I don’t move from the open door yet. I try really hard not to think bone town! He’s wearing his glasses and an actual sweater-vest and dark denim jeans. And he is just cute. I like him, I think, as he talks enthusiastically about how the movie was shot in twenty-four countries on six continents, gesturing at the screen and squinting to read small text. I like to talk to him. I like to make him laugh. And I want to kiss him again.

I’m feeling myself with my hair down, my lips glossy. I like the curves of my body and the length of my legs. And I want him to notice. He’s leaning forward and frowning at his laptop, telling me he thought he had the movie queued up but it’ll just be a moment, he thinks, he’s almost got it here. He looks up to smile at me, still standing at the door.

I smile back at him, a long slow smile.

He sputters to a stop, his fingers stilling over the keyboard. Eyes locked on mine.

“So. Okay if I close the door?” I say. Very slowly, very deliberately, I step back against it, swinging it shut gently.

He is still staring at me, his lips a little bit parted.

“I—what?” he says. “Oh.”

I shrug out of my cardigan, let it slip slowly off my shoulders, puddle on the floor. This is better than Saturday night, when Jack looks at the sweater and then at me, leaning against the door, feeling lush in my clingy tunic and leggings. He seems arrested, a little dazed, and that sends a rush of fire through me. But then a crackle-pinch of doubt, like a shock of static electricity, blazingly unexpected. But maybe I don’t—maybe he doesn’t—I cut that thought off, swallow. Where did that come from? I reject it. I toss my hair, and he just blinks at me.

“Jack?”

He blinks again and shakes his head just the tiniest bit, a smile crooking the corner of his lip. Looking at me. He sees me.

“Hi,” he says softly.

“Hi,” I say, just as softly.

He’s out of his chair so fast it’s still spinning when he gathers me up against the door, his nose in the curl of hair behind my ear, the relief of it. He sighs my name, a humming, satisfied noise, when I slip my arms around his neck and press back against him close as I can and when I say, my voice breathless, “Kiss me, please,” his mouth is on mine and it’s even better this time, hot and sweet and full of urgency and roaming hands and breath coming hard, and I want more. Yes. I nudge him backward, and he shuffles us to the bed, kissing all the while, and we sink onto the bottom mattress.