Page 35 of It's a Love Story

Through all of it, I clock the nearness of Dan. When I laugh, he leans in, not away. When he leans back in his chair, he places a hand on the back of mine. I try on the feeling, just for a second, of what it would be like to belong to him.

*

I AM STUFFEDwith softshell crabs and ice-cold beer when I wander inside to find the bathroom. There’s a line, so I check my phone and see that I have just missed a call from Clem. I would rather wet my pants than miss this chance to talk to her between shifts, so I walk out onto the street.

“Hot?” she asks before I’ve even said hello. “Dan, who you hate, is hot at home?”

“I have a feeling he’s hot everywhere,” I whisper into the phone. “But maybe I just notice it more when he’s not also dashing my dreams.”

“What’s the family like? Are you in a big mansion on the water? Like inRevenge?”

“Small house on a potato field,” I whisper. “I love it. And we’re sharing a room and he takes his shirt off and it’s just like nothing I’ve seen before. I want to lick him? Is that a thing people do?”

Clem is laughing so hard that I need to pull the phone away from my ear. “People, yes. You, no.”

“That’s what I thought. Maybe deep down I’m people.”

“Yeah, Jane, I think you are.” We’re quiet for a beat.

“His parents are married,” I say. “Forty years, and they all fight, but it’s fine. I honestly feel like I’ve stepped into an alternate reality.”

“You have my permission to lick him all you want,” she says.

CHAPTER 16

DO YOU NEED TO GO BE ALONE AND DO SOMEEDWARDScissorhands stuff?” I ask when we’re lying in our twin beds. The lights are off, but there’s a little bit of moonlight coming from the window between us. We’re both lying on our backs, covers pulled to our shoulders.

“No, this is fine.”

“I’m not used to sleeping with another person in the room,” I say after a while.

“Am I breathing too loud?” he asks.

“Definitely.”

“I’ll try to hold my breath,” he says.

“Ha,” I say. It’s the world’s dumbest syllable.

He’s quiet for a while and then, “We missedDateline.It’s on at eight and ten, but it’s eleven thirty.”

I turn toward him. “I loveDateline.”

He laughs. “So that’s going to be what we agree on.DatelineandTrue Story,”

“I find it totally relaxing.”

“Same,” he says. “Why is that?”

“It’s because the bad thing has already happened, sometimes like ten years ago. So you can just relax and watch the pursuit of justice.”Datelineis basically the opposite of dating, where I walk through it waiting for the blowup.

“True,” he says. “And I like how they try to trick us into thinking the murderer didn’t do it by dressing him in a nice polo shirt for his interview.”

“Well, the orange jumpsuit is a dead giveaway.”

He turns on his side and the moonlight illuminates his cheekbone. Part of me feels like I’ve been caught staring, but I don’t blink. We’re lying here little more than a foot apart, but the darkness provides some protection, as if we are half hidden in it.

“Tell me about the frame,” I say.

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