“The night we met. I can’t believe you didn’t introduce yourself as a poet. Abagpipingpoet. Like, c’mon. How is that not your opening move?”
He laughs then, the sound deep and rich, and satisfaction rises within me.
I’m going to miss this.
When I leave this room, we’ll still talk to each other. We won’t return to the awkward, stilted interactions from before, but we won’t have this…intimacy. I won’t have the privilege of reaching my hand out and being able to touch him, of lying beside him, of feeling like I can ask him anything and not be rebuffed. We won’t have this openness between us, the way we both want to share, stories and details about our lives tumbling out of us, and none of it feels like it’s too much. The more I learn about him, the more I want to know. But soon, this will come to an end.
I’ll have questions I won’t get answers to.
There are parts of him I’ll never know.
“I think you overestimate how many women are into bagpiping poets,” Jacob says.
“And you clearly underestimate them.”
“Well,” he says. “I’m just glad you number among them.” He smiles, slow and lazy. “I prefer a different kind of creative myself.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. I’m more drawn to reality television producers.Especiallyones who eat bugs. That’s what really gets me going.”
A laugh escapes me. “You make it sound so awful. I’m not just picking up bugs and eating them for fun.”
“I don’t know. It sure sounded that way.” He reaches toward me, pushing a piece of hair out of my face. “Worked for me, though, didn’t it?”
We watch each other, and I try to memorize what he looks like this close. His absurdly long lashes; the sharp line of his nose; the small mole he has on his chin, one I didn’t notice before but can make out from this angle.
His smile fades a bit, and I can feel the shift in mood. What wasonce light and airy starts to gain weight, sinking, everything turning heavy.
“I probably need to go soon,” I say. Not because I want to, but because I can tell those words are coming and I want to be the one to say them first. Silly, maybe, but I need that illusion of control. I need to pretend.
Because won’t it hurt less if I’m the one to leave? Instead of the one who’s left?
“Okay,” he says, his expression soft. Resigned.
He doesn’t push, or ask for five more minutes, or ask me to stay a little longer, and I almost wish he would. How unfair of him to respect the boundaries I set. How unfair of him to do what I told him I wanted. To allow this to end.
I sit up and climb out of bed, and he does the same. I pick my clothes off the ground, and he pulls new ones out of his suitcase.
“I’ll call the garage,” he says, slipping a clean shirt over his head. “Find out when the car will be ready.”
“All right.” I zip my dress up as far as I can and slip my feet back into my shoes. I scan the room quickly, grabbing my purse and putting it over my shoulder. “I guess…I’ll see you down at breakfast, then?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Okay.”
I step toward the door, but Jacob beats me to it, prepared to open it for me.
“Neelu,” he says, and I look up at him. There’s the briefest flicker of hesitation, and then he moves toward me.
And it’s natural. The way my eyes slide shut, the way I meet him halfway, the softest brush of his mouth against mine.
I feel his fingers at my chin, the pressure light as he keeps me there, his eyes bouncing around my face, as if he too is memorizing this moment, savoring it so he can recall it later.
And something about that look, the way it lays him bare, makes me want to erase every line I’ve drawn.
“I don’t want to go,” I say, and his mouth parts in surprise.
