Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,87

to press the lock on my bedroom door. The confidence I had walking out to the living room disappears as I cross the distance to Asher’s door and prop myself against the door frame, trying to look casual. Oh hey, I’m always strutting into guys’ bedrooms at midnight in my pajamas. Asher is lying in bed, his face illuminated by the soft glow of his phone.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“You wanna watch a movie?” I wonder if he sees through me, to the part that desperately just wants to be pressed up against him again, and will take any excuse to crawl into that bed.

He sets his phone down on his nightstand and picks up the little black remote that’s sitting there. His bed is pushed up against the wall under the window, so my choices are to crawl on from the end, or crawl over him. I choose the first. Asher props a pillow up behind me, and I settle next to him, our legs and arms pressed up against each other.

He sets his hand on the bare skin above my knee, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to close my eyes. Because this feels like a dream, alone in the dark with him. I shift toward him, curling my chest against his arm, and it shifts his hand to my inner thigh, his fingers grazing the sensitive skin there.

He points the remote at the TV. So I guess we’re going through with this charade, the one where we watch TV in the dark in his bed. “What do you want to watch?” My cheek is pressed against his arm and I feel the words vibrate through him.

“I don’t care.”

Asher stops at the first thing that comes on—a sad war movie I watched with my parents a few years ago—and I drown out the voices as every inch of me focuses on the spot where Asher’s hand rests on my thigh, his thumb stroking up and down, so slightly that I’m not entirely sure he knows he’s doing it. Maybe I’m the only one not watching this movie. Maybe he doesn’t realize that if his fingers keep rubbing in that spot, I will crawl out of my skin and leave it behind like a lizard. Because if I don’t run out of here soon, the only other option is to get closer.

As if he can hear me, his thumb strokes wide arches, and his fingers curl and uncurl, and with each stroke against my bare skin, my body feels like it’s pleading with me to push myself closer to him. When he moves his hand and puts it back at his side, it feels like a monumental loss, like taking away a birthday present or dessert. But then he twists toward me, and we’re chest-to-chest. Then we’re mouth-to-mouth.

Asher’s hand is back on my thigh, higher than last time, at the edge of my sleep shorts, very close to where none of my ten-day boyfriends ever touched me. He pulls his mouth from mine, the space so tiny our lips are almost touching. “Is this okay?” His fingers slip under the edge of my shorts, and I feel like I should say no, but I don’t want to. I kiss him, and nod against his mouth, and his hand moves against me again, a little clumsily, as layers of thin fabric between us are touched and lifted, pushed aside. Soon we are wrapped up together, a mess of kissing lips and searching hands, and twining legs seeking friction against each other.

When we finally fall asleep it’s like lying in sunshine, wrapped up in summer.

DAY 33

Sidney

Breakfast was … weird. For five minutes—or maybe it was five hours—all I could think about was what we did last night. But then Asher kissed my temple and stole a triangle of toast from my plate, and by the time we left the kitchen for our morning swim, it was hand in hand and normal. As normal as the two of us ever are, at least.

But when we got back, Sylvie and Greg were packing up their car for a trip to the little fish town that Sylvie loves so much. A family trip, she told him. It took everything in me not to laugh or even seem interested when Sylvie explained it would just be the three of them, and Asher went into full-on pout mode.

I wonder if telling our parents about us would make things easier or harder. If they’d