“Oh, so you’re bringing your clout with us tonight, I see.”
“Might as well. I’m wearing jeans–”
“Really?” he asks, stopping us both when we hit the second floor. A long hallway spans before us.
“Yes. I didn’t want to bring that many outfits. Plus, I’ve got to convince Abram to stop wearing those stuffy, ill-fitting suits. He looks like such a dork.”
“Why do you care what he looks like?”
“I guess I don’t,” I tell Jon as he takes my hand and ambles slowly down the hall. “But he should just dress... better... I don’t know.”
“Do you say stuff like that about me behind my back?”
“Nope,” I tell him honestly. “I love how you dress, and I’ll love it even more when you’ll feel comfortable walking around in your sexy undershirt, showing the world your tattoo.”
“I have the perfect backwards cap for that,” he jokes with me.
“And we’ll do this,” I suggest, tugging on his loose-fitting jeans and exposing the waistline of his boxers. “Hey, I like those,” I tell him as I trace the garment slowly from one side of his back to the other, feeling the soft cotton.
“Good. I bought them for your benefit.” He pulls his pants back up to his waist.
“You don’t need to spend your money on that kind of stuff. I’d be happy to pay for things only I’m going to see,” I offer.
“How would you get away with buying men’s underwear, anyway?”
“I don’t have to give my dad itemized receipts or anything... he just looks at the statements and tells me if I’m spending too much.”
“And what’s too much?”
“I don’t know. Apparently I haven’t reached that amount yet,” I shrug.
“So you don’t really have any hand in managing your money?” I glare at him in response to this topic. He knows I hate talking about my money handling opportunities, so he just smiles, nods and drops it–but it’s obvious he’s saving it for another time.
I’m sure it’s something I should worry about someday.
Jon knocks on his dorm room door before he enters. I follow him cautiously, seeing the huge mess on the left side of the room. Sheets are strewn about on bunk beds and a pile of clothes lingers in a corner.
“Jon, this is–”
“Before you say anything, that’s where Hollis and Shu sleep.” I step further inside and finally see the right side. Both beds are neatly made, bookshelves are full and perfectly organized. This looks more like Jon.
“Tiny twin beds,” I comment as a guy emerges from a closet in the corner.
“It’s not so bad,” Jon assures me. “At least we don’t have the bunks. And Olivia, this is Frederick.”
“Hi.”
“Livvy Holland,” he says with a kind smile, offering me his hand to shake. “I bet this is different from what you’re used to.” He gestures around the room, but mainly to the messy side.
“My little brother would fit in fine,” I assure him. I don’t bother to tell them that my room has looked like this on more than one occasion. Jon sits down on his bed, waving me over. He puts his arm around my waist and kisses my cheek. I’m blushing when I look up at his roommate, but he’s moved to his desk, and now has his back to us.
“You’re considering Columbia?” he asks, still looking away.
“Oh, um, yes,” I tell him, feeling Jon’s lips around my earlobe. “I’ve been accepted already.” I nudge him away, in case Frederick catches us.
“What would you study?”
“Art,” I answer quickly, looking up at Jon with a reproving glance. He grins and kisses me.
“Art,” Jon confirms as he pulls away, still keeping his eyes trained on mine, “and me, right?”
“You wish,” I say to him playfully. “You’re definitely a big draw to this campus. I don’t like being away from you,” I whine. Seeing him one night this whole week, and then for only about fifteen minutes, wasn’t enough.
“Not all weeks will be like this, baby,” he assures me. “I just wanted to get settled in, find a routine, find all of my classes... you know?”
“I know. I just got spoiled over the summer, I guess.”
“Me, too,” he agrees in a whisper. “But we can start making up for lost time tonight.” I nod, unable to hide my wide grin. “Making up for lost months, in fact.”
“True,” I tell him just before his lips press against mine once more, this time showing his need and hunger. It makes me a little nervous.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” his roommate says.
A few short, sweet kisses linger before Jon addresses Frederick, but he keeps his focus on me for a few seconds longer, even after he stands up off the bed. “Nah, we’re on our way out,” he says, taking my hand in his.
“It was nice to meet you,” I tell Frederick as we begin to leave.
“Don’t forget this!” he yells after us, handing Jon a large, black tube. “After all the trouble you went through...”
“Thanks, man,” Jon says, tucking the tube under his arm.
“What’s that?” I ask him.
“A surprise.” He moves the long container to the other side of his body–away from me–as soon as he sees my hands move toward it. “I’m not sure if you know what the word surprise means. I’m saving this for tonight.”
“Ohhh. It’s nothing... weird, is it?” He lifts his eyebrows, urging me to press him for more information. “Never mind.”
“No,” he laughs, “don’t never mind me. What weird things do you have in mind?”
I jab him in the rib as we walk toward a tall building, signaling to him that I won’t be indulging him in his perverse conversation. “I love this campus,” I tell him. “I definitely want to go here.”
“Why?” he asks plainly.
“It’s a great school,” I tell him. “It’s good enough for you, which means it should be good enough for me.”
“Baby, you could go anywhere. Have you given any more consideration to Yale?”
I bring my finger to my chin in mock thought for three seconds. “Yes. I don’t want to go there.”
“Tell me one good reason why you don’t want to go there.”
“You’re not there.”
“I said good reason.”
“That’s not good enough?”
“Olivia,” he says as he opens the door to the library, “I think you’d get so much more out of the art program at Yale. Don’t you?” The smell of the library reminds me of our time at the Public Library in Midtown. Yes, I want to be here with him.
“There’s a good program here, too. Plus, who knows if I can get back into it–”
“Liv, you will get back into it. You love painting. It’s a part of you.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I tell him with a shrug. “Maybe it’s not.”
“This is just a minor hurdle, Olivia. It will come back, and you’ll get back into your routine, and be better than ever.” His voice has confidence that I don’t feel.
“I’m afraid I can’t do it anymore.”
“You haven’t tried.”
“I try every week!” I tell him, a little louder than I’d intended. A few students look in our direction. Jon shakes his head at me. “I do, too.”
“We’ll be at the loft tonight. Maybe we should try then.”
“Do you hear yourself?” I ask him, looking at him like he’s crazy. “We have been planning this night for weeks, and now you’re suggesting I just go there and paint? I thought you wanted this...”
“I do, baby, but I want to help you find your way back there, too. You’re happier when you paint.”
“I’ve never been happier than I am now, with you. You can’t see that?” He looks down at me and puts his arms around me, giving me a kiss and tapping my backside with the tube.
“I see that,” he whispers. “But you’re different.”
“Bad different?” I can’t hide the fact that he’s starting to offend me.
r />
“No. Just different different.”
“If you don’t want to do this tonight–”
“Whoa. Stop right there,” he says as he takes my hands and pulls me into an aisle of books. “I never meant to give you the impression that I didn’t want to be with you tonight. I’ve been thinking about this–hell, every day since last June. No, before that! I want you, and I want us to have a good night that’s free from guilt and sadness, okay? I want you to know that I’d do anything for you.”
“I know you would.”
“And I know you’d do anything for me.”
“I would,” I tell him convincingly.
“But I want you to do things for you, too.”
I study his expression carefully, trying to decipher his meaning. Finally, I shake my head at him and ask, “What do you mean?”
“Olivia, do you want to sleep with me tonight? Or are you just doing this because you know I want to?”
“Of course I want to.”
“If you take me out of the equation, would you be wanting to have sex tonight?” I look around, praying that no one can hear us. We appear to be alone. “Is that really something you desire?”
“That’s dumb, Jon,” I tell him. “If I took you out of the equation, no, I wouldn’t be prowling around, looking for someone to sleep with me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you tonight. I do. One hundred percent, I do.”
“If I told you I wanted to just go to the movies tonight, like always–if I wanted this to be a regular date night, where I’m lucky if my hand merely brushes the side of your breast–how would that make you feel?”
“I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do,” I tell him confidently. “I just thought you wanted it.”
He rolls his eyes at me and cocks his head. “You’re not following me.”
“No, I’m not. And I’m sorry, but can we maybe take this conversation outside? I feel like everyone is listening.”
He glances through the shelves of books on both sides of us and shakes his head at me, but takes my hand and leads me back out into the cool autumn day.
“Want to have a seat?” he asks when we reach the courtyard.
“Sure.” I guide him to a patch of grass directly in the sun and sit down, sitting with my legs crossed. After he sets the tube aside, he lies back next to me on his elbows and squints up at the sky.
“What’s this all about?” I ask.
He doesn’t look at me when he answers. “I just feel like fear of rejection or failure or of being a disappointment to someone are the only things that motivate you these days.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I argue without giving it another thought.
“Tell me what you want.” He turns on his side and glances up at me, taking one of my hands in his.
“When. Tonight?”
“It’s a good start.”
“I want you to make love to me.” My voice cracks when I say it.
“Why?” he challenges me. Why? What kind of a question is that?
“Because I love you.”
“You wear my ring because you love me. You devote every Saturday night to me because you love me. You answer my calls every day because you love me. Why do you want me?”
“I don’t... I don’t think I understand.”
“Here’s what I want. I want to trail my fingers down the length of your naked body and feel the excitement they leave in their wake.”
I look around quickly, grateful that he’s not speaking too loudly.
“I want to smell the perfume you wear as I nip at your earlobe and whisper things to you I’m too afraid to say when I’m not inebriated by your very presence.”
I can’t believe he’s saying these things to me right here, in the light of day, as if he’s telling me about his classes or what color shoes he decided to wear today.
“I want to hear you pronounce my name with such desperation, supplicating me for more–deeper, slower–like you can’t get enough of me even though you’re holding me so tightly you leave marks on my skin that take days to disappear and underscore the words forever inscribed on my shoulder blade–”
“I’m sorry–” He stops my interruption with a surprising kiss, his hand supporting my neck as his mouth moves hard and fast against mine. I gasp when he pulls away, and my eyes are enraptured by the fervency of his gaze.
“I’m not sorry,” he whispers, then shakes his head. “I want the taste of you...” He pauses and nods just so, making sure I fully understand what he’s implying. “...on my lips.”
“Jon!” I nearly shriek, taken aback by his brazenness and indelicate suggestion. Oddly enough, though, I’ve never been more attracted to him than I am in this moment. He laughs at my response.
“And I want to make you blush, just like that.” He touches his thumb to the warm skin of my face. “To see the glow of tamarisk in your cheeks when you’re coming down. There’s not a prettier color in nature.”
I can say nothing, do nothing, except stare at him with my mouth agape.
“And do you want to know why I want these things?”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s asked me a question; that he’s waiting for my answer. “Because you want me to be happy?”
“No.” Now both of his thumbs rub my temples as he stares lustfully at me, through me. My pulse is raging, and I can hear it in my ears and feel it coursing beneath my skin. “Because I’m a selfish man, and every one of those things rouses me and makes me want to take you in ways I never have — ways your virtuous mind has probably never even imagined. You engage me and provoke me and you drive me to the brink of insanity, and just when I think I’m gone, you save me, Olivia. A brush of your hand. A kiss. A whisper. I’d never felt so destroyed and yet so completely whole in one single moment until that night in Mykonos. You have nothing to compare it to, and I’m sorry that I do, but damn it. I have perspective I wish you could have.”
I have to speak to cut the unavoidable tension. “There are a lot of cute boys around here—”
He kisses me again, leaning me into the grass. “Don’t even joke about that,” he warns. “I can’t even think of you with another guy... just like there’s no way I could see myself with another woman. I just wish you could know what I know: that there can be no one better suited for me than you. There’s no point in me looking any further, Olivia. I love you. I crave you. I have to have you.”
It’s my turn to kiss him. I can’t help myself, and I don’t even think that was his motive, or his reason for this whole line of conversation. I don’t remember how we got here, to this lawn, to this day, to this subject matter, to this intimate position in the middle of the Columbia campus. I open one of my eyes tentatively, closing it quickly and putting my hand on Jon’s chest to push him away.
“People are looking at us,” I whisper, my forehead pressed against his.
“Cameras?” he asks quietly, taking off his royal blue cap and putting it on my head.
“Not that I saw.” He kisses me sweetly once more as I slowly dig through my purse to find my sunglasses. He places them on me gently and smiles earnestly. He stands, then offers his hand to help me up.
Once I’m upright, he pulls me into a tight hug. I tuck my face into the crook of his neck. “I want to know what I do to you, Liv,” he says softly in my ear. “I want to know what you really want— for yourself, from me. What can I do for you?”
I pull back just to nod.
He continues, now staring intently into my darkened lenses. “I want to know that I affect you the same way you affect me.”
“You do.”
“I want you to tell me what you want. Tonight.”
I can feel my cheeks redden again, bringing obvious pleasure to Jon by the mischievous grin on his face.
I take a deep breath. “I can try.”
“Let’s do what Olivia wants to do... I don’t want to do what you think I want to do. Have a voice, Liv. Tell me.”
/> “I said I’d try.”
He sighs as he picks up my surprise, then looks around, putting his hand around my back to guide me to a walkway between two buildings that have much fewer students. I keep my eyes focused on the ground and my left hand in my pocket. The last thing I need is for Internet rumors of me and Jon to reach my parents and threaten our night together. I was nervous earlier, but Jon’s declarations give me confidence I’d been lacking. Do I think I can repeat such things to him? No... but in the end, it’s not about what I say. Tomorrow morning, he’ll have no doubt of my feelings for him.
Although both of us are excited about tonight, we take our time wandering the college grounds. Jon tells me stories about his first week, and tales that he heard through his campus tour and orientation. He’s passionate about Columbia. To me, it’s just a school, a place where I’ll go to learn next year, but it’s obvious this university is sacred to him. He tells me about his father, who’d received not only his bachelor’s but his master’s degree, too. He was the only person in his family. On his mom’s side, no one had gone to college. He has a lot to live up to, but most of the expectations are his own. He drives himself.
After the tour, we go to the loft to get ready for dinner. We say hello to Timothy, the doorman filling in for Francisco, both of us walking as if we belong in the building even though we don’t. Timothy stutters out a greeting to me, using my full name. He simply calls Jon “sir.” He’s obviously nervous around us.
“Are you going to fix your hair?” he asks me when we get to the apartment with barely enough time to change before we’re supposed to meet with my agent.
“What’s wrong with my hair?”
“It just looks so pretty when it’s down... and curly,” he says with a sweet smile.
“I don’t know if we have time.”
“You tell me he’s consistently late to meetings with you and your father. So what if we make him wait ten more minutes?”
“All right. You’re ready, though?”
“You tell me,” he says, standing in front of me in his crisp shirt and black necktie. He gets his response from the satisfied look on my face, the one that reaffirms my anticipation for tonight, after our dinner. “Go do your hair,” he says, seemingly shooing me into the bathroom. Jon turns on some music while I finish getting ready–not mood music, just one of the few bands we’ve come to agree on and listen to quite often. He appears behind me, just after I’ve secured my bangs with a barrette. He covers my eyes with his hands.