Sloan purses her lips, straightening the rest of the pamphlets on my bed before stacking them together. “Well, you can, I guess. Just—why would you?”
“Zlatícko, come on.”
She pauses, the stack of pamphlets still between her fingers. “What does it mean?”
“It’s killing you, isn’t it?” I laugh.
“No.” She shakes her head, hair tumbling around her shoulders, trying to look resolute.
My brow lifts. “You could just Google it, you know.”
“No,” she repeats, stubborn. “I’d rather you tell me.”
I groan, scrubbing my face, like it’s this old, tired thing, when really, it’s one of my favourite games to play with her.
I say something in Czech. She pretends not to care what it means, looks befuddled for a minute before she moves right on in conversation, and she spends too much time trying to trick me into telling her instead of just using the computer she carries around in her pocket.
I hope I spend my whole life playing games with Sloan Joseph.
But this one needs to end—because I think she needs to know how precious she is.
“Sweetheart,” I say, before I tell her what it really means to me. What she really means to me. “Or ‘little gold.’”
“Oh.” She breathes softly, looking down when a crease of apprehension sketches between her eyebrows.
I reach forward, tilting her chin up. “You looked—golden. Under those arena lights.”
She shakes her head. “Nothing about me is gold. I have brown hair.”
“Let me compliment you.” I press my thumb to the pout of her bottom lip. She blinks a bit too much, and I see a solitary tear slip over and slide down her cheek. Wiping it away, I ask quietly, “What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing good,” she says, shaking her head again with a sad, wet laugh.
“Can I kiss it better?”
She nods, softly this time, her fingers fluttering around my wrist.
I do kiss her. I hope I make it better.
She doesn’t seem to mind that I lose track of time, sitting up on my bed, surrounded by all these brochures, thumb still gripping her chin, her hand around my wrist, lips on mine.
The outside world could implode. Stars could die and the sun could burn out and maybe the rest of civilization is just dust.
All I know is that I’ve got her, that I’ve never wanted to kiss someone like this, that I don’t think I ever will again, thatit’s stupid and makes no sense because she’s eighteen and I’m twenty but I think she’s it for me because she’s quiet and shy and soft and stubborn all at the same time and no one’s ever taken my breath away quite like she has.
That I would stay here kissing her, because even if the world did end, it wouldn’t, not really, not as long as she was still living and breathing, but Sloan pulls away, tucking her hair behind her ears, lips parted and swollen when she asks softly, “Can we lay down?”
“Yeah, Zlatícko, we can do whatever you want.”
Whatever she wants turns out to be the lights off, music she likes but seems sort of sad to me, all of our clothes gone, and her hair fanning out across the pillow, big blue eyes fluttering up at me suspended over her with one hand gripping the sheets and the other holding up a condom, asking her if she’s sure.
She says yes.
But it’s not all she says.
“Yes. It’s not my first time and I know it’s not yours but ... it feels a bit ... like maybe it is?” She bites down on her bottom lip, eyes wide like she’s worried I won’t understand. “Do you know what I mean?”
“I do.” I brush a thumb across her cheek.
