It’s kind of like when people ask “How are you?” and really only want you to say “fine.” Any further explanation makes them uncomfortable.
“I didn’t get to go to a real high school. I went to a small private school near Seattle. It was awful,” Nora says, surprising me with another small glimpse into who she is.
“My school was awful, too,” I admit.
Nora regards me with a skeptical look. “I bet you were one of the popular kids. You played sports, didn’t you?”
I nearly laugh at the idea of me being a popular kid.
A jock? Me? Not even close.
“Not quite.” My cheeks get red. I can feel it. “I wasn’t anything, really. I wasn’t cool enough to be popular, but I wasn’t smart enough to be considered a nerd. I was just in that middle ground where no one gave a shit about me. I was chubby then, so I got teased when the popular kids got bored with their usual prey. But honestly, I didn’t realize how bad my high school was until I moved to Washington halfway through my senior year. My experience in Washington was so different.”
Nora walks over to the utility closet and grabs the broom and dustpan. She starts to sweep the floor and I prepare to fill the silence with more ramblings about my high school days as I wet a paper towel and clean the rest of the counter.
“Nothing is worse than a bunch of assholes who peak in high school,” she observes.
I bark out a little laugh. “That’s one of the truest things I’ve ever heard.”
“I guess I wasn’t missing much,” Nora says, her eyes distant. She has that expression on her face again, the one that looks like she’s grown bored.
“Did you always want to be a pastry chef?” I ask. The sugar is close to being cleaned up now, but I don’t want the conversation to end. I almost wish there was another bag of something for me to accidentally dump on the floor.
I’ve never heard Nora talk this much before, aside from her and Tessa gushing over the two boys kissing on that demon-hunting show Tessa’s obsessed with. Usually, I’m never a part of their conversations, I’m in my room studying or at work when she’s here, and now that we are alone and she’s being uncharacteristically chatty, I want to gather in as many words as she’s willing to say.
She moves the broom across the tile floor and looks over at me. “Thanks for remembering not to call me a baker. And no, I actually wanted to be a surgeon. Like my dad and his dad and his dad.”
A surgeon? That’s the last thing I expected her to say.
“Really?”
“Don’t be so surprised. I’m actually very intelligent.” She cocks her head to the side and I decide that I really like her playful attitude. It’s different from Dakota’s, not as harsh or as hard.
Dakota.
I haven’t thought about her once in the last thirty minutes, and her name sounds foreign inside my head.
Does that make me a bad guy? Naked with her one minute, not thinking about her the next.
Is she sitting at home, waiting for me to call her?
. . . Somehow, I doubt that.
“I’m not doubting that.” I raise a sugary hand to her. “I just thought you would say something more . . . art-related.”
Nora regards me with a thoughtful look on her face. “Hmm, why is that?”
She rests the broom against the counter and leans closer to me to turn on the faucet. Her arm brushes against the fabric of my sweatshirt and I move out of her way.
“I don’t know. I just picture you being some sort of artist.” I run my hand over my hair and little bits of sugar fall onto the floor. “I don’t really know what I’m talking about.”
“You should have taken that off before I swept.” Nora’s fingers wrap around a string from my sweatshirt and I look down, watching her hand.
“Probably,” I say, and she takes a step closer.
I hold my breath.
Her eyes catch mine and she sucks in a quiet breath between her teeth. “Sometimes it feels like you know me more than you should,” she whispers—and I can’t move.
I can’t breathe, or move, or even speak when she’s this close. Even with sugar covering her, she’s so painfully stunning that I can barely look at her.
“Maybe I do,” I tell her, somehow feeling the same.
Truthfully, I barely know anything about her, but maybe it isn’t about knowing the factual things. Maybe it doesn’t matter if I know her mom’s name, or her favorite color. Maybe it doesn’t take years to know people like we assume; maybe the important things are much, much simpler. Maybe it matters more that we see deeper, that we know what kind of friend they are, or that they bake cakes for people they don’t know without being asked.
“You shouldn’t,” she says, still staring up at me.
Without thinking, I take a step closer to her and she closes her eyes.
“Maybe I should.”
I don’t know who I am in this moment. I don’t feel nervous about being so close to such a beautiful woman. I don’t feel like I’m not good enough to be touching her face.
I barely have any thoughts running through my mind.
I like the silence inside my head that she seems to bring.
“We can’t,” she says, in a voice that’s barely audible.
Her eyes are still shut and my hand is on her cheek without me even knowing that I put it there. My thumb traces the outline of her pouty mouth, and I can feel the quickening of her pulse where my palm rests on her neck.
“Maybe we can,” I whisper.
In this moment, all I know in the world is that her hands are gripping the fabric of my sweatshirt, and despite the doubt in her words, she’s pulling me closer.
“You don’t know how bad I am for you.” The words rush out of her mouth and her eyes peer open just a fraction . . . and my heart swells.
There’s pain there, a deep pain shredded through the dark green and the flakes of brown. Her pain is visible to me for the first time, and I can feel the weight of it in her hooded gaze. Something shifts and locks into place inside of me and I don’t have the words to explain it. I want to heal her. I want her to know that everything will be okay.
I want her to know that pain is only permanent if we allow it to be.
I don’t know the origin of hers, but I’m certain that I would do anything to take it away from her. My shoulders can bear the weight of her pain. They are strong, built for supporting, and I need to her know that.
I feel fiercely protective of her now, as if she’s been mine to guard for my entire existence.
“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” Nora warns, and I quiet her with my thumb against her lips. She parts them under my touch and exhales a quiet sigh.
“I don’t care,” I say, and mean it.
Her eyes close again and she pulls me closer, closer, until our bodies are pressed together, molded like they’re supposed to be, like they were made to be.
I lean down and lick my lips and she whimpers as if she’s been waiting an eternity for my lips to find hers, and it does feel that way. I feel a powerful sense of relief, like I’ve found a part of me that I didn’t know was missing.
I rest my hand on her cheek and there’s barely an inch between our mouths. She’s breathing so softly, as if I’m the fragile one, and she’s being careful not to break me.
Her lips taste like sugar and she’s my favorite dessert.
I’m gentle with her, gently pressing my lips against the corners of her mouth, and she makes a noise in the back of her throat that makes my head swim. I feel dizzy when her mouth opens and her tongue gently meets mine.
It’s the best kind of disoriented and I never want to think straight again. The hand of mine that’s not on her cheek moves to her back and I press her soft body against mine until there’s not a single inch between us.
Through her soft lips, she whispers my name, and I’ve never felt this type of rush before. She pulls away for a moment and I feel lost, like I’m swimming out in the middle of no
where, and when her mouth finds mine again, she’s found me and anchored me to her.
A vibration buzzes against the counter and the music I had forgotten was even playing fades out.
It’s like I’ve lost the last few minutes of my life, but I never, ever want them back. I want to stay here, lost with her.
But reality has other plans and Nora pulls away, taking the silence in my mind with her.
She grabs her phone from the counter and looks at it quickly as she swipes her finger across the green circle. I lean against the counter to steady myself and she apologizes and steps into the hallway.
A few seconds of silence pass and I can hear her talking but I can’t make out any of the words. Her voice gets louder and I force myself not to move closer to eavesdrop on her conversation.
“I have to go,” she says when she comes back into the room. “But I’ll be back in the morning to help you decorate the cake. I’ll wrap it up so it won’t get stale.”
She moves across my kitchen and I notice the change in her demeanor. Her shoulders are slouched, and every time I try to catch her eyes, she avoids mine.
A thrumming rises in my chest.
“Is everything okay? Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask. I decide in this moment that there are only a few things in this world that I wouldn’t do for her.
I know I’m insane and that I barely know her. I’m aware that it’s hard to protect someone that won’t allow you to. I’m also aware that I have a messy on-and-off relationship with someone else, but there’s nothing I can do to go back now. I can’t make the last few minutes disappear—and even if I could, I never would.
“Everything is fine. I just have to go back to Lookout, my boss needs me,” she says with a weak smile I can see right through.
I stand in silence as she layers Saran Wrap around the cake pan and grabs her shirt from the back of the chair. She tucks her tie into the back pocket of her black pants and walks to the entry of the kitchen.
Her eyes still won’t meet mine and it makes my stomach hurt. “Don’t worry about those dishes, I’ll get them in the morning.”
I nod, not knowing what else to say. The bliss from our kiss is evaporating faster than I can blink, and the endless questions I have for her are filling my head.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and I truly feel like she means it. At least there’s that.
She disappears through the doorway and I stand still for a few minutes, recollecting every moment we just shared. From the sweet taste of her sugary kiss to the desperation in her fingers as she clutched the fabric of my sweatshirt.
The apartment is so silent, unlike my mind, and I turn on the faucet and open the door to the dishwasher. I toss out the uneaten broccoli and put the olive oil back into the cabinet. By the time Tessa gets home, I’m still sitting in the kitchen, at the table. The dishes are clean and put away, and there’s no trace of powdered sugar anywhere to be found.
She unties her apron and lays it on the back of the chair. “Hey, what are you doing up?”
I look at the time on the stove. It’s nearly one in the morning.
“I don’t know,” I lie.
She’s having a hard enough time lately, I don’t want to burden her with my problems, especially when I don’t even understand them.
Tessa looks at me and I can see the speculation in her eyes. She glances around the room and spots the cake on the counter.
“Where’s Nora?” she asks.
My throat is dry as I explain. “She came by for a little bit, then she got called back to work.”
“Back to work? By who? I just left there and Robert and I were the last people there.”
I should be surprised by this, but I’m not.
I wave an unconcerned hand. “I must have heard her wrong. How was work?”
I change the subject, and Tessa lets me.
chapter
Twenty-eight
THE MORNING CAME faster than I expected.
When I wake up, I lie in bed for a while, just staring at my ceiling fan. I wonder who lived here before me, and why they decided to paint the fan mismatching colors. Every blade is a different color. Blue, then green, then purple, then yellow, and lastly, red. I wonder if it was a child’s room. If not, the inhabitants must have had quite the quirky side.
I don’t know what time it is when I finally push myself to get out of bed. All I know is that I’m exhausted, like I’ve been through a war in the night. When I grab my phone to check the time, it’s dead. I plug it into the charger and make my way to the living room.
The living room is dark and the television is on. Tessa’s sleeping on the couch and an episode of Cupcake Wars is playing on the screen, the volume low. I grab the remote from where it lies on her stomach and turn off the TV. She’s still wearing her work uniform. She must have been drained by the time she got home. I could tell by the way her eyes were closing while she ate the plate of food she brought from work last night. We sat at the table for less than thirty minutes and she gave me a play-by-play of her night.
A group of professors from NYU came in, twenty minutes before closing, and sat in her section. It had to have bothered her a little, even though she didn’t say, that they were from NYU, since the university hasn’t accepted her yet. I’m sure they will, just not for this semester. She doesn’t want Ken to use his position at WCU to try to help her, but I believe he’s going to if they don’t take her for the winter semester. It would be pretty cool to have her on campus with me, even though we have different majors. During our sophomore year, a few of our classes will overlap since I’m going for early childhood education and she’s going for English.
I walk into the kitchen to check the time. It’s only eight. It’s sort of weird that the stove is our only clock in the entire apartment. We rely on our phones to tell us the time; I wonder how the clock business is handling that.
It would be so strange to live in a time when you have to walk into a building or the town square to check the clock. And what if it was wrong—you wouldn’t even know. If Hardin lived back then, I could see him having the wrong time on all his clocks just to mess with people.
I really need to tell Tessa that Hardin’s coming next weekend. I’ll tell her when she wakes up.
I will.
Really this time.
The kitchen is quiet; only the soft buzzing from the fridge is audible. The undecorated cake is still sitting on the counter, covered in Saran Wrap.
I wonder if Nora’s going to come back, or if whatever took her away last night will keep her today.
I look in the fridge for something to eat before I start getting ready for work.
Fuck!
Work.
I was supposed to be there at six today to cover Posey’s shift.
I rush to my room to grab my phone to call my boss. My foot catches on something hard and I stumble over it, and try to balance on one foot. Of course that doesn’t work, and my toes smash into the leg of my desk.
Dammit, it hurts.
I grab my foot and finally reach my phone. Of course it’s still dead.
Double dammit.
I’ll have to use Tessa’s phone to call work.
I toss my phone at the bed and bounce on one foot out to the living room, my toe still throbbing. When I reach Tessa’s sleeping body on the couch, I scan her and the furniture. Her cell has to be around here somewhere.
Why didn’t I listen to my mom about getting a landline?
You never know what could happen, Landon.
The cell service could stop working.
You may lose that cell phone and have to use the landline to call and find it.
The aliens could invade Brooklyn and steal all technology to further their plan of taking over Earth for their evil doings.
Okay, so I made the last one up when I teased her about her concern.
However, this is one of the many times in my life when I’ve come to realize that my mother usually knows what the heck
she’s talking about. Most twenty-year-olds would never admit it, but I’m smart enough to know that I’m lucky to have a parent like her.
I spot Tessa’s phone wedged between the back of the couch and her hip. I slowly reach for it and hold my breath, trying not to wake her. Just as my fingertips reach the phone and I grab hold of it, Tessa’s body jerks and her eyes dart open.
I pull back and give her time to understand that it’s only me, and she’s asleep on the couch in her own living room.
“Are you okay?” Tessa groans. Her voice sounds like she’s still asleep.
“Yeah, sorry. My phone is dead and I’m late for work.”
She nods and reaches her phone out to me.
I take it and go to dial the number, but I’m asked for the passcode.
Tessa starts naming numbers and I type them in quickly.
“Zero, two, zero, one,” she says, and closes her eyes. She rolls on her side and lifts her knees up toward her chest.
“Thanks.”
I grab the blanket from the back of the couch and drape it over her. She thanks me with a smile and I unlock her phone. Her phone feels weird in my hand; it’s so small compared to mine.
She teases me for the size of mine, calling it an iPad, and I tease her for always breaking or losing hers. I bring up the one she dropped in the toilet, the one that “went missing” in an Uber, the one that she threw at a spider on the rooftop of our building. The only one left, the one I don’t mention, was her first phone.
That’s the one whose screen she busted purposely and stomped it under her feet at least twenty times. I came home from work to find her smashing it. She swore she was never going to use an iPhone again, and I had my suspicions that it had nothing to do with the technology. Rather it’s the same reason she only drinks cold coffee now. The same reason she can barely listen to her favorite band anymore.
She quickly gave up on her promise after using another phone for a week. She lost all of her music, all of the information she had saved. All of her auto-login websites, her saved credit cards. She cursed Apple all the way to the store, saying that they are taking over the world, and it pissed her off that they have such good products because they leave consumers no other choice but to use them. Quite the paradox.