Then her eyes land on me.
“You live like this?”
“I live like a person who’s busy.”
“That’s one word for it.”
I cross the room toward her. “You’re very critical for someone who’s still very mysterious.”
She looks up at me. The lamp light catches her face, soft gold across her cheekbones. I lift my hand slowly, giving her time to move away, to stop me, and brush a strand of hair from her face. She doesn’t move. The space between us feels electric, charged with something I can’t name.
Then she rises on her toes and kisses me.
It’s not tentative. Her mouth meets mine like she’s been thinking about this as long as I have, and my hands find her waist instantly, pulling her closer.
She tastes like the cocktail from the party. Her fingers curl into my hoodie again, tugging me toward her, and I walk her backward until her shoulders meet the wall.
I break the kiss just long enough to look at her.
Her lips are slightly parted. Her pupils are dark.
“Still want to know all about me?” she whispers.
“I want everything.”
She pulls me back in.
The bedroom is dark except for the streetlight filtering through the blinds.
Her jacket hits the floor first. Then my hoodie. Then the careful layers between us until there’s nothing left but skin and breath and the quiet sounds she makes when I touch her.
She’s beautiful.
Not the polished kind of beautiful you see on magazine covers. Something realer. There’s a bruise fading along her ribs - yellow and purple, the kind you get from hockey, and I trace it with my thumb without thinking.
She tenses slightly.
“What’s this from?” I ask.
A pause. “I’m ultra clumsy.”
I lean down and kiss it softly and she makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “That’s a weird thing to do.”
“You’re a weird person to do it to.”
Her hand finds the back of my neck, pulling me up to kiss her again.
The rest happens in fragments.
The slide of her body against mine. The way she gasps when I find the right rhythm. The feeling of her fingers digging into my shoulders, her legs wrapped around me, her breath warm against my ear.
At some point she says my name -Zane- and it’s the first time I’ve heard it from her, and something in my chest cracks open.
Afterward we lie tangled together, her head on my chest, my hand tracing lazy patterns on her bare shoulder.
The room is quiet.
I should get her number. I should figure out more about herbefore she disappears into the dark like last time.
