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Only I’m not late, I no longer have school, and Neil McNair is in my bed.
He’s on his side next to me, one arm thrown across the pillow, the other around my waist. The early morning sunlight slants across his face, turning his hair fiery. He is beautiful. The sky is a clear cobalt canvas, yesterday’s storm forgotten.
It finally feels like summer.
As though sensing I’m awake, he pulls me closer, presses a kiss to the back of my neck. The reality drips back in. Neil and I had sex last night. Well—an hour ago, technically this morning. And it was good.
“Did that really happen?” I say aloud.
“Yes, unless you and I both had the same intensely erotic dream.”
“I prefer the reality.” I snuggle closer. “Was it okay for you? Do you feel different?”
“We’ll have to do it a few more times to know for sure,” he says with that wonderful smirk of his. “Yes. It was incredible. I’m not sure if I feel different, exactly. Mostly, I think I’m just happy. And… it wasn’t terrible for you?”
I answer by pressing myself into him, dropping kisses down his jaw, onto his neck. “You make me really, really happy too. I hope you know that.”
He holds me tighter. “I love you, Rowan Roth,” he says. “I can’t believe that’s a thing I get to say.”
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing it. I whisper it back, into his skin. I run my hand down his freckled arm, then pull on it to peer at his watch. “As horrible as it sounds, we should get up before my parents do.”
He kisses my bare shoulder as I force myself to a sitting position. “Don’t think I don’t expect your book report on my desk by tomorrow just because we had sex.”
“What book?”
“Hmm. The Age of Innocence? Moby Dick? The Turn of the Screw?” He thinks for another moment, that lazy-sly smile appearing again. “Hard Times?”
“Is that an autobiography?”
“No, it’s Dickens. At least three pages, please,” he says before I push him back down on the bed.
* * *
About ten minutes later, he grabs his T-shirt, pulls it on. “So what do you think? Should I be all cool and sneak out the window?”
“I think you might have to.”
“I guess I’ll see you at KeyArena for graduation. Which is now tomorrow. Wow. I should really work on my valedictorian speech.”
“And the next day,” I say, “we can have a Star Wars marathon. Or go on a real date.”
“And this?” he says, gesturing to my sheets. “We should definitely do this again.”
“We should definitely do this a lot. At least until August.” That sudden heaviness pins me to the bed. “So… that’s a thing we’re going to have to deal with.”
Neil must notice the change on my face because he stops halfway through buckling his belt and comes closer. “Artoo. Hey. We’ll figure it out.”
The nickname melts me.
“I just… I’m not ready to say goodbye,” I say, surprised by the unexpected break in my voice. “I can say goodbye to the rest of it, to school and to our teachers and to everyone else—but I can’t say goodbye to you.”
“You don’t have to.” He cups my face, running a thumb along my cheekbone. “This isn’t the end. Far from it, hopefully. If we haven’t annoyed each other to death by the end of the summer, then why can’t we keep going? New York and Boston aren’t that far apart.”
“A little over four hours, by train.” Exploring other cities with Neil—it sounds too wonderful.
“And we’ll be back here on breaks,” he says. “You and I have to always be the best, right? So we’ll be the best at long distance, if that’s what we decide to do. But right now…” He gestures to the room around us. “Right now, we have this.”
I let it sink in, trying to be okay with that uncertainty. As much as I’ve idealized the happily-ever-after, I can’t deny that he’s right. Today isn’t my epilogue with Neil—it’s a beginning.
