper and began kissing his face. Nowhere in particular, just all over his goddamn gorgeous face.
“Why?” he whispered back. “So we can have sex in the janitor’s closet at school?”
I giggled into his neck. “What is it with you and janitor’s closets?”
“Excuse me, but what is withyouand janitor’s closets?” heasked, sitting up and ripping open the condom. I laid my hand flat on his back, his skin so warm. “If I’m recalling correctly, it was you who propositionedme.”
I didn’t have an answer. Nothing witty or even partly clever came to mind, especially when he turned back around and grinned at me.
Those dimples. God, those dimples.
“You’re everything to me, Grace,” he said a moment later, our limbs entwined under my covers. “You know that, don’tyou?”
“I do.” I nodded, because after today, I knew. “You’re everything to me, too.”
“Really?” He smirked. “Because I didn’t dare hope!”
And then we laughed and kissed before my heart began doing backward handsprings.
