I swallow hard, but not hard enough to drown out the rapid beating of my heart. It must be loud enough that he can hear it, too; animated enough that he can see my actual heart protruding, back and forth, back and forth, through my heather-gray shirt.
We should have heard the footsteps pounding up the stairs outside the apartment, or the commotion on the landing, or the jiggling of the key in the door. But Pierre moved closer to me. Close enough that I could make out the individual coils of his hair, pick up the clean scent of soap on his skin.
So when Audrey explodes into the apartment with a wall-shaking “Oh my God, you’re still here?” We’re startled, to say the least. When I see my father standing behind her, my surprise turns into supreme mortification. We weren’t doing anything, but it’s obvious we were about to start doing something.
“Well, at least now I know why you weren’t answering my texts,” Audrey says, a smile breaking out on her face once she realizes everyone is accounted for.
“We, um…” But I don’t know how to finish. I almost kissed Pierre, and everyone in this room can tell. My face is flaming.
Pierre stands, holding out a hand to help me up from the floor. “Gillian got sick,” he explains, and I don’t know how his voice is so controlled. “We didn’t want to leave her, and I guess we forgot to call.”
Audrey goes back to check on Gillian. I could kill her for leaving us alone with my father. I smile weakly in his direction. “Sorry for making you worry, Dad.”
“You can’t just disappear like that and not let anyone know your plans, Rashida.” He shakes his head. “What if you weren’t here? What then?”
His voice rises as he keeps talking, but I don’t want him to calm down. I’ve upset my father, but he’s thinking about me. He was worried about me, and I didn’t know I’d ever see such concern from him again. Even if this isn’t how I wanted it to manifest.
“I’ll be more thoughtful next time,” I promise. “I forgot to check my phone and … well, I didn’t think anyone would miss me.”
“How could you possibly think that?” He walks closer to me. Near enough that I can see the genuine worry in his eyes and how quickly it would have turned into despair if I hadn’t been here. “Rashida, you … I always miss you when you’re gone, honey. Always.”
And the earnest tone in his voice makes me think about the way he still peeks into my room each night before he goes to bed, even if we’ve already said good night. Or how he seemed more upset than me when I let knee-high weeds take over the garden, how each year he asks if I want to get seed packets from the nursery and start over. And I remember how, the day I met Bev, she told me that one of her first sets of instructions after she started at the school was to always put my calls through to him, no matter what.
My father’s love isn’t effusive; that was Mom’s area. She loved big and full and in color, and that translated to her art and our garden and, most of all, to my father and me. But he’s always been here. In his own way, but he’s been here.
Dad smiles behind his beard before he turns toward Pierre and says, “Who’s this?”
“I’m Pierre, sir.” He steps forward to give my father a strong handshake. “Gillian’s brother. I’m sorry we didn’t check in, but I want you to know Rashida is safe with me.”
Dad doesn’t look so reassured, but he lifts his hand to meet Pierre’s. Audrey comes back from the bedroom and announces Gillian is still “out like a light.”
“Do you all want a ride back to the party?” My father rubs a hand over the back of his head as he inches toward the door. He is clearly over this whole situation.
And that’s when I finally notice Bev isn’t standing nervously by his side. I can’t believe he’d leave her at the party where she knew no one and seemed so anxious about it. Maybe my father told her this was a family thing, that it was better if she stayed behind. Or maybe she suggested that herself. But either way, it isn’t lost on me that my well-being was considered more important than her comfort.
Audrey yawns and scratches the side of her nose. “I should go back to say good-bye to some people, but I can’t leave Gillian here…”
“We could stay,” I say, not looking at my father or Pierre. But really, really wanting Dad to agree, because despite everything that’s happened in the last five minutes, I haven’t forgotten what almost happened between Pierre and me. And I want to get back to that moment. I want it to not have been ruined forever.
Audrey shrugs. “Why not? I’ll be home soon, Uncle, and I’ll make sure Rashida gets home okay.”
My father doesn’t like this. I can tell by the way he strokes his beard. But he agrees to it.
Maybe it’s because I’m seventeen now. Or maybe it’s because he realizes that, in the last year or so, he no longer has the ability to make decisions for me. Or maybe he sees that Pierre might be someone who can make me happy.
I hug Dad and Audrey before they leave, with much less fanfare than when they arrived. Audrey looks over her shoulder before she exits and mouths, “You’d better tell me everything” in such an exaggerated fashion that she might as well have shouted it.
I blush, the door closes, and Pierre looks at me.
I smile, though I feel just as timid now that we’re alone again. “Well, that was…”
“Awkward?” he finishes.
“For starters.”
The cacophony of snores starts up again from the bedroom, which makes us both laugh. Pierre points to the sliding glass door off the kitchen. “Does that open?”
“Yeah, there’s a balcony,” I say, and when I walk over, I’m surprised to see the small plastic table and two chairs are still sitting on the wooden planks.
“And we’ve been cooped up in here the whole night? Come on.” He slips his hand around mine to lead me out outside, and that feeling from earlier, when I briefly touched his arm—this is one thousand times better. His hand is warm and soft and dry, and he doesn’t let go, even after we’re standing on the balcony.
The string of twinkle lights that was intertwined around the railing is gone, sacrificed to my aunt and uncle’s deck, but the moonlight shines softly through the slats, creating a similar effect. The balcony looks out over the alley, so the view of overstuffed Dumpsters and pitted asphalt isn’t impressive, but it is private. And it’s peaceful out here, made even more so by the piano music playing in a building across the way. It’s not nearly as polished as what we listened to in Gillian’s car, but the tune is classical and pretty and perfect for this evening.
Pierre takes the seat farthest from the door, brushing it off before sinking down. I start to take the other chair, but he tugs lightly on my arm and pulls me down so I’m sitting in his lap.
“Is this okay?” he says, as I turn to face him.
“Yes.” Then I gently press my pinkie into his chin dimple. “Is this okay?”
“Not really.” But he says it with a smile, and he is still smiling as he outlines my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb.
I shiver, torn between wanting that particular tingle to last forever and wanting so much more. Our heads move toward each other at the same time. Slowly, but with purpose. And when we finally kiss, it is everything. Pierre’s hands slipping around my waist and then dipping a little lower, his fingers grazing the small of my back. His mouth, tender and sweet on mine, but full of an energy that convinces me he wants this as much as I do. We pull back for a moment, but only so he can remove his glasses.
“Wait,” I say, because I want to see what he looks like without them.
He blinks at me, and I’m relieved to see he’s still the same Pierre. The same Pierre who loves Shakespeare and hates deep-dish pizza and who understands what it means to lose the person you always expected to be there—and how to love the ones who do their best to make that absence less painful.