Page 62 of It's a Love Story

“Never,” I say. I want to take it back, it’s too much too soon, but he smiles like he feels the same way.

More banging on the door. “Okay, I’ll go. Will you sleep?” he asks. He’s arranging my hair behind my shoulder like he’s memorizing me. I run my fingers along his string bracelet.

“I’ll try,” I say.

He gets up out of bed, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him standing and naked. I reach out to touch the side of his leg, all ropy muscles carved out of marble by an overzealous craftsman.

“Okay, assholes, I’m coming. Back away from the door and get me a coffee.” He puts on swim trunks and a sweatshirt and kneels by the bed to kiss me goodbye. “Promise you’ll be here when I get back.”

“Promise,” I say.

I fall asleep imagining them all in the borrowed truck, busting on Dan for our locked door. There is nothing about this week or this morning that I will ever forget. The periwinkle blue of his bathing suit, the seasoning on the kebab. The whipped cream in my coffee and the way he watched me drink it. The watercolors and the slow dance.

*

I WAKE FROMa deep sleep at eight and immediately remember why I’m naked.

It’s Saturday, the day of the music festival, and our last chance to track down Jack. I check my body for nerves and don’t find any. I feel soft toward myself, and I wonder if it even matters if I talk to Jack at all. But it does; I owe a debt of gratitude toTrue Storyfor opening my heart to the waves of feeling that are running through me right now. It’s like I’ve seen through a little wormhole to an alternate universe where this kind of love exists and I could have it. I want my mom to know this too.

I call Clem. “Are you up?”

“It’s five a.m., you’d better be dead,” she says.

“Sorry. I know. You’re never going to believe who had sex.”

“No!”

“Yes!” I let out a little squeal for emphasis.

This is obviously big news, and she must agree because I can hear her sit up in bed. “Okay, please tell me it was Dan and not Jack Quinlan, who you then proposed to after.”

“Dan. And mean.” But I’m smiling. I wonder if I’ll ever stop smiling. “And it wasn’t sex sex, it was like love sex. I can’t even explain it, Clem.”

“Wow. Okay, love sex. This is wow.”

“Like fireworks but also talking and I like him so much I can barely function.”

“See? A man-bun can be a good look on a lot of guys.”

“I made up the man-bun. I was wrong about everything about him and I just had love sex and I’m losing my mind.”

When her screaming subsides and we’ve hung up, I put on my running clothes and find Reenie and Cormack in the kitchen with empty plates and full mugs. They’re sharing the newspaper. The ordinariness of it takes my breath away. Ruby’s in the backyard singing to the potatoes.

“Good morning,” I say.

“Jane,” they say together and put down their papers.

“Sorry about those jackasses this morning,” Cormack says. “I’m glad Danny gave in because that could have gone on for hours.”

“I went right back to sleep,” I say. This would have been fine to say yesterday, when I was sleeping in my own bed in my own pink pajamas, but now I feel like I’ve drawn them a picture of something sordid. While I feel the color rise to my face, Reenie gets me a cup of coffee and invites me to sit.

“That was quite a party,” I say.

“It was,” Reenie says. “Just perfect. And what’s the plan for today?”

“I don’t know about today, but tonight’s the festival, so it’s sort of mission accomplished or bust. I feel pretty good though. About that.”About everything.

“It’ll be fine,” she says. “Can I make you some pancakes? Eggs? An omelet?”

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