“Okay.” I follow him to the door, realizing that he just shared this really intimate thing with me, and I freaked out. He’s standing in my room, my wish in solid form. “Graham,” I say gently. He turns, and I lay my hands on his chest, feel his heart hammering the same accelerated rhythm as my own. His dark eyes are sad, staring down at me.
My hand shaking, I reach up and push my fingers through the hair at his temple, pulling his head down. I kiss him, softly, carefully, and for a moment, he doesn’t react at all, and I’m sure that I’ve read everything wrong… And then his mouth crushes into mine as his arms go all the way around me, pulling me to my toes.
I thought I’d idealized kissing him, but his lips against mine now make that first kiss a distant echo. His hands skim up my sides and lace through my hair, turning me until my back is pressed against the wall and his body is pressing into mine, his heartbeat pounding under my hand. Pulling him against me, my arms draw him closer still, fingers kneading the hard muscles of his back, up and over his shoulders, down his arms and back again. When we break for air we’re gasping, our chests rising and falling in unison as he leans into me and I arch into him, every physical indicator declaring I want you, I want you, I want you.
When he pushes away, I’m confused. When I start to follow, blinking, he holds up a hand to stop me. “Emma, I can’t. This isn’t—I can’t.”
He turns and yanks the door open. Three seconds and he’s gone. Lying back on the bed, I review every detail of what just happened, over and over, but it doesn’t get any clearer. I almost call Emily, but don’t. It’s a rare night that she and Derek both have off, and I don’t want to interrupt them with my problems. This is a riddle I need to figure out by myself. When Dad comes back later, clicking the television off and whispering my name as he pulls the comforter over me, I pretend to be asleep.
My puzzle is missing pieces. Not as many as it was missing earlier today, before we ran into Graham and Cara. But I know about her now; she’s one less secret between us. What made him pull away? There must be someone else. Brooke? They were obviously still close last month. By his earlier admission, she’s one of the few people who know about Cara. She could be the reason he withdrew after he kissed me in Austin, and again tonight.
The light-blocking draperies cloak the room in darkness, but I’ve been half-reclining against the cushioned headboard and wide awake for two hours. My adjusted eyes distinguish the outlines of each piece of furniture, the mirror across the room, the shape of my shadowy reflection in it. I raise my hand and wave, and the ghostly mirror image waves back.
The drapes can’t block the sounds of the city below. Unlike my periodic nights of insomnia in Sacramento, I’m not awake and alone here, in the city that never sleeps; I’m one of millions, like I already belong.
Dad snores softly in the other bed. I click the button on the side of my phone, the screen lighting up. 2:18 a.m. We’re flying home in ten hours. I pull up Graham’s number, click send message. The cursor blinks, waiting for me to type the message, and I sit there in the glow of the tiny screen. After thirty seconds, the display turns off. What do you say when the feelings don’t fit into words? Finally, I type the message and hit send:
Me: I’m leaving today. I want to see you. I’ll be in the lounge downstairs at 6 am.
There’s no answer, and I feel discouraged and a little bit pathetic as the minutes tick by. As my eyes grow heavy, my grip on the phone loosens and I snuggle down under the covers, my phone under my pillow, the alarm set to 5:30 a.m.
Unsurprisingly, there are few people in the lounge this early on a Saturday. I request a booth in the back and wait, somehow sure he’ll show, despite the fact that he never answered my text. Minutes later, he arrives, his hair falling over his forehead, still damp from a shower, a days’ growth on his face and wearing jeans, boots I might see on a guy working the construction site down the street, and a faded t-shirt featuring another band I recognize from Emily raving about them.
He slides in across from me, his hands clenched on the table top. His gaze is direct, unlike yesterday—when his eyes seemed to land anywhere rather than connect with mine.
A waitress steps up when he sits, and he orders coffee. At my nod he says, “Two, please.” He sighs, fingers splayed on the table. “Look. I’m sorry I never told you about Cara. I thought about telling you a hundred times, and the longer I didn’t, the harder it got to bring it up. I meant what I said about not really telling people about her. I’ve led two lives for so long that it’s habit, and until now I’ve escaped combining them.”
The waitress arrives with the coffee and he falls silent until she moves away.
“I’m sorry for freaking out on you like that last night…” he says.
“I freaked out first.” I stir a packet of sugar into my coffee as he pours cream into his.
“You had reason, I think.” He grimaces into his coffee cup. “Cara is the most important thing in my life, a defining part of me. It was unfair of me, not telling you. When I took on the father gig, I didn’t consider how it would affect future relationships. For years now, I’ve kept my family on one side, and… almost everyone else on the other.”
“That sounds hard.”
“Yeah…” He breathes out a sigh, rolling my empty sugar packet into a ball. “It is.”
I breathe in, breathe out, clenching and unclenching my hands under the table. “Graham. I’ll be living here in four months. Maybe we can meet up for a run now and then. Or take Cara to the park, or whatever. I could babysit, if, you know, your family’s busy and you want to go out. I’d love to get to know her. Because… you mean a lot to me. And I’ve missed you.” Staring at the table top, I run my fingers over tiny grooves in the glossy surface. “I miss our friendship.”
“So you want to be friends?” he asks, and I look up at him. His hands are still, his expression serious. “Friends, and that’s all?”
The kiss last night. “There’s no reason we can’t be friends. I was out of line last night. I understand how you feel about Brooke—”
“Wait. What about Brooke?” he interrupts.
I swallow, my throat tight. “Um. Your relationship with her.”
“My relationship with—? Emma, Brooke is my friend. I know everything that happened with her… and him. She knows about Cara. We bonded years ago over parts of our lives that no one else we knew could relate to. She’s a close friend. But a friend is all she’s ever been, and all she’ll ever be.”
“So you aren’t in love?”
He looks at me for a long moment. “I didn’t say that. I said I don’t love Brooke.”
“Okay...” There must be someone here in NYC. Someone else he’s never told me about. This is like being bitten by dozens of mosquitoes. Like a scratchy tag on the inside back of a shirt. Like bamboo shoots pushed under your fingernails.
Not that I know about that last one.
“Are you… over Reid?” he asks then. “That night at the club, you were so upset.”
Reid? I close my eyes and attempt to refocus. “No. I mean, yes, I’m over him, but… that night, I was mostly messed up over a terrible fight I’d had with Emily a week or so before.” I open my eyes, stare into his. Talking to him is so easy, even now. “We’ve been best friends since we were five, but we’ve never said things to each other like that. We weren’t speaking, and after everything happened with Brooke and Reid, I needed her. I wanted to call her, and I couldn’t. I was afraid I’d screwed up so bad that I’d lost her forever.”
He considers this. “So the whole week before that—the ‘allergies’?”
I knew he'd seen through that ruse. He must have thought I was upset over Reid. “Yeah. That was about Emily, too.”
He scoots out of his booth and into mine, effectively blocking the two of us from view. His hand falls warm on my arm and it’s not fair that he has no idea what he’s doing to me. His dark eyes draw me in. Friendship with Graham is not going to work. Not when he’s this close.
I fight to keep my voice light and level. “The girl you love—is she someone I know?”
His expression is full of wonder. “Emma, you’re the most imperceptive person ever, right behind me. Maybe both of us need straightforward facts. No ambiguity. Everything clear.”
I nod. “Clear is good.”
He traces one finger down the side of my face. “How’s this for clear,” his voice is low and hollow as his fingertips brush over my lips. “I haven’t wanted anyone but you since the night we met. And as much as I value our friendship… being friends with you is not what I have in mind.” Cupping my chin in his hand, he kisses me softly, the tip of his tongue skimming my lips, and when I open and kiss him back, it turns deep and possessive and full of promise and I forget where we are and I feel it to my toes and back.
“Huh,” I say, my thoughts swirling as he smiles and rests his forehead against mine, staring into my eyes like he’s trying to read what I’m thinking right through them.
“You know, I think I’d prefer you keep that particular habit after all,” he says, before he kisses me again.
