One Week - By Nikki Van De Car Page 0,52

staying here tonight?”

“Well, I don't really want to go back out into that,” Jess says, nodding at the rain. “Do you?” He moves away from me and into the kitchen. He opens a few cupboards but doesn't find anything. I'm not surprised—the trailer definitely hasn't been used in a while, but Jess looks frustrated. “Well, shit,” he says. “I'm sorry. If you're really hungry I could try and get something in Tiffin, I guess, but it might be a while…”

I walk over to Jess and grab his hands to still them. “I'm not hungry,” I say.

Jess takes a breath, and then smiles at me. He runs his hands up my arms and my towel drops to the floor.

It's hard getting wet clothes off under the best of circumstances, but I discover that trying to undress somebody else wearing wet clothes is next to impossible. Jess starts laughing when it becomes clear that my jeans are so tight they cannot be removed without lying down, but then he is very quickly not laughing anymore. And oh God, neither am I.

Day SIX

I open my eyes and it's light out. And it's stopped raining. I roll over to see Jess awake and watching me.

“Good morning,” he says. “Did you sleep okay?”

I rise up on my elbows and lean over and kiss him. “Mmm-hmm. You?”

He runs a hand along my collarbone and down the center of my back. “I slept some.” His hand dips along the side of my ribcage and I twitch involuntarily. I'm very ticklish. Jess grins, and I roll away in self-defense.

“I can't believe you carry a condom in your wallet,” I laugh, looking up at the ceiling of the trailer. “Who does that?”

Jess shrugs. “Hey, I'm just glad I had one. But what about you?” he asks, sounding slightly worried. “Are you glad?”

I roll back over onto my side so he can see my face. “I'm a little sore,” I admit. “But I'm glad too.” Last night, as he was digging his wallet out of his jeans, Jess asked me if I was sure. I was then, and I am now, so very sure.

Jess reaches a hand and pulls me in for a deep kiss, one that makes me wish he had an entire pack of condoms in his wallet. And I can tell he feels the same way. But then again there are other things we can do, and I discover that those things are pretty wonderful too.

We fall back asleep again, or I do anyway, and when I wake up Jess is half-dressed and moving around the trailer, trying to be quiet as he picks up our still-damp clothes. I sit up and he tosses me my bra and shirt.

“We should probably get going,” he says. “It would be just our luck to have whoever owns this trailer show up today.”

I know he's right, but I never want to leave. I wind my fingers in my bra strap but don't put it on just yet. I'm having those morning-after jitters. I know it's completely unnecessary, but I can't seem to help myself. “So when we get to New York, are we going to, uh, go out to that dinner like we talked about?” I try to sound casual, but I know I'm failing miserably.

Jess pulls his T-shirt over his head. “Sure,” he says after a moment. He turns his back to me, and looks out the window. “Bee,” he says, his voice sounding tight, “you do realize you have to go home at some point, right?”

I look at him blankly. This seems wildly off-topic right now.

He turns around and looks at me and sighs. “I know why you want to get to New York, and I swear, I'm going to make sure you get there, but after that I think you need to figure things out with your father. What are you going to do in New York anyway? You have to go home.”

I gape at him, feeling completely blindsided. This isn't at all the way the conversation was supposed to go. I look down and clench my fingers around my bra strap. “Is this because I turned out to be a virgin?” I ask, and my voice sounds small and very young.

“No,” Jess says carefully, and comes over to sit on the bed next to me. “I knew that already. It's not about that.” “Knew that already? How?” I say, my voice rising.

“Well, it was kind of obvious,” Jess says, sounding awkward.

“Obvious? What the hell does that