“Coffee makes me nervous,” I confessed.
“Yeah? Are you nervous around me?”
“Only because I think this is our last visit,” I answered. “Honestly, I just can’t tell if you really want to see me or if you’re avoiding me.”
“Both,” Kai answered. So matter-of-fact it was almost jarring.
“Okay,” I said. “Both.”
“If you think I’m never thinking about you, you’re wrong. Your name’s been like an extra beat in my heart since I saw you. But the thing is, it’s complicated. I’ve got a lot going on. Too much. My aunt isn’t big on me getting serious with a girl, and my aunt’s got a major vote in my life. I’m dealing with school, the restaurant, my kid brother. There’s no room for me to screw up or screw around.”
“Sure. I get it. Absolutely.” I didn’t at all. Was I part of “screw up” or “screw around”? “Actually, no, I don’t get it,” I added in a next breath of openness. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Me either,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to deny it. We connected. I feel like we want the same things, in a way. Like, I’ve got this theory about people—that there are people who stay and people who go. And you’re like me. You want out.” I could feel Kai watching me. “Because you’re not in life to obey it, to stay stuck in a system and a rule book and a set of expectations that were predetermined practically before you were born. You’re looking for more, right? So am I.”
It was so true that it was jarring. I thought of my parents, sweetly prodding me to be their perfect ballerina. Picking out all the ruffles and flowers of my clothes closet. Nudging me, even, toward Holden—the perfect boyfriend. “Yeah, I’m going,” I admitted. “I’m not sure where yet, but I’m facing in a new direction, and I’ll get there. Eventually.”
When I glanced at him, Kai’s eyes seemed to glitter like mica in the shadows. When he slipped the flask back into his waiter’s apron pocket, we were close enough that our shoulders touched, and it seemed perfectly natural for my hand to drift to his forearm.
“So, now that we got that outta the way.” He laughed. “The real issue is that we’re a coupla goofballs who can’t stop thinking about each other.”
From that, it took nothing to touch my lips to Kai’s neck, allowing myself to taste his skin, the recipe of him. He turned to face me full-on, tipped up my chin and kissed my mouth. I kissed him back. More than a kiss. I felt drowsy and reckless, but what could I do? He transfixed me; he’d been stalking every corner of my mind since the moment I met him.
“I missed you,” I confessed. “And when I saw you the other night at Areacode, I just knew—”
“Ever since the first night,” he interrupted, his words cartwheeling over mine, “I’ve been writing about you.”
“Seriously?”
“And sketching you, imagining you. Inventing you, sometimes even making you up as I went along. There’s so much I don’t know about you that I need to learn.”
It was a strange moment for Holden to flash across my mind. And not Holden, the guy who was overly endorsed by my mother and father, but Holden, who knew everything about me. All of the friends and memories that Holden and I had in common, bumping in and out of each other’s paths since grade school, when I knew him first as Rachel’s cousin. Holden was a “stayer”—he’d never have the desire to leave New York. Even his college life was a stone’s throw from home. But there was also something wonderful about Holden’s being so known to me, familiar as a fingerprint. Whereas I knew Kai was tricky, like a fish swimming upstream, flashing in and out of my life.
“Don’t lose me again, Kai. Please?”
In answer, he kissed me. Maybe it was because it was so dark, but I was immediately lost in him, in his touch and the scent of him, all mixed up with the onion-bread garlic smell of the restaurant. Kai immersed me completely. Anesthetized me. Nothing else mattered more than this moment.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s do something,” I whispered. “Something planned. Something just us two.”
“Sure.” He nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“I’m up for anything.”
“Anything? Cost and time being no object?” Kai had shifted to a casual tone—did that mean he wasn’t serious about this? “Maybe we could go out to Burning Man, in the Black Rock Desert. It’s supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Or we jump on a plane to England, hit the Glastonbury music festival. I’ve always wanted to check that out. And Barcelona, and Florence. But I guess first I’ll need to get a passport.”
“Okay, okay, very funny; I know you’re joking,” I said. “But I’m serious.”
“And there’s always ice fishing in the tundra,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Which is about the same temperature as in here. Damn. Makes me sleepy.” He turned from me to cover a yawn, and I could see his silhouette, the delicate notch of his neck and the joint where his jaw met his ear. He’d presented these destinations as jokes, but I had a feeling that his mind had lingered over each and every one of them. He was frustrated with it—the lack of money and time. He wanted so much.
“Let’s go everywhere,” I said. “I’m on for all of it. Nothing you’ve said sounds completely out of reach to me.”
“I really do need to start hanging out with you.”
“Exactly.” I was perfect for him. He’d never find a better fit. I could dream any dream with him.
But my mind was also shutting down a bit, too. The dark freeze of this industrial-chrome storage room had cast a sleep spell.
“But for now, I wouldn’t mind starting small.” My voice was hardly a whisper into silence. “I’m more of a burger-and-a-movie girl. A walk-in-the-park girl. We don’t have to go anywhere.”
When Kai spoke, his tone was clipped. “Look, Ember. It sounds awesome now, but girls don’t stick to me. I’ve hardly got anything to offer. No time, no money, nothing.”
“So you’ve said. So what? I’ll do anything, even if it’s nothing. I just want to see you. I don’t care what we do—it makes no difference to me.” I couldn’t remember any other time when I’d been so serious, or so truthful. I also knew that I was on a tightrope, and that the breath of Kai’s rejection might blow me right over.