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We drive through town in silence, except for my quiet directives. In no time, we’re in front of my parents’ house, which I moved back to last September, heading down their long and bumpy driveway in silence. He cuts the engine and the headlights shut off. A raindrop falls here or there on the windshield then stops.
“Do you, uh, want to see my room?” I ask to break the silence, then immediately wish I could just shut up.
Jesse’s mouth is a flat line. A very grumpy face. He says nothing.Shocking.
“I just mean that, my parents let me live in the studio apartment that’s attached to the house. It has a separate entrance but it’s around the back. I don’t still sleep in my childhood bedroom. My mom keeps her art supplies in there now.” I wonder when—or if—I’ll ever stop talking.
He peers out the windshield at the dark pathway that leads to my apartment and opens his door. I shiver at another gust of unseasonably cool air. “I’ll walk you,” he says.
I rummage through my bag on the short walk around the side of my parents’ farmhouse, almost plowing into his back when he stops at my front door. It takes me a second to line the key up with the lock before I can shove it in and open the door to my dark, tiny home. The crisp air has cooled my beer buzz enough that I know what I’m about to say is a bad idea. But the thought of walking into this dark, cold little apartment, alone, makes it so I can’t stop myself.
“Do you want to come in?”
I’m not even sure what I want him to do if he came inside. We could sit and watch a reality TV show or a baseball game on my laptop while I scrolled my phone or read student papers, sex the furthest thing from either of our minds. It just seems better than the alternative of being alone with my thoughts. Jesse pokes his head through the door, surveying. His mouth twists into a little pucker. Not grumpy face.
“What’s this?” I point to his mouth. “You’re not making your Grumpy Face anymore.”
He seems skeptical. “What’s Grumpy Face?”
“It’s like this.” I flatten my mouth and do my best to shape my forehead in a way that will create a V between my brows. I jut my jaw. “Hello, Eloise,” I say in a barely passable impression. Jesse Logan laughs. He actually laughs. It’s quiet,duh. But it’s a laugh and it transforms his face, lifts a load from his shoulders. It turns a little personal sun on above him, to follow him around until he frowns again. He has one dimple in his flushed cheeks. His jacket stretches across his shoulders. And curses to the beer and the cold and the loneliness, but all of these seem like Very Good Reasons to kiss him.
So, I do.
Jesse Logan, who drinks soda water quietly, and drives for fifteen frickin’ minutes quietly, and laughs quietly, does not kiss quietly. A moan rumbles up his chest, against where my nipples are firmly pressed to him. He lets me kiss him for a few more seconds before gently pulling away, his hands wrapped around my biceps.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the pads of three fingers pressed to my lips. “Was that OK?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He seems surprised by his answer.
“Do you want to do it again?”
He thinks for a moment. “Yes.”
Jesse pulls me into him, gently pressing his hands to my lower back. I should feel cold, standing in the open doorway to my house, the wind picking up, the rain about to fall, but heat radiates off him. My body jolts every time my nipples brush against him through my thin jacket, tiny lightning bolts right through my skin.
His lips move softly, almost shyly, and who is this man? So quiet and kissing me, holding me, like I’m something that might break. Honestly, I might, and I hate that. I want to kiss this gorgeous man on my front doorstep without thinking about the ways I am jagged pieces held together by masking tape and sheer force of will.
I slip my tongue past his lips to quiet the tiny implosions in my head. And it works. Jesse squeezes me. A rumble moving through his chest, the sound like melted butter or falling asleep in a sunbeam or the smell of turkey on Christmas morning: good and warm and safe. I sink deeper into him. His hands travel up my body. He cups my face, pulls away just enough to press his thumb to my lower lip.
A joke, maybe another invitation inside, the urge to speak bubbles up—but whatever words I want to fill this silence with, he presses them back into my mouth with gentle pressure. Jesse’s brown-eyed gaze travels over my face and I think this might be the first time he’s really seen me. That little V returns to his brow, and I smooth it with my fingertips. He inhales, a sound like resolve, and settles lower against the doorframe, pulling me against him, his thigh between my legs. He presses his lips to mine, slipping his tongue into my mouth, and I moan; his leg holding me up, his hands cupping my face, fisting my hair, our mouths, pressing and pulling at each other. I laugh, surprised, into his mouth and it doesn’t stop him. He kisses the smile on my face. Tips my head back and works his mouth over my chin, my jaw, my neck.
Cold water hits my shoulder, another drop on my cheek, startling me from where the rest of my body is warm and liquid. I lift my face to the sky and another raindrop lands in my hair. Since this night has been full of me having bad ideas and now the weather has provided the perfect excuse, I ask again, “Do you want to come inside?”
It sounds illicit, combined with how close we’re pressed together and my open door. It sounds like I’m asking him something else, and even I can hear the desperation in my voice when I toss each word over the cliff into this cold, quiet evening.
Jesse cools against me. His lips against my jaw slow. He doesn’t so much push me away from him as plaster himself against the doorframe. He blinks, frowns, says, “Eloise.”
The nebula of lust dissolves and leaves me numb. “Lulu,” I say.
“Sorry.” And he does sound sorry. “Lulu.”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly, even though it isn’t. “I almost bailed on this date,” I say loudly and stupidly. Maybe he thinks I’m trying to save face but really I’m just trying to show him that this, stopping, is the right choice. I’m a fucking mess.
He makes a fist, tucking his hand under his arm, mirroring my own stance.
“I’ve been having a hard time meeting new people.”
I want to punch my own mouth.
