“And so I asked Bri what I should do about Wyatt now, since he told me about this other girl he likes, and she had like nothing to say,” Toby said as she paced in front of me in the gallery that was mostly impressionist, except for the unicorn tapestry and the Warhol.
“Hmm,” I said, trying my best to focus on her, but finding that every few seconds, my thoughts were straying back to Clark. His eyes, his lips, his hands . . .
“Andie!” Toby said, waving her hand in front of my face. “Are you even listening to me?”
• • •
“Of course,” Clark said, as I rolled on top on him on the couch. We’d removed the side and back pillows, since they kept getting in the way. We hadn’t yet moved things into his bedroom—I think we were both a little too aware of the implications that might come with that—but we had pretty much turned every couch in his house into a bed equivalent. “Marjorie doesn’t know that Karl has some plans of his own.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, in between kisses, as I slipped my hands under the fabric of Clark’s T-shirt and pulled it over his head. Ever since I’d seen his abs on the beach, I tended to need constant verification that they were still present and accounted for. “And what might those be?”
• • •
“She needs to let it go,” Palmer said as she glanced away from the stage and to me. I was slouched down in the theater seat, my feet propped on the seat back in front of me. I’d mostly come to the community theater for the free air-conditioning between walks, and had found myself pulled into the Toby-Wyatt conundrum. “And Bri agrees with me. He told her how he felt, and now it’s just getting super awkward.”
“Right,” I said, nodding. There was part of me that agreed with Palmer. But most of me was thinking about the fact that I’d get to see Clark in less than two hours, and my pulse was already racing just thinking about it. “Totally.”
“Oh my god.” I looked over to see Palmer shaking her head at me. “Alexandra. You are so far gone.”
• • •
I was beginning to understand what Palmer, and even Bri, had been talking about now. My boundaries, the ones I’d once clung to so fiercely, had long since vanished. Now I was the one moving us forward, while Clark would stop, his eyes searching mine in the darkness, asking me if I was okay. If I was sure. And with every new threshold we crossed, it was getting harder to remember just why I’d clung to all those rules in the first place. When I could think about it clearly—always after the fact, my brain no longer gone fuzzy at the sight of Clark and the feel of his hands on me—I would realize that it wasn’t a coincidence it was happening now. It was Clark. I trusted him, and I knew him, and it made me wonder, every time we stopped, just why we weren’t going forward. And as I started to care very little for anything that wasn’t the two of us, alone in the darkness, it fell to Clark to pick up the slack.
“Your curfew’s in thirty minutes,” Clark said, breaking away from kissing me, his voice breathless, as he squinted at his digital watch, the glow from the tiny screen the only light in the room.
“Such a long time,” I said, running my fingers over his arm, which was propped above me.
“Your dad got super mad last time,” he reminded me, even as his head started to dip down toward mine.
“He got over it.”
“We’ll have to find your bra.”
I waved this away. “Details.”
“And my shirt.”
“You shouldn’t ever wear one of those,” I said, running my hand over the ridges of Clark’s abs. “Why cover this up?”
“Fine,” he said, pushing some buttons on his watch; they made a little beep! sound, like he’d just programmed the world’s tiniest microwave. “Ten more minutes. But then I have to drive you home.”
“Sure,” I said, stretching up to kiss him as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close, my skin against his. “Sounds like a plan.”
• • •
“I think she’s getting over him, don’t you?” Bri asked me from across the diner booth.
I started to nod, then hesitated when I realized I had no idea who she was talking about. “Um, remind me again?”
“Toby,” Bri said in the extra-slow way my friends had taken to speaking to me these days. “Getting over Wyatt?”
“Oh,” I said, reaching to snag one of the mozzarella sticks we were sharing. I knew I hadn’t been totally paying attention recently, but even I knew this didn’t sound right. “I’m not so sure about that.” Bri nodded and looked down at the paper place mat in front of her, like she was studying one of the ads for the local businesses printed on it. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Bri said, taking a mozzarella stick of her own. “I just was hoping that Toby was moving on. It’s not good for her, especially when he told her he wasn’t interested.”
“I think she just needs time,” I said with a shrug.
“Or,” Bri said, sitting up straighter, “I need to fix her up with someone!”
I winced. Bri liked to think she was a great matchmaker, but she was absolutely terrible at it. After we’d all been burned a few too many times, we’d made her swear that she was done with it. “What about the oath you swore that you would never do that again? Remember, the one you took after the mullet guy?”
Bri waved this away and shook her head, looking determined and now much more cheerful. “These are extreme circumstances,” she said. “Trust me. It’s a great idea.”
• • •
“Hold on,” Clark said, sounding half out of breath as he fumbled with one hand behind him, trying to find his bedroom doorknob.
“Holding,” I said, and I leaned down to kiss him, even though I knew I was making the situation worse. We’d been on the couch when I’d decided that I couldn’t stand it any longer—I was getting a crick in my neck, and the fabric of the cushions was scratching my skin. It just seemed crazy that we were putting ourselves through that when there was a perfectly good, unused bed right down the hall.
We hadn’t stopped kissing as we walked, and even though I knew it was probably slowing us down. Clark was half carrying me, my legs wrapped around his waist, as he finally opened the door and stumbled for a few steps inside. I kissed him again, and we stayed that way for a long moment before he set me down and I looked around, taking in his room for the first time since the night of Bertie and the chocolate. It looked the same—the neat stacks of clothing, the carefully made bed. Although I did notice that the books on writer’s block seemed to have vanished from the top of his desk.
I looked at the bed for a long moment, letting my mind go places it probably shouldn’t. As things with us had progressed, our discussions over the last two weeks about taking things to the next level had gone from “if” to “when.” Which was exciting and scary and overwhelming and pretty much all I could think about.
“You okay?” Clark asked, squeezing my hand. I squeezed his back and made myself look away from the bed, making myself remember that this random Tuesday would not be the night. I had to get my head around it a little more first, talk to my friends, and actually do my hair, as opposed to just twisting it into a knot like I’d done tonight. I wanted it to be totally special.
“Hey,” Clark said from behind me as his slid his arms around my waist and kissed that one spot on my shoulder. He pulled me closer against him, and I swore I could feel the beat of his heart against my back. I turned to face him, and he ran his hand over my hair, his fingers trailing down my cheek, stroking along my jawline so gently, like I was something precious. He leaned down to kiss me, and I kissed him back, and then we were kiss-walking across the room, until we fell down onto the bed together, and then there was only his lips and his hands and our breath, falling into a rhythm until I couldn’t think about anything except him, and us, and now.