I stopped, because when I opened to Jamie’s page, I finally saw his bookmark. It was a strange thought, that I’dneverseen what he used as a bookmark before, but I was sure I hadn’t.
Otherwise I would’ve remembered his bookmark being a seven-armed octopus holding a knife and wearing a pair of glasses.
The drawing Jamie had asked for in April. The one that’d jump-started my love for drawing again after the rejection from NYU stopped my heart. I blinked at it, almost like I half believed it wasn’t real. “You’ve been using this as your bookmark?”
“I don’talwaysuse it,” he replied quietly, looking at where it marked his book. “Sometimes I use a napkin that has two ice creams on it. Or a piece of paper from a calculus worksheet with a decapitated person on it.”
“You kept them?”
“I keep all the things you draw me.”
Staring down at him, the butterflies in my stomach hummed to life. More questions popped into my head, questions that’d been growing in fervor over the last few weeks.
What are we doing, Jamie?
Am I the only one that feels the shift?
I looked down at our hands, the way Jamie’s long fingers traced over my stubby ones. This was it, I decided. I wasn’t going to linger in the unknown anymore. I wasn’t going to let my thoughts bat themselves back and forth like a demented pickleball game.
I pulled in the barest breath that quivered past my lips. “At Lydia’s party,” I began. “Why did you kiss my neck? Why didn’t you just… kiss my… mouth?”
Why didn’t you kiss me? I wanted you to kiss me. I don’t think I’ve stopped wanting it since.
Jamie’s fingers stopped tracing mine. “I—I don’t know.”
I was toeing a different sort of line, not the college demarcation line, and this one felt different. More important. More forbidden. “Is it because you think you’d be bad at it? That people would see right through it?”
“No.” The one word was low, dragged from Jamie’s throat. “I think I’d kissyou just fine.”
Now my heart stopped beating altogether.
This is it. This was going to be the moment things shifted, where things went from friends to fake dating to more, and there’d be no turning back.Jamie, I like you, I could imagine myself saying.I don’t know exactly when it changed, but along the way, I started thinking of not pretending. I’ve thought of kissing you more times than I could count, and I want to see if you’re right, if you’d kiss me just fine.
I drew in a breath, but Jamie cut me off first. “Not here,” he whispered, gaze darting worriedly to the doorway. “Not—where anyone can hear.”
Blood roared through my ears, and I was dizzy from how fiercely my heart had been beating.Just tell me, I wanted to insist.Tell me what you were about to say. But he already pulled his hand back, taking the wave of warmth with him as he reached for his book again. Conversation closed.
I could’ve sworn I saw a shadow shift in the hallway, as if someone had been peeking in and quickly ducked out of sight. What if Jamie was right, and someonewaslistening in? Raelynn hadn’t gone back to the garden party—what if she decided to seek out Jamie?
I slid off the table, coming around the backside of Jamie’s chair. Without hesitating, I wrapped my arms around his torso, leaning in to set my chin on his shoulder. His breath hitched, the sound faint in my ear. “How’s your book?”
Jamie didn’t answer, not for a long beat. “Daisy.” His voice was strangely strangled.
I lowered my words to a whisper, coming as close to his ear as I could without touching. “You’re right. I think Raelynn’s in the hallway.”
His lashes fluttered, probably because my breath tickled his ear. The tension evaporated between his shoulders, and he leaned back into my embrace, even tilting his head more toward me. “It’s good,” he murmured, his hair brushing my cheek. “I’ve read it before.”
He leaned into me, even at the idea of Raelynn being in the hall. I wasn’t sure why, but that made me giddy. “Why read something you’ve already read before?”
“Why do you want to watchMonte Carloseven billion times?”
Fine. Touché. I wondered if the shadow in the hallway had left yet. I didn’t want to look. “Read me something.”
I actually heard him swallow. “I—I’m not a good reader.Aloud. I’m not good at reading aloud.”
“You did a good job reading to Theo the other night. What book was that, anyway? Did you look it up on the phone call?”
“I-It wasn’t a book.” Jamie closed his eyes, long lashes swiping against the lenses of his glasses. “I made it up.”
