The gesture is so brief and so quiet that my entire nervous system shorts.
I stare at my hand. I stare at him.
"Oh," I say. "You're in trouble."
"Why."
"Because that was adorable."
"It was not."
"It absolutely was. Nikolai Sokolov just kissed my palm like a man in a period drama and I am never letting him live it down."
He catches me around the waist and pulls me in before I can get more mileage out of it. The pulling-in is the answer to every question I asked. The pulling-in says: stop sleeping in the guest room. Stop pretending the distances are defensible. Stop measuring the space between us and start closing it.
I press my forehead to his chest. His chin rests on top of my head. The configuration is the first configuration that is not a kiss, not sex, not a fight, not a film session. The configuration is a hold. Two people standing in a dark video room after a cut list,holding each other because the holding is the thing they both needed and neither one asked for.
"I made the team," I say into his chest.
"I know."
"I'm staying."
"I know."
"In your bed."
"I know."
I laugh. The laugh vibrates against his chest and his arms tighten and the tightening is involuntary and the involuntary is the underneath and the underneath is becoming, slowly, the surface.
Later, I call my mother. Carmen Mercer screams. The scream is the scream of a Cuban-American ER nurse who has been containing her emotions in professional settings for twenty-three years and who does not contain them in personal settings and whose personal settings include a phone call from her son telling her he made an NHL roster.
"MIJO! AY, DIOS MIO! DAVE! DAVE, VEN ACA! YOUR SON!"
My father gets on the phone. "That's great, buddy." The Dave response. Consistent, warm, insufficient, genuine.
Ava texts: I knew. Obviously. Don't get cocky. Too late. Love you.
I text back: Love you too. Also I'm seeing someone.
Ava: I KNEW THAT TOO. Call me immediately.
I do not call her immediately. I will call her later. For now, I carry my overnight bag twelve feet from the guest room to Nikolai's bedroom. The twelve feet is the symbolic crossing. The guest room is the temporary. The bedroom is the staying.
I drop the bag by his dresser like I'm trying to act normal about crossing a line I've been staring at for a week.
"This is symbolic movement," I say.
"It is movement."
"You're ruining the moment."
He steps in, takes my hand, and kisses the center of my palm again.
I stare at him. "You're going to keep doing that."
"Yes."
