Page 47 of The First Kind of Love
“Think that I’d rather be anywhere else but here.”
He doesn’t allow me a chance to respond—not that I’d have anything of substance to say. He resumes his methodical detangling, and after a few minutes, he manages to dislodge the brush from my mane, relieving the pain in my forehead.
I don’t know what comes over me next. I didn’t want to bring up his whole “secret crush of four years” thing, but I think the lack of oxygen to my brain is hindering my decision-making skills.
“I know about the four years thing!” I blurt out before I can stop myself, slapping my hands over my mouth a second too late.
I can see the gears in Fulton’s head turning—trying to make sense of my guilty admission—and then everything falls into place like Tetris blocks. His face drains of all color, there’s an imperceptible tick to his jaw, and an awkward silence crackles between us in the same way banked embers pop into a crepuscular sky.
“I…” he blathers, the thick-handled comb clattering to the floor, his eyes blinking immeasurably fast. Fulton pretty much lives in a permanent state of anxiety, but I’ve never seen him so horrified before.
“I’m so sorry, Shi. I wanted to tell you the day I asked you to be my plus-one, but I was worried about scaring you away, and things were going so well, and I didn’t want to blow my only shot at spending time with you, and?—”
Although my hair is on the road to a speedy recovery, Fulton’s still on his knees on the bathroom floor, which puts me at the perfect height to cup his face in my hands and force him to look at me.
“I’ve liked you for a long time too,” I confess, brushing my thumb over his cheekbone as our fragile worlds clash together like the convergence of tectonic plates. “Hell, I memorized your schedule just to try and catch you on my shift. You come in every Tuesday and Thursday around two eighteen p.m., at the latest two thirty-six p.m. You order the same thing each time—a dairy-free coffee with a crumbly, nondairy raspberry tart. In April, you tried the homemade zucchini bread, but it didn’t last for more than a week.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not. I promise, I’m not.”
At first, he looks like a shell-shocked veteran who’s fought in two major wars and still has the trauma to prove it, but the dubiety is short-lived when a larger-than-life smile creases his lips. “Do you know what this means? Holy shit. Everything in my head wasn’t unrequited this entire time. I’m not crazy! I didn’t scare you away with my cringeworthy attempt at small talk, or the fact that I came in so regularly you could’ve filed a restraining order against me. And you—God, you remembered me.Me.Someone so inconsequential in the presence of someone as sensational as you.”
Fulton Cazzarelli could never be inconsequential.
“You’re wrong,” I insist. “It’s hard to forget someone like you.”
His hand rests on mine as he nuzzles my palm. “I’ve never been able to shake you, Shiloh. You’re at the forefront of every thought I have, and I’ll be damned if I waste any more time not being wholly consumed by you.”
Suddenly, Fulton catches me off guard and rises to a stance, picking me up by the waist and swinging me around in the spacious bathroom. Through a cacophony of squeals and giggles, I loop my arms around his neck, our bodies generating a slight wind from the momentum. His grip is as unyielding as mine is hungry. Being airborne isn’t a state I’m particularly fond of, but if Fulton’s arms were my only protection, then I’d gladly skydive without a parachute. Even mid-suspension, he stipples kisses all over my face.
When my feet finally hit the ground again, his platonic touch graduates to one born from sin, and he pulls me in so closely that our heartbeats overlap with one another’s.
“Fuck, you really shouldn’t have told me any of that.”
Fear lies in waiting deep in my stomach. “Why not?”
Fulton leans forward enough for his mouth to claim minein one fell swoop if he so pleased, but he refrains, instead letting me beg for the golden elixir dripping from his tongue.
“Because now I’ll have to do something about it.”
I fixmy makeup for the fifth time tonight, and no, it’s not because of user error. It’s because all of it got wiped off when Fulton and I were eating each other’s faces. I don’t know how, but within twenty minutes, I look brand-new. My hair is no longer an entity of its own, my wings are perfect, my foundation is smooth—and I couldn’t have done any of it without Fulton’s help.
I know that he said this party was low-key and I shouldn’t be intimidated by his friends, but they’re famous hockey players for crying out loud. The closest I’ve ever come to fame was when a customer once mistook me for some indie actress, asked for a picture, then promptly realized I was in factnotthe person they thought I was. It also doesn’t help that there’s apparently going to be some huge drinking game—one that Fulton has warned me usually ends in nudity, imprisonment charges, soft-core dry humping, or all of the above.
“Am I going to end up being an accomplice tonight?” I ask, smoothing down my romper for the hundredth time and trying to rationalize the pre-party nerves putting me in a tailspin.
Fulton chuffs a laugh, leveling a look at me that somehow manages to grind my anxiety into nothing but a fine powder. “Not unless Gage breaks out the hard stuff.”
As we swerve down the maze of the sixth floor—passing the occasional couple or family headed to the rooftop lounge for the complimentary dinner—the penumbra outside makes the sunset-esque lighting stand starker against pockmarked walls, and we’re serenaded by the whirs of unseen cicadas. My fingersabsentmindedly squeeze Fulton’s a little too hard, but there’s no distinguishable gait in his step that suggests he even notices.
“I think this is the first party I’ve been to in years,” I admit quietly.
“Not a big party person?”
I shake my head. “I was always busy studying in college. I didn’t really have time to go out on the weekends, nor did I desire to be around crowds of people who wouldn’t matter to me after graduation. I honestly don’t know if I would’ve tried my first sip of alcohol if it wasn’t for my roommate implementing Sangria Saturdays.”
Even though socializing is a part of my job, the predictability of it pales in comparison to socializing in a party setting. There are so many uncontrollable factors.Peopleare uncontrollable. In an establishment, customers are expected to act a certain way. Of course, we get the occasional nut job or temperamental complainer, but I’d rather handle them any day than try and shepherd a crowd of inebriated young adults.
